Chapter Fourteen
Mirror Image
Being chased down
with nowhere to hide.
Trying to find yourself
with nothing to find.
Terrified of who you might be,
frightened of what you know.
You could be someone like me—
scared and nowhere to go.
Help me find myself—
help me.
I need to know who I am.
Help me love myself—
make me give a damn.
Help me before it’s too late.
Running
with nowhere to run to.
So bored
with nothing to do.
Not aware of what might be
just around the corner.
Horrified of who you see
when you look in the mirror.
Help me find myself—
help me.
I need to know who I am.
Help me love myself—
make me give a damn.
Help me before it’s too late.
You wake up tomorrow
and look in the mirror.
You are such a coward—
what you see is what you fear.
^^^
After finishing my finals, my parents insist I come home early. I hadn’t intended on coming back home until the week before Christmas, but they’ve urged me to come now. I want to spend as much time with Jesse as possible but am moved by the fact my parents want me to be home with them. I take advantage of my time with Jesse as much as I can before I leave. Once my mom texts me how much Rose misses me, I can’t stay on campus any longer. I can’t say no to Rose, so I head home on a Tuesday.
The second Rose sees me, she hops up on me so fast I almost fall over. She’s gone through a growth spurt and is heavier than the last time I saw her.
“Rose! I’ve missed you! Next time warn me before you jump.” I set her back down on the floor, and she’s staring back at me with her big, brown eyes.
“I’m learning to read in pre-school. I can read ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘me’, and ‘I.’ You can test me if you want.”
I rub the top of her head. “That’s okay, kiddo. I believe you. Maybe we can read a book together later.”
She claps as she jumps up and down. “Yippee! Can we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom? That’s my favorite.”
“Whatever you’d like.”
Her smile makes me happy. It doesn’t take much to please a five-year-old kid, but she has her days. When she’s happy, her smile is as wide as the horizon and there’s a slight twinkle in her eyes. The innocence of a child is incredible, precious. After my relationship with Janna fizzled, I wish I had that innocence back.
“Rose, honey, why don’t you let your sister put her things away and get settled in?” My mom shoos Rose away. “We’ve set up a small area in the basement.”
“The basement?” If that’s not a cold way to welcome me home, I don’t know what is. I knew they planned to turn my room into a playroom for Rose, but I didn’t expect them to have changed it already. “There’s no heat down there.” We live in Wisconsin, and it gets down to twenty degrees at night.
“Don’t worry. I have plenty of blankets for you, and we bought a space heater for you to use.”
I guess it’s an effort, right? I’m not going to complain about being shoved into the coldest part of the house while I’m here for a month. My parents are feeding me for those four weeks. I don’t work at Happy Acres, either. My boss allows both me and Will to work limited or no hours during the holiday season since many have family members that visit all the time. They can manage on a skeleton crew.
“Thank you,” I say, and grab a hold of my bags to take downstairs. I open the door to the dreary basement, and she stops me.
“Violet. I’m glad you came, especially since you didn’t bother coming home for Thanksgiving.”
“I told you, Mom, I wanted to help out for the kids that had nowhere to go.” I volunteered in the kitchen at school and both Jesse and I helped out at a soup kitchen. The experience was one I’ll never forget, and one I’d expect my mother to understand and appreciate.
“Still, you could have bothered to come for at least one day.”
“I didn’t come home to argue. If you don’t mind, I need to unpack.”
I head down to the cold, dingy basement where my mom has a load of laundry in the washer. The machine shakes with the uneven load, and I sure hope she doesn’t plan on doing any laundry when I’m trying to sleep, which I plan on doing a lot of.
I take a quick nap before dinner, the first of many I’m sure. I wake up refreshed and cold, having forgotten to turn the space heater on before I laid down. I take a sweater out of my suitcase and slide it over my head. It’s a tad cold, too, but I’ll warm up once I’m upstairs.
When I get upstairs, my dad is home and sitting at the table flipping through the TV stations. My mom fought him about getting a television in the kitchen, but he ultimately won because Rose begged and begged. And what Rose wants, Rose gets.
“Hey, Dad.” I sit down across from him. He offers a smile and goes back to flipping through the stations. That’s not like my dad to ignore me. “What’s wrong?”
He drops the remote on the table, and it bounces before it flips over. “Tell me about this Janna girl.”
Oh. My mom tried to call me a few more times that day. I finally called back a day later, but she didn’t bring it up at all. I think she wanted to, but the moment had passed. I didn’t know if she was angry.
“What is there to discuss, Dad?” He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Your mom showed me that video on the Facebook.”
I want to correct him and let him know it’s not called the Facebook, but I somehow think that would not help the situation as it stands. “What do you want to know?”
He folds his hands in front of him. “Is she a drug addict? Are those the types of people you’re hanging out with?”
“No, she’s not a drug addict.” At least I don’t think so. “All she does is smoke pot every once in a while.”
“All she does? You act like that’s no big deal.”
“It’s not. It’s legal in so many states now. Just because it’s not legal here doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.”
“Are you doing it?”
“What if I am?” I want to see his reaction when I say this, but his face remains still. “No. I’m not. And no, I don’t have the desire to. What does that have to do with anything, anyway?”
“Your father and I just don’t want you hanging out with people like that.” My mom startles me as she joins the conversation from the other room.
“It’s none of your business who I hang out with.”
“Yes, it is. You’re attending that school on scholarships and our dime. If you do anything illegal, you lose the scholarships. And we can’t afford to send you otherwise.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be there!”
Nobody says anything for a minute. It’s so quiet I can even hear the washing machine buzz in the basement. My parents made sure I earned good grades throughout school so I could be afforded this opportunity. The last thing they want me to do is to lose it.
“Is that true?” My mom takes a seat at the table dramatically like I told her someone had died.
I sigh. “No. It’s not true. I just don’t want you guys meddling. I understand your concerns. But I’ve got this. You didn’t raise an idiot.”
“I should certainly hope not. “My dad looks me in the eye now. “And who is Jesse?”
My heart drops into my stomach when he asks that. I’ve never had a boyfriend. This is brand new territory for us. The only time I’ve been on a date was with my dad to a Daddy-Daughter dance. I’m sure this is weird for him. It’s weird for me, too.
“Violet, your father asked you a question.”
I should have known this would come up. I can’t hide it, and it’s not like it’s a bad thing. They should be happy for me.
“He’s my boyfriend.” I mumble the word boyfriend.
“He’s your what?”
“My boyfriend.” I enunciate it this time and sit up straight in my chair.
“We sent you to school to learn, not distract yourself with boyfriends.”
“Oh, stop it, honey. We met in high school for Pete’s sake. She’s old enough to have a boyfriend.”
My mother’s words shock me. I didn’t expect her to have my side. We’ve never talked about boys in a positive way. All our conversations have been with me crying over a boy I liked who made a negative comment about me.
“I’m happy for you, sweetie. I’m sure he’s a nice boy. Is he a freshman, too?”
“Senior, actually.”
My dad raises his brows again, but my mom shuts them down with a glare. “Well, maybe one day we can meet this young man.”
I sigh a breath of relief and think maybe things may go my way.
The next day I spend shopping with my little sister, Rose. We’ve hit up the mall while both my parents are at work. My dad keeps busy at a car dealership as a salesman and my mom floats as a nurse, only working when called. I’m glad I can be home to watch Rose and spend time with her while they work.
We pick out great gifts for our parents. I help Rose buy Dad a special key chain and Mom a necklace she thinks she’ll like. After we have our gifts, we stop at the food court where she has McDonald’s and I enjoy a Cinnabon. She begs me for a bite after smelling the sweet cinnamon so I buy her one, not sure how she even has room for it.
“Are you staying now?” She asks as I use a fork and knife to cut a piece of the roll.
“No, Rose. I’m going back to school after Christmas.”
“Right after Santa comes?”
I smile at her innocence. Her eyes are full of questions and faith in everything. I can see how my parents love this girl so much. If only we were closer in age to each other maybe I wouldn’t be resentful. I stare at her, this picture of youth in front of me, and wonder how I could ever be upset with her. It’s not her fault Mom and Dad baby her. She is a baby. I can’t believe they don’t do more of the same for me. Even when I told them about Jesse. I didn’t want it to be awkward but I don’t think I really wanted it to blow past so quickly. Part of me hoped for an argument, a chance to defend myself. I didn’t need to.
“Yes, Rose, I think the day after.”
“I miss you when you’re gone.”
Her comment strikes me. She receives all the attention. How can she miss me when I take some of it away when I’m here? “You do?”
“Yes. I can’t get away with anything when you’re not home. One day I tried to do a flip off the couch and Daddy yelled at me.”
“Oh, honey.” I pop the roll in my mouth and the sweet, warm cinnamon explodes my taste buds. “They only want you to be safe.”
“I heard you have a boyfriend.”
She changes the subject without even bringing closure to the one before it. “Were you listening to us?”
“Yep. You know I have a boyfriend, too.”
“You do?”
“Yes. His name is Jack, and he’s in kindergarten.” She emphasizes kindergarten as though he’s ten years older than her. “We play on the monkey bars together. Do you and your boyfriend play on the monkey bars?”
I giggle inside. I almost feel as though she’s in competition with me, trying to compare Jack and Jesse like they’re even close to on the same level. “No, we don’t.”
“What do you two do together?”
Oh my gosh, she catches me by surprise. What do I say? How do I handle this? I mean, it’s not as though she asked where babies come from or anything. “We, um, well we study together and sometimes go out for dinner.”
She shoves a fork into her Cinnabon, picking the entire roll up at one time. “That’s cool.”
And the next thing I know she’s telling me about the latest game she’s downloaded onto her iPad, and her friend Meg’s birthday party, and how her pre-school teacher Miss Davis is the coolest ever, and she only has to go to school three days a week. I can’t break it to her that when she starts Kindergarten, she will be there five days, and for full ones at that.
I’m happy to have had such a great day with Rose, and by the time we arrive home in the afternoon, my mom has returned already. The short days are nice for her. She likes them. She can be in the workforce but still keep up with things at home.
Once I’m down in my unwelcoming guest room, I open my notebook and write for a solid hour. I’m missing Jesse. I send a text telling him so, and he almost immediately texts me back, admitting he’s having a horrible time at his foster parent’s house. I feel bad for him. I may not be basking in enjoyment every second I’m here, but it’s not like I’m having a miserable experience.
I take a deep breath before I type the invitation. Maybe he’d like to come for dinner here with me and my family. My dad would feel more comfortable if he met him, anyway, and then I can see him. I need to see him. It’s been too long already, and it’s only been a few days.
I wait and wait for him to respond. He finally does, and an hour later, he’s standing at my front door.
“Come in,” I open the door and he steps in. I want nothing more than to throw my arms around him and kiss him but my mom is standing right behind me. I can’t kiss him in front of my parents. I’m not even close to ready for that.
“Jesse, this is my mom, Wendy. My sister Rose is upstairs having a tea party, I think.”
“That sounds like fun.” He smiles right away. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Duncan.”
“Please, Wendy is fine.” She gestures for him to walk into the house further. “Let me take your jacket and you can leave your shoes at the door.”
He slides his jacket off and hands it to my mom, who is more than pleased to place it in the hall closet. He sets his shoes on the small rug Mom has laid out next to the front door. With only a few inches of snow on the ground, and none within the past day, the sidewalk is clear enough there’s no need for boots, and Jesse’s shoes are dry.
“Why don’t you come into the living room? Violet’s dad should be home shortly.”
I take a risk and take Jesse’s hand, my mom not even noticing, as I lead him into the living room. We sit on the couch together, and I shift my body so there is a gap between us, but our knees are touching. “I’m glad you’re here,” I whisper to him as my mom comes into the living room with a glass of water.
Jesse takes the glass from her and thanks her. We’re all silent for a few minutes. There’s nothing to talk about. My mom sits on the recliner, her hands folded in her lap, unsure of what to say.
“Jesse is going to school for computers.”
“Oh? That’s nice. I can barely figure my computer out,” my mom says to him. “At work, I’m a breeze on our computer program but at home, I’m a total mess. I can only check my email and that Facebook. That’s how I found out about you two, actually.”
When she says it, I can’t imagine where the conversation will lead. I don’t want her to bring up the Janna video. “His sister goes to school with us, too.” Discussing Olivia isn’t on my favorite topic list, but it helps avoid the discussion I don’t want to have.
“That’s interesting. It’s not often siblings stick together like that. Are you two close?”
Jesse is in the middle of drinking his water, and we wait as he swallows. “Not really. I mean, she’s my sister, and I’d do anything to protect her, but we’re not like friends or anything.”
He’d do anything to protect his sister. I don’t know why this seems like news to me. When it comes down to it, I’d do the same for Rose. But Rose is five and a decent human being. I can’t help but wonder if he would do the same if he knew she was the one who pulled all those pranks on me.
“That’s a shame, really. I think sibling closeness is important.”
She does, too. My mom and Aunt Fiona are best friends. They tell each other everything, and Aunt Fiona is almost always here. Right now she’s on a work trip to Arizona or she’d be with us, I’m sure. She wants me and Rose to be best friends. I love Rose but we don’t have a lot in common because of the humongous age gap. She can’t expect me to want to hang out with her all the time.
“Did you grow up around here?” My mom pries into unchartered territory. I don’t know a lot about Jesse’s past myself, only what Janna told me. In all of our time together, we’ve never gone into great depth about that stuff. I don’t want him to know the extent of my pure loser status, and I imagine he doesn’t like to discuss his missing parents.
“I’m about an hour west, in Janesville.”
“Oh. I’ve never been there.”
“I grew up in a lot of towns, though. I’ve only been in Janesville since I went to live with this family my sophomore year of high school. Olivia and I moved around a lot and Tasha and Damien have provided a solid foundation for us.”
My mom tightens the grip on her hands folded neatly in her lap and shifts in her seat. “You call your parents by their first names?”
“They’re my foster parents, not my real ones. They never officially adopted us, which is fine since I’m in college now. I mean, I don’t call them Mom and Dad. They play the roles as best they can.”
Both my mom and I are listening to this and I think she’s reacting inside the same way I am. He’s not close with these people at all. The way he discusses them as though they are employees at a store who have helped him find the aisle where the chicken corn chowder soup is. They’ve paid for his college, they’ve provided a home. Have they provided love?
The back door clicks open and relief covers my mom’s face. My dad is home, and she thinks he’ll save us from this conversation. I think he’ll only make it worse.
And I’m about to find out.
Rose insists on sitting next to Jesse at dinner after he attended her tea party. She says he’s the most polite guest she’s ever had at one of her parties, and I can’t help but to be a little insulted. We settle on Jesse squeezing between the two of us.
My dad didn’t say hello to start. He went right upstairs to his room and took a shower. The first time Jesse talks to my dad is when he sits down at the table.
“Jesse, this is my dad, Steve.”
Jesse lifts out of his chair to shake my dad’s hand. “Should I call you Steve or Mr. Duncan?” He asks.
“Mr. Duncan is fine.”
“Dad!” I can’t believe he wants Jesse to be so formal. My mom isn’t insisting he calls her Mrs. Duncan.
My dad lets out a chuckle, his belly moving beneath his shirt. “I’m joking. Steve is fine. Welcome to our home, Jesse. I hope you like chicken parmesan because Wendy makes the best out there.”
“I’m sure any home-cooked meal will be spectacular. It’s sure a change from takeout all the time.”
Doesn’t his foster mom or dad cook? I’m realizing how little I know about Jesse’s life. None of it matters. I like him for who he is, not where he came from, but as his girlfriend, these things should not be a surprise.
“What do your parents do, Jesse?”
My dad jumps right into the parents. I should have warned him, or my mother should have.
“My parents? They’re not alive.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” My dad eyes me up, but it’s not like I had a lot of time to tell him. He made a bee line for the shower when he got home, not allowing anyone any time to talk to him.
“It’s okay. My foster parents work a lot. Damien is in politics and Tasha is a doctor.”
“Your mom fixes people? That’s so cool.” Rose joins the conversation. No one corrects her that Damien and Tasha aren’t his real parents. That would lead to too many questions.
“Yeah, I guess it kind of is.” He answers her, not letting the little girl down.
We eat the rest of dinner, exchanging conversations about our favorite colors and television shows since Rose seems to be our moderator. By the end of dinner, I think Jesse has warmed up to my family and feels like he fits in. I think he fits in, too, and I’m happy to be home. I don’t have Olivia looking over our shoulders and don’t have to worry about what other people think.
After dinner, my mom invites us all to the screened in patio for a slice of her blueberry pie. I love our screened-in patio since it’s heated. We can sit out here all winter long regardless of the temperature outside and watch the snow falling. I remember a few times deer sprinting across the yard. That’s one of the best parts of living in a smaller town instead of a big city.
“So, Jesse, Violet said you are in school for computers. Did you always enjoy computers?”
“Yeah. No matter what home I was in I always locked myself in my room and worked on them. And once I got to high school, I made that my focus.”
“Your focus?” My dad questions his high school curriculum.
“I went to a private school. We took a lot of college prep courses, and I focused on that.”
“Oh. Interesting. Violet went to a public school. How was it at a private school? I sometimes wonder if we should have pulled her out of her school and sent her to one privately.”
I never knew my mom considered sending me to a different school. All the times I came home crying and upset over something that happened, she could have maybe changed things for me.
Who was I kidding though? I’d have been just as ugly at a private school. I imagine Olivia with her perfect blond hair and celebrity like makeup. I would have stood out like a sore thumb.
“It was okay. Every school has issues. Why would you have thought of moving Violet?”
Shoot. I don’t want my mom to go into this. Jesse doesn’t need to know everything about my taunted past.
“She had so many issues. I mean, her grades were always excellent, but she didn’t make friends easily.”
Wait. Is she insinuating that I was the reason I didn’t have a lot of friends? She is making it sound as though I tried to keep everyone away, not that people made my life a living hell. She didn’t walk the halls everyday keeping her hands clutched to her books, pressed to her chest hoping no one noticed her. She didn’t have to be the one the teacher assigned to a partner because nobody in biology wanted to partner with me. No. My mom was the popular one. I’ve seen her yearbooks before, her photo on almost every page. I can’t even imagine what that’s like.
“I don’t believe that. She’s so sweet.” He reaches over and takes my hand in his. My blueberry pie sits untouched on my lap.
“Thanks, Jesse.”
“Of course she is. Kids can be so mean though. They didn’t see that. They saw a weird girl. Violet didn’t even go to her own prom.”
“You didn’t?”
I shake my head and bite my lip, wishing with all my might this conversation would end. My mom may not realize it but she’s embarrassing me so much. I don’t want Jesse to know what a loser I was. But now it’s too late.
“No.” I leave it at that.
My dad, however, does not. “No one asked her.” I let go of Jesse’s hand and hug myself, wishing this moment away. This can’t be happening. My parents can’t be letting my first boyfriend in on the secrets I want to keep from him.
All I wanted when I came to college was to start over. Between Olivia and Janna, they’re making that impossible. I was once one face in a few hundred. Now I’m one in a few thousand. Blending in should be easy. Still, I stick out and bring negative attention to myself. I can never win.
“Well if I had gone to school with you, I would have asked.”
My heart skips at the possibility of such a handsome guy asking me to my prom. I somehow doubt that was true, but I say nothing. All I can say is thank you, and I do.
“I should get going back home. I promised Olivia I wouldn’t be gone too long.”
I had completely forgotten about Olivia, that she would have been home with him. Hearing her name puts a damper on the evening.
“Yes, I understand.” My mom stands and takes his plate from him. “By all means stop by anytime while you’re home on break.”
“Thank you. I appreciate the offer. I don’t want to impose, though, and I think Olivia and I should try to spend time with Tasha and Damien.”
“Yes, you should.” My dad stands and offers a handshake to Jesse.
Once they say their goodbyes, I walk Jesse to the front door. I hand him his coat after he puts his shoes back on.
“Thanks for coming,” I tell him, grateful for the time I had with him. “I didn’t think I’d be able to see you at all while on break.”
“I miss you when I’m not with you.”
“You do?”
He pulls me close to him and kisses me. “Of course, I do.” I hug him, never wanting to let go. When we pull away from each other, he looks at me. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t say anything at first, wanting to be strong. I can’t, though. I have to be honest. “I wish I could see you on Christmas. This is the last time I see you until almost the new year. What if you forget about me?”
“Forget about you?” He touches his finger to my hair and then runs his hands through so he’s cradling the side of my head, his palm resting on my cheek. “Vi, I could never forget about you. When we’re back on campus, I’ll be there waiting for you. I—“
“Violet and Jesse sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Rose bursts into the room at the worst possible moment, and I want him to finish his thought. She’s holding onto me now, laughing and smiling.
“I’ll see you in a few weeks, Vi. I’ll call you tonight. I’ll call you every night until I see your face again.” He leans in and kisses me, and Rose shoves her face into my stomach so she doesn’t have to watch, the same Rose who was detailing our intimate moment just seconds before in a song.
Once he leaves, I go to play with Rose, but I feel as though a part of me is gone.