My Remains

Chapter 1: tear it down

If I ran away, would you chase me?

If I disappeared, would you look for me?

I don't dare ask out loud

It will hurt too much to hear you say

what I already feel

So, I won't ask.

I'll just go

I don't know what's ahead of me

But I know exactly what I'm leaving behind.

Chapter 1

Three days into the train ride, four days since my parents – my family – split up – and my tears still haven't stopped falling. I was a wreck. Just a big, emotional catastrophe full of confusion, regret and anger. My whole life as I had known it for the past thirteen years was done. Completely gone, destroyed in a fit of my parent's rage. All that remained were little bits and pieces of the familiar – a red duffle bag with my favourite teddies, two changes of clothes, my school backpack with my grade seven science homework and a school textbook about Marie Curie that would never be returned – and my mom. At least, a person, a physical body that resembled mom, but otherwise gave no other indication of being who I had known my whole life.

Mom and I sat across from each other at one of the small dining car tables, silently staring out the window, the passing cities of Ontario into the long-grass prairies of Manitoba. We hadn't spoken to each other since she dragged me out of the apartment we had called home, screaming over her shoulder at my dad, two big policemen escorting us to her boyfriend's awaiting car. My twin brother, Maverick, staring with big, wide eyes at my dad's side, watching me get pulled away from him. I'm sure I had the same big, wide eyes as I stared back, too shocked at the whole situation to get a word out, never mind know what to say.

"Don't go," was all he had managed to say to me in the chaotic moments before the front door of our apartment got kicked in and the police stormed in with mom right behind. A panicked phone call from me to her work just thirty minutes earlier with the news that "dad just threatened to kill your boyfriend" having started the whole episode – the moments that led up to our destruction – the moments before my whole family exploded into a billion painful little pieces.

"Don't go," Maverick said again, taking hold of my wrist as I stop wavering in the doorway of our shared bedroom, mom bellowing from the front entrance, "Merridy! Get your stuff! We're leaving – right now!"

Tears were gathering in the corners of Maverick's eyes. A single one slid down my cheek.

"Merridy!" mom yelled again, this time louder, more urgently.

My breath caught in my throat. A second tear fell down my cheek.

"I have to," I whispered, regretfully.

Maverick winced, suddenly, as if he had been kicked in the stomach. I took a step away, towards the hallway. His grip on my wrist relaxed and fell away. Mom rushed towards me from the other direction, grabbing my wrist in an iron vice before pulling me out of the apartment. My dad, blocked by two big policemen, shouted at us as we left, horrible things, mean awful things to mom. I tried to cover my ears, to stop myself from hearing it, but it was too late. The words hurt my heart. They made my tears flow uncontrollably. Mom pulled me out of the apartment into an awaiting elevator that carried us down the three stories to the front entrance of our building. She stuffed me painfully into the backseat of an awaiting car that I didn't recognize. We were driven straight away to the train station downtown, where we boarded an awaiting train. Its destination unknown to me.

Like mom, I had fallen silent too. My constant line of questioning having been ignored for so many days, I finally just gave up. I figured, she's the adult, the parent, it's her job to say something to me, to explain things to me, to tell me what was going on, to detail where we were going, what was happening to my life, but she did none of the above. She just sat there, expressionless and mute, staring out the window, hardly even blinking at the passing terrain. And so, I just sat too, mute, expressionless, staring out the window, watching my life, my world change with every passing clunk-clunk of the train wheels riding over joints in the rails. Further and further we went. Further and further away from everything, from everyone I had ever known. It was going...going.....until eventually, it was gone.