Spoiler! :
I stood in the threshold of the door looking out into the grey world. The last of the remaining students passed me, some bumping my shoulder on their way out. They zipped up their jackets and opened up their umbrellas as they made their way out the door. The rain poured down hard and as far as I could see, it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had no umbrella and I couldn’t call my mom, she was too busy packing for her trip tomorrow.
I was jealous of my mom. I wasn’t happy she was leaving. I wished I was the one leaving. I bet it wasn’t gloomy and rainy in Marina Bay.
“Hey.”
I didn’t look to see who it was, but I still responded. “Hey.”
“Forget your umbrella?” The voice asked cheerily. It was obviously a boy, but when I turned around it wasn’t just a boy. Behind me, talking to me was Cody Maccabee. He wasn’t the most popular boy in the school, but he was definitely a lady-killer.
“Yeah, I did. If you have any more questions, I suggest keeping them to yourself because I really don’t want to hear them,” I said rudely.
“Whoa, a little cold there, don’t you think?” he said, but he didn’t walk away. He just stood there waiting for me to say something, but I kept my mouth shut. “So you’re just going to stand here, watching the rain, trying to ignore me?”
I didn’t say a word. I tried to block him out, but he was persistent to get my attention. He leaned against the opposite side of the door and stood there, smugly looking out into the rain. “I’ve heard about you,” he said quickly.
I didn’t budge, but I was interested in what he had to say. “You’re Sage, the bitchiest, quietest sophomore there ever was.”
“Nice to know you have ears,” I said sarcastically, keeping my eyes straight ahead.
“She talks,” he said accomplished. “Tell me, Sage, why are you so bitchy?” He teased.
I knew it, just another idiot. I didn’t have to stand there and take dirt from an animal like him, but I didn’t want to walk out into the rain. I hate the rain, so I stood there.
“You know, you’re pretty tough. I would have thought a girl like you would have just walked out on me by now.”
“Get the hell away from me,” I said indifferently.
“Oh, so you’re going to be like that now?” His own voice became cold and sinister-like. “I don’t think I like your attitude, Sage. Not one bit.”
Before I could even grasped what was happening, Cody had me by my shoulders and shoved me down the entry way stairs. I tumbled all the way down hitting every step until I cracked at the bottom. My entire body filled with pain and my vision was clouded by blood and rain that dripped down from my head.
I was still conscious, but I just lied there in the rain. “Why don’t you get up, bitch? Get up and cry! I bet my girlfriend would like to see you cry! Next time think about who you call slutty,” Cody yelled from the top of the stairs. So that’s what he was here for, I thought.
I didn’t have the strength to yell back so I just laid there in pain as he shouted. After a couple minutes he stopped and ran away, probably thinking I was dead. I sat up and leaned into myself. I could feel the bruises under my clothes and almost see them considering I was drenched. Blood still trickled down from my forehead, but I didn’t care anymore. Cody would regret it one day. The one day when he finally catches his precious girlfriend in the act of her cheating spree. Brigit Harvey was just a freshman but was already sleeping around like a well-paid prostitute.
Two girls with frilly umbrellas walked past me, horrified. They looked at me but quickly ran as if I was some kind of monster. I sighed but got up and headed home in the rain.
__________
I hesitated to turn the key. I knew my mom would be procrastinating to pack and be sitting on the couch curled up in blankets. She would ask me why I was drenched and bleeding. I couldn’t tell her that I’m the most hated girl in my entire high school and got pushed down the stairs again. That kind of stuff didn’t really fly by parents of any kind.
I thought for a second but nothing came. I’ll just wing it, I thought. So I opened the door, hoping I’d come up with something good.
“I’m home.” I said quietly as I snuck in the apartment.
My mom turned around. She was cuddled in colorful blankets watching a movie on the couch like I thought she would be. “Sage, where’s your umbrella?” She quickly got up from off the couch to greet me at the door.
I hung my head, covering up my wound with hair. “I forgot it today. I’ll be in my room, I have to pack still.” I tried walking as fast as I could toward my bedroom door, but mom caught me before I could reach it.
“Whoa, wait a second, you haven’t told me how your day went,” she said playfully while she spun me around to face her. “You have all night to pack, Sage. And this is the last time we’ll be together for the next two months, why don’t we-” She didn’t finish her sentence when she saw my face.
I ducked me head and tried to walk off, but again, she pulled me back.
“Sage, why are you bleeding?” My mom was usually very calm and laid back. If I had any friends, she’d probably be the cool mom, if you know what I mean. But right then her face looked worn down and the wrinkles beneath her pretty make-up looked deep. She was still the aging mother of an outcast teenage girl. “And you’re filthy. You look like you were rolling around in mud.”
“I just tripped down the stairs when I was leaving. The steps were really slippery,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Sage you have to be more careful. First you trip in PE and now the stairs-” She looked at me, concerned. “Are you sure someone didn’t trip you?”
“No mom. I’m going to get changed and packed now.” I pulled myself away from her. I didn’t want to take all my anger out on my mom, she didn’t deserve it. She was just trying to help. I could feel her apprehension behind me as I stomped away into the bathroom, but I didn’t look back.
I took a long shower. One of those showers where all you do is think about your day and think of all the things you could have done or said. The ones where you kind of just lean against the shower wall no matter how cold it is and cringe just thinking about what went on that day. I have a lot of those showers, but I had to get out. Unlike in movies, packing and homework wouldn’t do themselves.
I walked out of the bathroom in a towel and ran swiftly across the icy hallway to my room and shut the door behind me before my mom had the chance to notice. When I sensed my mom wasn’t coming to my door, I fell head first on my bed, half naked of course, and buried my head in my soft sheets and sniffed the clean linen before looking up at the clock. It was ten minutes to five.
I stood up to grab my world history book in the corner of my room and read aloud to myself as I changed into some sweats and big hooded jacket. I slid a tiny first aid kit out from under my bed and taped a bandage to my forehead over the fresh scratch.
__________
“Mom, can you turn the heating on,” I yelled from my bed, but I didn’t get a response. “Mom-”
“What?” She sounded annoyed. Maybe I got her upset, I thought.
“Never mind,” I shouted back. “I got it.” I moved my laptop off my lap and hopped off my bed. I snuck into the living room making sure she wasn’t in there procrastinating again and when I saw she wasn’t there I ran over to the heater and turned it up a bit. It really started to get cold at night with winter approaching. We were shooting our heating bill through the roof, but I guess we wouldn’t have to worry about all that for the next two months. The heater warmed up slowly, but stood in front of it rubbing my hands together anyways.
“Sage, can we talk?” My mom’s voice said from behind me, but I turned to face a concerned looking woman in her mid-forties.
I hesitated a moment. If my mom was going to find out the truth about my life, then so be it. I couldn’t hide it forever, I thought. “Sure,” I said.
She motioned toward the couch and I sat as she came to across the room and sat right next to me. She picked up her feet and cuddled us both in the blankets she had from earlier. She turned the TV on almost mute, and I leaned against her shoulder as we watched the screen.
We didn’t talk for minutes. Our attention was turned on the TV where baseball game played on. The players were soaking wet from playing in the rain, but they kept on playing. No matter how hard the rain poured, they just kept going.
“Are you finished with your homework?” she asked with her attention still on the game.
“Yes,” I answered quickly.
“Are you finished packing?”
“Basically, yes.”
She looked toward me and gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “Sage, I know you don’t want me to go. I know you want to stay here on your own and I know you don’t like Leigh all that much, but please Sage, please just go with it, just for now.”
I sighed heavily. I didn’t want to just go with it. I didn’t want my mom to leave for so long and leave me with the one person I really didn’t like being around. But at the same time, I didn’t want to be the selfish bitch I’d been being all along so going with it all was just another step.
“Mom, are you a least going to be back for Christmas?” I asked. The question seemed childish. It was something only kindergarteners asked their parents when they go to work the morning of Christmas Eve. But the parents aren’t going to work. They’re running to the toy stores and buying milk and cookies for Santa Claus. They’re wrapping gifts in their offices and signing the tags in weird fonts so you know it’s not them delivering Santa’s gifts. They do it all to make sure you have the best Christmas you ever had and continue to believe and live in your little fantasy world. Because they know all too well that that amazing world of Santa Claus and reindeers who fly will soon come to an end.
My mom bit her lip and avoided my gaze. No, she wouldn’t be back for Christmas. She wouldn’t be back for Thanksgiving either. She wouldn’t be back until the gloom had passed and the depressing months of November and December had already gone on their way. She wouldn’t be home until the New Year began and a fresh layer of snow covered the ground.
“Listen,” she said sternly, taking ahold of my hand from under the blankets. “Leigh and Travis will take great care of you and I know they will. Whether you like it or not, everything will work out. It can happen in the weirdest way possible or the most amazing way possible, but I know deep in my heart that everything will work out fine. Even if I’m not there to hold your hand Christmas morning, I know somebody will.”
My mom always knew how to make things better. Whether it was with a laugh or a serious pep talk, my mom could practically save my day in an instant. At that moment we were content with each other and I didn’t have the heart to ruin her night with the truth. We continued to watch the baseball game and with every swing, every hit, I could feel myself hit another step on the way down those stairs. Crack, crack, crack. Each step bruised and beat a shoulder or rib once again. The truth ate at me all that night.
I was an outcast. A selfish misfit with an attitude of a violent storm: Not stopping my wrath no matter how many people I hurt. The storm raged on.
__________
She rang the doorbell once and waited, not anxious for it to open and take in one of the only things she had left. She looked down at her heels, professional and black, and wet from the puddles. She twisted her silver wrist watch, so it couldn’t look her in the eye. She watched in horror as the knob slowly turned knocking off rain drops from the night’s shower.
In the door way of her beautiful home, Leigh Blakewood stood in grey sweats and a matching sweater holding a steaming cup. Her face was permanently surprised looking and her hair was messy and tangled in the back. Seeing my cousin look like an actual person in the early morning was odd. I was too used to seeing her perfectly made-up and no flaws in sight.
“Come in, come in. I’m sorry I took so long, I was just pouring myself a cup of tea when the doorbell went off.” She giggled, flustered. I could feel the tension in the air. It radiated from her gleaming home, tickling my face.
“I’m sorry I really can’t stay. I’m already late for my flight because I wasn’t completely packed this morning, but thank you for the offer,” my mom said handing over my bags.
Leigh looked confused but didn’t think twice about calling out for Travis to come and take my luggage. “Travis, Travis!” she called.
“If you don’t mind Leigh, I already called Sage’s school. I’m just giving her this day off to get used to your house, if you don’t mind?” my mom mumbled. “I also wrote you on Sage’s emergency card.”
“It’s perfectly fine, Aunty Danielle. Sage will be just fine here with Travis and I,” she smiled, pointing to Travis who had just entered the room. He too was still dressed in his pajamas, hair uncombed. He immaturely slid across the marble floor on his socks, and smiled when he saw us.
“Hey Sage, how are you?” he asked. I nodded in response. “And how are you Danielle, excited for your big trip?”
“Excited is a bit of an overstatement, but yes. It’ll be nice to go south and get away from all this rain.” My mom answered. You could see she didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t turn down the money she’d make if she went. Her client was filthy rich and was going to pay her basically my college fund if she did her job well. I wouldn’t even be able to turn down an offer like that, but I wish I could.
“Well,” my mom looked at her watch. “It’s time I get going, it’s almost seven.”
I gave Travis the bags I held in my hands and he disappeared into the house. Leigh just stood straight in the door way drinking her tea looking like a deer caught in headlights. I could feel the icy wind pick up behind me as I turned to face my mother. Her eyes were big and matured. I could tell she was trying not to cry because her lip was trembling ruthlessly.
There was a pause before I said anything. “I’ll see you in January, mom,” I told her. Tears dripped slowly from her eyes but she wiped them away as fast as she could. Trying to be strong for a little kid was an expected thing, but for a teenager, it was useless. I stood unfazed by my mom’s sadness. Even if I was depressed, I wouldn’t show it. I didn’t need Leigh or Travis or the wicked rain seeing me cry.
My mom suddenly embraced me as hard a she could. She held me, crying in my shoulder, trying to say something, but choked on her words every time. I just stood there. No emotion passed my face, I just stood limp in my mother’s arms as she cried and cried.
“It can happen in the weirdest way possible or the most amazing way possible, but I know deep in my heart that everything will work out fine,” she whispered croakily in my ear.
I was taken aback by her words. A repeat of yesterday flashed in my head and at that moment I broke, at that moment I finally crashed. As if the sky was speaking for me, it began to rain. Drops of water fell from the sky as they did from my eyes. Tears broke loose from me, blurring my eyes and drowning my vision. I tried holding back, but my efforts were hopeless.
My mom looked up when she heard the whimpers escape my clenched teeth, but I turned away, not wanting her to see the weakness that filled my eyes. I couldn’t face my mom and no matter how much she tried to look me in the eyes, I turned away.
“Sage-”
“Just go already will you! You’re going to miss your flight!” I snapped at her.
“Sage just let me-”And again, I cut her off.
“Leave me alone already! Just go!” I yelled, looking at the floor. My tears dripped down, but they blended with the rain that fell overhead.
My mom stood crushed, crushed that her own child was pushing her away. She took in a deep breath and said her final words to me. “Goodbye Sage, I’ll see you in January.” Then she popped out her umbrella and walked off into the rain toward the car. She never looked back and I remained still on the porch as the rain fell on me.
“Sage, are you okay?” Leigh asked solemnly after my mom’s car was out of sight. She set her tea down on the threshold of the door and walked carefully out onto the porch. She stood tall in front of me, but I didn’t look up or answer her.
“Sage-” But before she could finish, I grabbed onto her sweater. I didn’t hug her or step any closer then I was. I just needed someone. I needed someone to hold onto. Someone to keep me from falling to the ground as my knees trembled.
I held my face with my other hand and clenched my teeth harder until I could feel them grinding. I didn’t let a whimper escape easily. I held onto each one, but eventually I’d choke and the next battle would begin. I was losing every battle I fought so far and out of it all, the greatest war I lost was my mother.
Leigh stood there. She may have been one of the people I hated most, but she knew me well. She didn’t try and hold me, she didn’t say a word. She just stood and let me clench onto her sweater with all I had. All my anger, all my sadness, and all my agony bled out in front of her, but she didn’t laugh like all the others would. She didn’t weep for me or try and comfort me. She let me cry by myself. She let me fight my own battle and take on the world alone like I had so many times before.
“Leigh, do you want me to start making the-” Travis stopped when he saw Leigh and I in the doorway. Leigh didn’t look up or take her eyes off me for a second. She stood there with me, in the rain. The gloomy wicked rain that followed me wherever I went.
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