Seasons of Change (14 page)

I was a thirteen-year-old kid but I rack my brain night after night, wondering if there was another way that things could have played out, a way that would mean my father was still here with us, a way that would make my mother the smiling, happy, beautiful woman that she had been before that night. But wishing never made anything so, and no amount of “should have” or “could have” on my part will bring him back.

I reach out to my cell to check the time—it’s 3am and I know that I’m not going to be getting any more sleep. I also know that I have to do something; I can’t just lie in my bed, staring up at the ceiling night after night, waiting for something,
anything,
to happen.

It has been twelve days since Ryan paid me the visit in the diner. Thirteen since I had last seen Jake. I hadn’t called and neither had he.

You would think in a town this small we might have even run into each other by now, but that hadn’t happened. We both knew how to find each other. He could have come to the diner, but he hadn’t. He is still the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. He’s still the first person I want to tell when something funny, weird, or sad happened to me that day, but he’s the last person that I can call.

I miss his face, his voice, his smile, his laugh, the way that his arms felt around me as I fell asleep that night in his bed. It all seems like a lifetime ago and, in a way, I wish that it was. Maybe then I wouldn’t still feel like my heart is being picked away, piece by piece. Tomorrow is his birthday, and then he really will be lost to me.

There’s only one place that I can think to go at this time. Only one place that can provide any kind of comfort and peace at all, even if it’s the kind of peace that can only come from silence. I dress hurriedly, pulling my tight jeans on and slipping a t-shirt over my shoulders before I tip-toe down the stairs, not wanting to wake my mom up.

I pause for a moment as I pass her, her body curled up on the sofa where I left her, where I leave her night after night as she can’t bear to sleep in their bedroom without him. When she’s asleep, she looks like my mom again. The expression of fear and confusion that haunts her face disappears and she looks more like that red-haired siren that had pretended to be a mermaid with me in the paddling pool in the back garden all those years ago.

I can feel the tears start to well up in my eyes before I slip out as fast as I can. All I seem to do at the moment is cry, again and again. To be honest, I’m sick of it. I have always considered myself a pretty tough cookie, or “a hard nut to crack” as my dad would say.

But lately I’ve been feeling like all the tough blood has seeped out of me, like there’s a crack somewhere inside of me and all my strength is coming out of it. I think about this as I make the short walk towards the outskirts of town, towards the place where my dad lost his life. It may seem strange to the casual observer, to see a young woman sitting by the side of the road, essentially talking to herself. But it made perfect sense to me.

Some people went to the cemetery to talk to their loved ones, but I don’t associate the grey stone block in that place with my dad. It doesn’t mean anything to me; it feels cold and distant, and nothing like the man that I knew. But here, where all the events that I dream about again and again played out, here is where I feel closest to him—the last place that I saw him alive.

I’ve been coming here for years, almost always in the middle of the night. There were only two people that knew about my nightly excursions: Jake and Suzie. I’m sure if anyone else had known, I would have been locked up in the loony bin a long time ago.

“Hi Dad,” I say as I take a seat on the sidewalk, hugging my knees to my chest. “How’ve you been?” I ask jokingly, shaking my head at myself as only the silence of the darkness meets my words.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while,” I continue. “Things have been pretty crazy, but I guess you already know that.” I shrug, looking up to the sky, to Heaven, to whatever is beyond the dirt and pain and blood of this life.

“Mom’s good,” I say, and then feel ashamed when I hear how forced my words sound. “That’s a lie, we both know that.” I sigh. “She’s not good, hasn’t been for a long time. We both miss you, sometimes I miss you so much it hurts and I feel like I can’t breathe,”

My throat is tight as I look down at my dusty sandals and silently will the tears away. “The panic attacks are still happening. Haven’t quite got them under control yet, but I’m working on it.” I nod, feeling like I’m encouraging myself.

“Things have gotten really bad here Dad,” I whisper, struggling to hold my composure. “And they’re getting worse all the time. They’re coming for Jake soon; you remember it’s his birthday in a couple of days,”

Of course there’s no answer—just the yawning silence around me. “They won’t let me see him, said they would hurt Mom if I did; now I don’t know what to do. I wish you were here to tell me what I should do.”

I hug my knees even tighter to my chest and close my eyes, imagining that it’s my dad holding me, telling me that everything will be alright, that we’re Winters and that means that we’ll find a way, because we always do.

“Aimee?” The voice comes from behind me, and although it’s familiar, it still makes me jump.

"Suzie?” I ask as I hurriedly get to my feet, turning to the girl that I haven’t seen or heard from since that night in The Hideaway.

“Hey,” she says slowly, looking a little uncomfortable. I figure she’s embarrassed at having been AWOL for the past couple of weeks, so I walk right up to her and give her a hug.

“Hey,” I reply, stepping back to look at her and noting that she appears to have lost weight. But then, it’s hard to tell under the pale yellow glow of the street lamp. “How did you know I was here?” I ask, looking around as if someone is about to jump out of the darkness.

“I came by your house, saw you leave, and figured you’d be here.” Suzie shrugs like it was a no-brainer.

“You came by my house at three in the morning?” I ask, trying not to sound as incredulous as I’m sure I do.

Suzie looks at her feet like she’s ashamed. “I know I haven’t been returning your calls. Tonight was the only time I could get away from Elvis without him realizing where I went,” she explains. “I’ve wanted to call you so many times,” she assures me, “But he wouldn’t let me. Said that I was his now, that you were my past and he was my future. I’m scared of him,” she says, her voice no more than a whisper.

“Jesus Suze,” I respond, hugging her again, close enough to see how dirty her beautiful blonde hair is. “We have to get you out of there,” I tell her decisively. “You can stay at my house, lay low there for a while, get your shit together. I have money. We could get you out of town,” I’m saying as a plan starts to come together in my mind.

“That’s not why I’m here Aimee,” she tells me, taking hold of my hand and squeezing it a little.

That’s when I notice the track marks on the inside of her arm, “Suze,” I breathe out, cradling her arm in my hands. “What has he done to you?”

“It’s okay Aimee, it’s really not that big of a deal. You don’t have to get up on your high horse all the time,” Suzie says, her voice harsh and grating and not at all like the person that I used to know. She pulls away from my hand quickly and folds her arms. “Sorry,” she mumbles, “I think my brain is kinda messed up from all the junk,” she explains, avoiding my eyes and staring at her feet.

“That’s okay Suze,” I tell her soothingly. “I know you didn’t mean it.” I ignore the little voice in my head asking me:
How can you be so sure of that?

“Look, I don’t have long,” she says, looking around her at the shadows as if she’s worrying that someone has followed her here. “He’ll realize soon that I’ve gone,” she explains, and I wish that I could take away the look that she has about her of a frightened rabbit.

I don’t even try to imagine what he’s done to make her this scared of him. The question that I had on my lips dies there at her next words. “I heard them talking about Jake,” she says, looking at me nervously.

“Jake?” I ask dumbly before I pull myself together. “What were they saying?” I suddenly feel cold despite the warm Nevada air.

“They were talking about it nearly being his birthday and about how they have to be quick about getting him patched before he runs,” Suzie says, speaking quickly, as if she needs to make sure she gets all the words out before her time is up.

“Why do they think he’s going to run?” I ask. “That’s what Ryan said to me at the diner,” I say, almost to myself.

Suzie doesn’t look surprised at my little outburst and what she says floors me completely. “Because he’s bought a gun,” she tells me, and I feel the shakiness in my legs as she says the words.

“What?” I ask, trying to make sense of what I’ve just heard. “But Jake doesn’t even know how to shoot; what the hell is he going to do with a gun?”

“I’m only telling you what I heard, Aimee,” Suzie says, shrugging as if to say that she doesn’t know any more than I do.

“So what are they going to do? What else did you hear?” I ask, knowing that the Angels aren’t just going to let Jake get away from them—especially now that they know that he’s ready to defend himself, as he had told me, by any means necessary. I wish now that I had taken those words more seriously.

“It’s his birthday tomorrow,” Suzie notes. I nod, wanting her to move on. “That’s when they’re going to take him. That’s what they were talking about, how they’re going to get him on the night of his birthday,” Suzie tells me.

“But… but they always give the families that night to spend with their son before they pick him up. It’s always the day after,” I reason with her “It’s never on the day they turn twenty,” I repeat quietly. “Why is Jake so important to them?” I ask her, trying to understand. “Why are they pulling out all of the stops for him? What makes him becoming patched different from everyone else?”

“I don’t know Aimee.” Suzie shakes her head as if she wished that she did. “I’m only telling you what I heard.” We stand in silence for a few moments and then she continues like she’s just realized what the time is. “I have to go now Aimee,” she says, taking a step back from me, creating distance between us. “I know how you feel about Jake, and I just thought you’d want to know. We’re still friends after all,” Suzie smiles and then she gets a desperate look about her. “We are still friends, aren’t we, Aimee?” She looks so small and fearful that it breaks my heart.

“Of course we are Suze,” I assure her. “Always. And thank you for telling me about Jake,” I add, not able to say anything else. There are too many thoughts spinning around in my brain to be able to frame a coherent sentence.

“I’ve gotta go,” Suzie notes again, giving me a tight smile.

“Suze, don’t go back there,” I try to persuade her. “You don’t have to go back.” I try to make her see that they don’t own her like they feel they do everyone else.

“Yes I do, I’ll always have to go back,” she says dully, and before I can say anything else, she turns around and runs back the way she had come, not looking back.

I sink to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest again, in the same position as when Suzie had found me. But despite the stillness of my posture, my brain is racing at about a hundred miles an hour as I try to figure out how to warn Jake about what’s going to happen to him without the Angels realizing that I’ve spoken to him.

I know that the Angels will follow through on their threat to my mother if I do anything to even make them suspicious. But there is no way that I can just let this go. There is no way that I can’t tell him what his birthday has in store for him.

He needs to know and, almost more than that, I need to persuade him not to use the gun that he’s bought.

In my experience, no good has come from them. The image of my dad reaching out to me and falling to the ground plays over and over again in my mind and I resolve that no matter what I have to do, I can’t lose someone else in a hail of bullets, I won’t allow it to happen. No matter what I have to do. I’ll do anything, whatever is necessary, to make sure that the worst doesn’t happen again. It can’t. Not this time.

I won’t let it.