14. SARA

“Chance is a lot more than an old flame,” I say. “He and I had been best friends for years before we finally realized we loved each other in senior year. We both grew up in shitty circumstances – he was in and out of foster care and got into a lot of trouble as a kid. My dad used to beat on me and my sister before he finally left us alone with my mom.”

Kelsey nods, but says nothing.

“Chance and I were sort of each other’s soft place to land, if you know what I mean. He held me through so many nights where I thought the only way I could stop the pain was to jump off a bridge. He literally saved my life when we were fourteen. He happened to stop by one night when my dad had been drinking. Dad came after me with the poker from the fireplace and Chance stepped in and beat the hell out of him. Imagine, a fourteen-year-old taking out a full-grown man.”

“Jesus, Sara,” Kelsey breathes. “I had no idea.”

“Chance was my hero,” I say simply. “We were inseparable, or at least as inseparable as we could be with parents like mine. Things got a little easier for a while after Dad finally walked out, but it didn’t last long.”

“What happened?”

“I finally decided right before our prom that I wanted to go all the way with Chance. So I planned for a special night at a friend’s place who was out of town for the weekend. I bought candles and made a mixed tape of love songs and everything. It was supposed to be perfect.”

“So what went wrong?”

I sigh. “Grace found the stuff in my room right before I was going to leave. She told my mom, who promptly lost her shit and interrogated me about it. I ended up confessing what I had planned, and she told me never to see Chance again.”

Kelsey’s eyes are soft as she reaches out to take my hand.

“That must have been so hard for you.”

“It was,” I say. “Part of me wanted to just slap her face and storm out of our house. I’d pick up Chance and we’d head out into the world together, come what may.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I mean, she was my mother, and I knew she had a mental illness, even if it was never officially diagnosed. It didn’t help that she self-medicated with alcohol and painkillers. I couldn’t just abandon her, especially now that Dad was gone.”

“You gotta keep going, girl,” Kelsey says. “I’m on pins and needles here.”

I feel the familiar ache in my throat that signals the tears are about to start. I’ve kept this all bottled up inside me for such a long time.

“I called Chance and made up a lame excuse,” I say. “He told me it was okay, but I could tell by his voice that he was disappointed. I didn’t see him for a few days after that because I was dealing with Mom.

“Meanwhile, Chance was having his own problems with the foster parents he was supposed to be living with. They told him he needed to show up for visits with child services or they wouldn’t get their money. Otherwise, they didn’t give a shit where he was. He told them to go fuck themselves.

“Anyway, he called me the night of his eighteenth birthday and told me he was coming over. He showed up at my door carrying a duffel bag with everything he owned, which wasn’t much. He begged me to come with him, said he was going to join the Marines and we could get married and start our own family, to hell with everyone. It was everything I’d ever wished for.”

Kelsey nods. “And yet you didn’t go.”

The tears that have been threatening to fall finally spill down my cheeks.

“While Chance was standing outside the door, telling me that he didn’t want to live without me, my mom was standing on the other side with the tip of a butcher knife against her throat.”

Kelsey gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. Suddenly I feel sorry for burdening her with all this. But I’ve come this far, I might as well finish.

“She was blasted out of her mind on gin and OxyContin,” I say. “If I had left with Chance, she would have driven that blade right through her jugular and left Grace on her own. What choice did I have?”

“So what did you do?”

“I told Chance to go without me.”

The memory runs over me like a steamroller. His gray eyes – they turned to pure lead as he realized what I was saying. I was abandoning him. The one person he thought he could always count on.

Kelsey lets out a low whistle. “So your mom didn’t kill herself?”

“Not that night,” I say with a bitter chuckle. “It took another four years for her to drive her car into the Delaware, drunk off her ass. She drowned. By then, I’d already graduated from the all-girl college she’d shipped me off to.”

Kelsey leans against the mirror on the wall behind us and lets out a deep breath as I wipe my eyes with my palms.

“That is one hell of a story, Sara,” she says, pulling me into her strong arms. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

“Yeah,” I sniff. “Me too.”

“It definitely explains a lot.”

“I guess it does. I avoid thinking about it consciously as much as I can, just so that I don’t have to go through moments like this very often.”

She cups my cheek in her palm and smiles. “That’s a smart strategy.”

“Never really thought of it that way,” I say, taking a deep breath of my own. “It’s probably more instinct than strategy.”

“Whatever, as long as it works.”

“So,” I say, managing a smile. “Still think I’m just horny?”

Kelsey’s eyes pop out as she snorts a giggle, and in a few seconds we're both doubled over with laughter. I think it’s more catharsis than actual humor, but boy does it ever feel good.