Beyond Denver

Chapter 60

The sky is filled with bright stars, the moon brightening each step forward I give to arrive home. Sherman Avenue is deserted as I try to remember my way home, walking passing through Tenney Park. The blurry vision won't stop me from finding my way back to the apartment, let alone thinking over and over about the happenings with Denver.

Maybe the bike path is the shortest way? I try to block my mind from thinking of him.

I take the route that appears to make more sense. I don't have a GPS and have to trust my instincts. If this isn't the shortest way to get home, I won't have any hard feelings. After all, there aren't any hard feelings left besides my last conversation with Denver. Only sadness.

Walking at this time of the night is the best way to sober up. I'll be fine by the time my body hits the bed.

Denver.

Memories of Denver comes to my mind. I was supposed to sleep with him. Now he is probably sleeping with Susan – again.

Before moving to Madison, I hadn't drunk since Chelan. Maybe I was too young to remember that night. The night that Jason saved me from a party in the basement. Jason, from all the people I've ever met, was there when I needed it. He would never allow anyone to take advantage of me. He was always watching out my back.

He proved that so many times.

And yet I couldn't save him.

I had promised him I would stay by his side, no matter how difficult things have become. It was hard on our end, especially his. Jason couldn't handle it well after my father married his mother. In fact, they didn't marry. They cohabitated because the separation from my mother was still going. Minhoca had disappeared somewhere in Seattle without calling back a single time after she left home. It was Adele who replaced my mother's role as she'd done many years ago.

I just hadn't realized it.

Mom had tried to be a good person my whole life. She didn't know any better. She didn't know how to differentiate the good and bad on people. She trusted Adele with her own soul. She trusted her to take care of me while she was gone. Minhoca didn't have the strength to fight her depression, so she gave up her Lithium pills. When she was happy, she was all over the place, and then bum. Money was gone, and so our energy.

But Adele and her children were there for me. Jason and Jessa were all I had left. And the rest of their family. Granny with her lava cake. Emily and Delilah with their kind. Even Martin. The bigger cousin of all.

It was after that night when I'd caught Adele with my father that everything started. Reese's son waited for me with his party in the basement. Elliot, Ricky, and their group came along. I'd never been to his basement before, but it was cool. He played techno music as we all drank and danced for hours.

"I think it is time to introduce you to Molly and Adam," he said.

"Where are they?" I asked.

"Here," he opened his hands. Pills. A bunch of pills.

Elliot took one. Ricky took another, and so did the girls that were with them.

Aside from the many drinks I'd taken before Reese's son introduced us to Adam and Molly, inside my head was a maze. I had just found out my father was having an affair with my mother's best friend. Adele was also my best friend's mother. Had been this the real reason why Minhoca packed her bags, moved to Seattle, and disappeared for almost two years? If Jason knew about this all along, how come he didn't tell me? Did Jessa know, too? Who else in their family knew about it? Did the town know it, too?