The Illusion of Annabella (6 page)

Miller is tall and kind of gangly with spiky blue and black hair. He looks older, but he’s only about a year and half a year older than me. I met him in a mall of all places, a little over a month after my parents’ funeral. I was with Cece on one of the last shopping trips we ever made, using crutches that hurt my armpits. The entire three hours we spent there were awkward and exhausting. She kept talking about school, music, dancing, cheerleading, and Ben. She was stuck in the past, while I had been thrown into the future. Nothing made sense anymore, not even our friendship.

I ended up shoplifting a box of purple hair dye while I was listening to Cece drone on and on about how prom was coming up, and how she didn’t know how on earth she was ever going to get a dress. Then she moved on to dancing and how I should really come with her and hang out at the studio, that everyone missed seeing me around.

I just wanted to feel again, something other than heartache, pain, loss, so while she was yammering on and on about her life, I snuck a box of purple hair dye in my jacket, thinking maybe I’d dye my hair. Perhaps it would go well with the new scars on my leg and help me get some sort of footing in this hellish of a life I felt like I was dying in.

Just stealing the box sent my adrenaline soaring. I’d never stolen anything ever—never wanted to. Rebellion had never been my thing, but maybe it could be.

Of course the moment I got away with it, the excitement over stealing fizzled out, and I just felt guilty and lost again. Then Miller had strolled up to me, all pierced out and tattooed with his crazy blue hair, completely different from the guys I used to like.

Dangerous,
I thought.
And nothing like Ben. Maybe this is what I need now.

“A good girl like you could get a guy like me into a lot of trouble,” was his lame pick up line.

“Oh, my God, does that ever work on anyone,” Cece replied, staring him down with disgust.

I glanced back and forth from Cece to him. Known to unknown, past to . . . Well, I was still trying to figure out what lay ahead.  “Maybe you’re already in trouble.” I have no idea where the courage came from. It was really unlike me, and maybe that was the point. That I didn’t know who I was anymore without my parents, the idolization of my mother, and without the dancer that used to breathe life inside me.

I had to be someone, though, and I could be anyone, even daring, bold, and blunt.

After my out of character move, Miller asked me to hang out with him, and against Cece’s protest, I agreed. We snuck into see a movie then wandered around the streets, talking about nothing that had to do with my old life. For a moment, I felt alive again. Then he gave my first kiss, and I wondered if he could taste the guilt, anger, and confusion rotting inside me, because I sure as hell could.

“That was nice,” he said when he pulled away.

I nodded, but it wasn’t nice. It just . . .
was
. Like everything else. And I felt a twinge of sadness that I didn’t get my first kiss with Ben on the night of my birthday party.  But as quick as the thought came, I smothered it, knowing it was pointless to dream of anything. When I got home, I dyed my hair with the box of purple dye I stole.

“Come on, let’s go to my room.” Miller interrupts my thoughts, nodding toward the hallway.

His friend snickers, and Miller smacks him upside the head, laughing, then turns to me. “Your leg feeling okay?”

I gently place my palm on my thigh. “Yeah, I’ve just been walking on it too much.”

“I still can’t believe a horse fucked up your knee that much,” he says, kicking clothes that litter the hallway out of the way. “That fall must have been killer wicked.”

“Yep, hurt like a bitch.” Not wanting to talk about my leg anymore, I crash my lips to his.

“What was that for?” he asks when I step back.

I nonchalantly shrug, being the cool version of myself. The one that doesn’t give a shit about anything. “Does it really matter?”

Does anything really matter anymore?

He considers what I said with his head slanted to the side. “You’re always so mysterious.” A slow grin spreads across his face. “I like it.”

Mysterious Annabella?

No more Open Book Annabella. No Sunshine-in-the-Rain or Chasing-Rainbows-and-Dreaming-of Glittery-Days Annabella. Is that who I’ve become now?

Dodging the dirty clothes, shoes, and empty bottles on the floor, I gingerly make my way to his bed while he rummages in his dresser for something. I flop down on the lumpy mattress, adjust my leg, but roll to my side when I feel something lumpy beneath me—Miller’s favorite pipe. I set it on the floor then lie back down on the bed.

“So, what do you want to do tonight?” he asks, closing the dresser drawer.

“Anything that doesn’t require being at home.” I spread out my arms and stare up at the water-stained ceiling.

He chuckles as he scoots onto the bed beside me. “You better be careful giving me full rein to do whatever the hell I want.” He leans in to kiss me, and I trap the air in my chest, mentally preparing myself for the numbness. “We could finally, you know, take this to the next level.”

As deep as I am into this lie, I still haven’t worked up enough courage to lose my virginity to him. “I told you I had a five month dating minimum before we did that.”

“But it’s been five months,” he gripes. “Come on. I’ve been super patient.”

“Fine,” I agree, even though it makes me feel sick to my stomach. He grins, his gaze zeroing in on my lips. He leans in, but I place my hand over his mouth, stopping him. “Not right now, though . . . Later tonight.”

He searches my eyes for a sign I’m lying, but I’ve become such a good liar that even I can’t tell if I am or not.

When I lower my hand, he seals his mouth to mine.

Our kisses aren’t magical, but I’m starting to believe kisses aren’t. They’re just lips and movements, promising lies that mean nothing.

After several minutes of him kissing and rubbing his hips against me, Miller pulls his hand out of my shirt, looking high from the kiss. Knowing Miller, he might just be high. “You seem tense today. What’s up?”

“I seem the same as I do every day.” I stare past him, focusing on a jagged crack in the wall. Every time I look at it, it seems to have grown. One day, I swear the entire wall is going to crumble.

“No, it’s something else . . . You seem out of it.” He states it like he knows so much about me. But how could he when even I don’t know anything about myself?

His endeavor to delve into my psyche makes me regret coming here. Miller is good for one thing—taking a break from being the Anna everyone scrutinizes and constantly worries about.

I push up on my elbows. “Maybe I should go.”

He splays his fingers across my chest, pinning me down. “Don’t get pissy. I was just pointing out you seem out of it.” He squints at my face. “You aren’t high, are ya?”

“No, I’m just . . .” I sigh. “Look, I don’t want to talk about me, okay? I’ve had a shitty day, and I just want to relax and hang out like we usually do.”

“Relax, huh? I think I might have something for that.” He jumps off the bed and strides out of the room. When he returns, he has plastic cup in one hand a small plastic bag in the other. “Pick a hand,” he says, even though I can see what’s in both. He’s giving me a choice: temporarily escape reality and be left feeling tired and achy or plummet into an unknown world that I might never find my way out of. How fast and far do I want to fall? How hard do I want to crash?

I want to fall hard.

I want to fall fast.

I want to crash and burn and never feel anything ever again.

Past the pills I take sometimes to kill the pain inside. Past the alcohol. Past the scars I always have to carry with me.

But the faint memory of Dancing, Dreaming, Good Girl Annabella clutches onto the ledge.

“I’ll take the cup,” I say, trying to figure out what my answer means. Am I good? Bad? What?

He seems mildly disappointed but still hands me the cup. “This’ll take the edge off a little.”

I inspect the brownish liquid that smells like gasoline. “What’s in it? Just whiskey, right?”

“Just drink up and find out.” He kicks the door shut and climbs back onto the bed, tossing the plastic bag on the mattress beside him. “I promise it’ll blow your mind.”

My parents’ words of wisdom race through my head.
Don’t do drugs.
Don’t drink.
Don’t give into peer pressure.
You’re such a good girl, Annabella.

“You’re wrong. I don’t know who I am anymore,” I say aloud to myself. Miller gives me a confused look, but I raise the rim of the glass to my lips.
This is why I come here. This is what I need
. “Goodbye, Anna. Goodbye, rainstorm.”

As Destructive as the Rain

After I down half the cup, Miller finishes the rest off, does a line, then goes to get a refill. As the alcohol flows through my veins, I sink onto the mattress and drift from reality. Not too much later, Miller joins me, and we lay side-by-side, floating in and out of meaningless conversation.

I can’t see straight. Can hardly think. My body is so numb that I can’t even feel my messed up leg.

“See, much better, right?” Miller asks as he stares up at the ceiling with his arm draped across his head.

“Yes . . . much . . .”
Is it really, though? Am I lying to myself?

My phone rings, but I don’t—can’t—move to answer it.

“Good.” Miller smiles contently as he rolls on his side and props up on his elbow.

Minutes, maybe hours, pass before the effects of whatever I drank begin to wear off. I become restless again. Start thinking too much. Regret drinking. Being here. Choosing to be this person
.
I don’t like the feeling at all. Don’t like that the old me still resides somewhere beneath the purple hair and goth clothing, the one who wants to dance, be good—the one who should have just died in the car accident. For once, I just want to forget who I was, who I’ve become, the anger I feel toward my mother, the guilt I feel for feeling the anger. The guilt I feel for not telling my dad. That’s what I came here to do.

“Want to do something?” Miller asks, playing with the hem of my shirt.

I know what he wants from me, but I still can’t seem to give it to him.

I bob my head up and down. “Yeah, let’s go somewhere . . . Do something . . . Live a little . . .”

“But it’s raining outside.”

“So what?” I sit up and rub my eyes. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”

Liar
. Rain can do a lot of damage.

Miller unenthusiastically looks at the window. “Actually, if you’re down for a little adventure, I might know of something we could do. You’d have to be up for anything, though. And I mean anything, Anna. None of that girly bullshit where you back out when things get sketchy. ”

I’ve spent enough time with Miller to understand what the look in his eyes means. He wants to get into trouble, walk the line of danger. The old Anna, the good girl her parents raised, the one who worshipped her mother, would’ve run away.

Lightning zaps across the sky, thunder grumbles, and the rain suddenly picks up, as thick as the day of the accident. The day seemed so sunny, everything so crystal clear, until the rain came and washed that life away in an instant.

“Let’s go then.” Lightheaded and dizzy, I stagger to my feet.

Miller places a hand on my arm to steady me. “Wait. Don’t you want to hear what we’re doing?”

I weave around the dirty clothes on the floor. “I really don’t care.”
All I know is that I want the fading numbness to return to my body, and I’ll do just about anything to get it back.

He grins as he tosses me a hoodie. “All right. I like this side of you. Dangerous Anna,” he ponders as he taps his finger against his lips. “It has a nice ring to it.

“It does?” I lean against the doorframe while I put the jacket on.

“Yeah, sure.” He grins, meeting my gaze. “Let’s go.”

On our way out, Miller grabs his car keys from the coffee table and tells Big Jay we’ll be back later. He offers me the rest of his drink before we head out, and even though I already feel woozy, I guzzle it down.

Outside, rain puddles the pavement, the sky is darker than it was when I walked here, and the temperature has plummeted. I draw my hoodie up and move as quickly as I can toward Miller’s truck that has more rust than paint. He jogs ahead of me, his boots splashing through the puddles, and opens the door.

I heave myself inside, close the door, then watch the rain stream down the windshield. Memories surface—the sound of metal crushing, screams, my dad looking at me as if waiting for me to tell him the truth. My gut clenches.
I should have just told him.

“You ready for this?” Miller asks as he slams the door.

I jerk from the memories, craving whatever break lies ahead. “Yep. I’m ready for anything.”

Miller chats on his phone with one of his buddies for half the drive, and I only pick up on fragments of his conversation. He keeps mentioning a house on Fairfield Lane, a street on the richer, more lavish side of town.

“So, you know the other day when Big Jay and I were talking about trying to find a way to get some extra cash,” Miller says after he hangs up. “You remember Jeremy, right?” he asks, and I nod, even though I don’t. “He found out about this house on Fairfield that’s been vacant for, like, a month.”

“So no one lives there?”

“No, someone lives there. They’ve just been gone for a month. And they don’t even have an alarm system.” He snickers. “What a bunch of stupid fucks. Seriously.”

I scrape at my black fingernail polish, pretending to be more blasé that I really am. “Are you planning to break in or something?”

He flashes me a devious grin. “That’s exactly what I plan on doing.”

Even though I don’t like that I do, I start to grow worried. I don’t know how he got the information, but what I do know is that Miller is currently on probation for breaking and entering.

Is that what’s going to end up happening to me? Do I care? What do I care about anymore? I vibrate with anger. How am I supposed to be the Dangerous Annabella I’m pretending to be with all these thoughts in my head?

Shoving the thoughts from my head, I look out the window as Miller makes a turn down Fairfield Lane.

Extravagant two and three story homes border the quiet street lined with cherry blossom trees, and the grey sky casts shadows across the perfectly landscaped yards. The scene is almost too perfect. Like I know all too well, though, nothing is perfect, and I quickly spot the flaw—the murky streams flowing through the gutters.

I glance up at the cloudy sky as uneasiness seeps into my bones. “It’s not even dark yet. People might see us.”

“It’ll look more suspicious if we show up at night,” he replies as he turns into a paved driveway that leads to a brick mansion.

He parks in front of the garage and shuts off the engine. The rain has turned the yard and sidewalks into a giant puddle, completely ruining everything in its path.

Maybe that’s where I’m headed. Perhaps I’m becoming as destructive as the rain, ruining my life, my family’s life.

“Your truck kind of stands out,” I say, anxiously glancing at all the expensive cars parked in the nearby driveways.

“As long as we pretend like we belong here, we’ll be fine. Besides, it’s raining so goddamn hard, you can barely see.” He rotates in the seat, raking his fingers through his blue hair. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want. I know you said you were up for anything, but you always say that, and sometimes I can tell you don’t mean it.”

His words piss me off. I don’t like that he’s right. That he can see that side of me. See the good girl I used to be.

I’m not her anymore! I can’t be!

All riled up, I stretch my arm toward the door handle. Grinning, Miller hops out into the rain as the sky booms and the rain quickens. Ignoring my mother’s voice inside my head, telling me this is wrong, I follow Miller up the driveway, staggering from left to right as the liquid concoction I drank earlier sloshes around in my brain.

Squeezing between the garage and the house, we sneak around to the back door.  Miller jiggles the doorknob, but it’s locked.

“Stand back,” he says as he shucks off his jacket and wraps it around his fist.

I briefly contemplate running away, just disappearing into the rain. Push through the pain and run across the grass, keep going until my limbs ache and give out on me. But then Miller’s fist slams through the window, and my chance at backing out shatters like the glass.

Shooting me an excited look from over his shoulder, he snakes his arm through the broken window, flips the lock, and pushes open the door.  I hold my breath, waiting for an alarm to go off. When it doesn’t, I’m disappointed, but fear backing out. What does that say about me if I back out? How will Miller see me? Will he still want to be with me? If I don’t have him to hang around with, then what does that leave me? With nowhere to escape to anymore.

We enter the house, stepping into a massive kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances and marble countertops. My head swirls with confusion as we wander into the home. I lose track of time the deeper we go, the alcohol I drank blurring my mind even more. I can’t figure out who I am. How I got here. How to get out or if I even want to. It’s not like I actually need to steal anything. Still, I pick up a crystal swan figurine off one of the shelves, stuff it into my pocket, then head through the foyer and up the winding staircase, like a lost little girl drifting through a meaningless life with no direction.

Hanging on the wall on the second floor is a large portrait of a family of four sitting on a beach, smiling in the sunshine. They all look so happy. There’s a similar picture of my family back at my house. We appear happy. Do they realize life isn’t all sunshine?

As some of the numbness evaporates from my body, anger ignites like thunder and lightning. Trembling with rage, I snatch the picture from the wall and chuck it as hard as I can at the bottom of the stairway. Glass shatters all over the marble floor like raindrops. I want to forget about all of it. The lies. The pain. The anger I always feel toward her. Why can’t I just forget?

Miller runs back to the stairs, panting heavily and looking scared out of his damn mind. “What the hell was that?”

“A picture fell off the wall,” I lie, gripping onto the banister as I battle to calm the fuck down.

Miller glances from me to the broken picture at bottom of the stairs and opens his mouth to say something. But the sound of sirens cuts him off.

“Shit. We have to go.” He pushes by me, bumping me into the wall, and sprints down the stairway.

“I can’t move that fast,” I hiss in a panic, dragging my leg along with me like the useless limb it is.

By the time I’ve made it two steps down the stairway, he’s already to the foyer.

He skids to a halt in front of the door, his gaze darting between the flashing lights out the window and me. “I’m sorry,” he says in a panic, then takes off, leaving me to fend for myself.

I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am, as if I’ve regressed back into that naïve girl who believed that pots of gold really are at the end of rainbows—that all people are good. That danced around her room and dreamt of kissing her crush at her birthday party.

Having no other choice, I pick up the pace, but by the time I make it to the bottom of the stairs, the front door swings opens.

With the wind howling behind him, an officer barrels inside with a gun in his hand and his eyes locked on me. “Put your hands up,” he orders.

I do what he says and put my hands in the air. I wait to be cuffed, knowing I should be afraid—that that’s how I’m supposed to feel. But through the alcohol still swimming in my veins, I can’t feel the fear.

Can’t feel anything at all.