Chapter Twenty Two : Act Three - The Calm After
People always talk about the calm before the storm. How they never saw it coming. How it ripped right through their life without warning. How they ignored all the signs, because why would they ever even notice them in the first place? Why would they bother to look for clouds and rain when the sun’s already shining so bright?
When the sun’s blatantly blinding them from any danger?
I wonder why no one ever really mentions the calm after the storm. Why no one speaks of the unsettling peace after all the damage. The unnerving calmness. Rattling silence. The way life just…keeps on going. Plowing and forging straight ahead. Everything looking so unchanged. Making the desperate changes inside yourself all the more apparent. Because time keeps ticking right on by. And you have to hear each click of that cruel clock. Further sinking every difference deeper into your already sinking life. Each second seeping every break and tear inside your bones more and more. So it's all you can feel.
So it's all you can see.
The dust now settled, rain all dried, clouds gone, sun shining on. But this time that happy sun doesn’t blind you. This time, that smiling sun cruelly shines a spotlight over your broken pieces. Displaying all that’s left of you and your life. What you've lost. What was once yours. And what you only thought was yours. What might have never been yours to begin with.
"You ok?"
Madison's soft, inviting, voice isn’t enough to pull my eyes from her car window. Because her voice sounds just as it's always sounded. Her voice is that calm. That sun.
Madison is that very same light that shone on me mere hours ago. Inside this very car. Before my hopeless hurricane.
"I don't know." Feeling utterly hopeless, I shrug for no reason, “...I don’t think so.” A quiet honest voice emerges from somewhere so deep and hidden inside my shuddering body. Truth spoken through my trembling mumbling lips, not even sure I’ve really spoken at all. Teeth chattering, bones shivering, not even sure I'm all that cold.
I'm pretty much positive, inside this sweltering shrinking car, I'm only frozen from Ashley's bitter tire tracks skidding away from me. I’m completely numb from my mother's cold and distant eyes staring at me through the doorway of her house.
Freezing even further, feeling like an intruder standing before a house that was once my only home. And when I tried reaching for her eyes, proving I'm still the daughter she's always known, she only turned and walked away.
Leaving me with a mother I only used to know.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Madison keeps reaching for me, but this loud, unbearably loud, silence is eating at me. Biting my voice tick for tick. Leaving me with nothing to rehash the sorry tale of Ashley and me. Nothing to repeat every hard word spoken. Only capable of a solemn head shake, biting my lip to keep from crying. Although there’s no need to keep from anything. I’m all cried out. My tears have run absolutely dry.
I’m so cold inside, those hot tears are locked deep down in my own bitter water.
So we drive on instead. Farther and farther in long silence, and I keep my eyes trained out her window. Watching the streaks of snow flying by. Flicking eyes instinctively trying to follow the streams, the trees, as we cruise down those bright familiar streets home.
And the calm is too quiet. Too easy. Too much like life as it was.
So I speak.
"I miss her.” Quietly whispered, and while it’s true, it’s also instinct. It's the knee jerk reaction from a jolt to my heart. And before Madison can say anything, I fully kick into that reaction.
“God, I miss her so much." Suddenly I’ve found my voice, worn and weathered, I’ve found my tremors after the storm. "Can you believe I already miss her?" My eyes widen with the far from realization, blowing air from my lips like a ferry, "It's been like, what, I don't know..." I practically huff as I look at my wrist for a watch that isn't there, that's never been there, "...Fifteen minutes?! Seriously, how pathetic and hopeless is that??" I turn to Madison, as if now she needs to be an active participant in what was once a one sided conversation, and once again she's silent.
Once again it unnerves me. Because reality's now coming to life. My broken pieces are filling in. Jagged squares desperately trying to squeeze into perfect circles, feeling what is left of my life in this very moment. And I don't like what I'm feeling.
And it's not because mother walked away. Or that my father had nothing more than I love you, Spencer to say.
No, it's nothing that should hurt me. It's only Ashley's Maybe I'm not that person for you anymore that's not fitting inside my life.
It's that tattered lie that won't work with my reality.
"I have to go to her, Madison." Shaking my head with urgency, "...I have to go there now..." Desperate blue chasing down unreadable brown, I pleadingly turn to her, "...Please can you just drive me there? Please?”
Madison gapes slowly, sizing the situation, judging without any proper evidence. She doesn't know a thing of what happened. She never heard about the biting and lying words said. No one knows.
No one knows a thing.
Mom made sure of that. Mom was on cruise control. Party patrol. She made sure no one saw her very own family's very own wicked scene dramatically unfolding. She made sure every one was calmly, yet hurriedly, escorted to their cars. Citing some unbelievable excuse.
But it must’ve been somewhat believable, because by the time I trudged back across my parents front lawn, teary eyed, inwardly bruised and battered, no one was left.
No one.
“Spence...” She breathes, clouds of air swirling in slow motion inside this quiet car, the radio too inappropriate for such a moment, “...you sure that’s a good idea? Do you think it might be better to give it a little time first? Cool off? Maybe just sleep on it for tonight?”
I sigh because for once she’s not saying what I want to hear. And she knows it.
“I know it’s hard Spence, like I can’t even imagine how hard, but I just don’t want you to say or do anything more you might regret. You’ve both been through a lot tonight.”
Just like my former life, without knowing a single thing, Madison knows everything. Somehow, sitting inside her Audi on our street, a world away from Ashley and me, Madison heard everything. And not because she physically heard us. Not because she actually heard the words exchanged between our outraged voices.
Madison read every word inside my broken eyes the minute they cried their way inside that same Audi parked outside my parents house.
And Madison know those eyes, my eyes, no matter how badly damaged they've become.
“Madison, I can’t leave it the way it was, I have to make it better. I have to take it back. I know–“ My breath suddenly hitches and hitches, impossibly trying to harness an internal hurricane, “I can’t, you don’t know what we...what I said...I need...”
“Spence, Spence..." A solid comforting hand softly sits on my shoulder, as if to further explain her next words, "...breathe, babe, breathe.” Because she sees me trying to articulate the impossible, sees me trying to articulate emotions far too overwhelming for measly words, “How 'bout we just get home, k? First things first, let’s just focus on that.”
She laughs lightly, clearly trying to distract me, but it’s barely working. I’m nowhere near distracted. I’m not sure anything could keep me from wanting to sprint to Ashley tonight.
And I’m positive nothing will.
“You know it’s gonna be ok, Spence, right?" I chance a glimpse her way, to see if she really means it. Finding her with one definitive head nod, shaky hands at ten and two, eyes scanning the road before us, probably watching the same flakes of snow smacking and dissolving into our windshield "...It’s gonna be ok.”
Back to staring out my window, gnawing on my bottom lip once more, I'm not sure I've found enough reassurance inside that glimpse. I'm not so sure about anything as I watch peaceful flakes of white snow dance their way to the ground. Ready to melt into oblivion.
“No.” One deep breath pushed from my lips, “...No, I don’t think it is, Maddy.”
For the first time Madison doesn’t say anything to that.
And for once, we ride the rest of the easy way home in hard silence.
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"Home sweet home." Madison hasn't even shifted the car in park yet and I'm already opening my door.
"I'm going over there."
"Spence-"
"No, Maddy." I stand in the shivering cold outside her safe warm car, letting snow fall onto my eyelashes, "...I'm sorry, but this time I have to listen to myself. I love you and love that you always look out for me and that you're always right." I give her a pointed look, "...But I have to do this. I just can't leave things–"
"Spence–"
"No, Please, Maddy–"
"God, will you shut up already?"
I sigh, not happy with the delay, or for hearing more words I wish not to hear. "What?"
She looks at me, one might say craftily, and I swear I see a smirk forming as she nods the slightest bit in front of her.
"You might wanna see who your visitor is first."
In an instant, I can breathe easy. I can see my life as it should be. Without that bright sun. Without that too warm heat.
Because right there, through a blanket of wet cold snow, I finally see Ashley.
And right there, in the midst of my unnerving calm, I've finally found my comforting storm.
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Chapter Twenty Three :: Venetian Blue