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1/1/17
MY SKIN PRICKS with the awareness of being somewhere so familiar. The small suburb in Illinois I grew up to be exact. My car slows to a complete stop outside my childhood home. The home I've been avoiding for years now. The house with the same tan siding, worn black shutters, and tall bare trees with hanging branches from the heavy snow. It's all so similar yet different all at once.
My eyes rake over the window where my room was, the room where my whole world fell to pieces.
I swallow a shaky breath not sure if I should do this. I didn't tell my mother I was coming. I didn't want to let her down if I wasn't able to show up. I didn't want to lie to her and make her feel like me not being able to come was her fault. Everything within me from what happened with Chase and Clayton still sits dense like cement in my chest, unmoving, and hardening everything in its wake.
My heart wants to break even more then it already has. My eyes are still puffy from all the tears I've cried in the last few days. After falling apart in Grayson's car she helped me pick up the pieces. She decided we needed to up the road trip, and we left that day to hit the open road. To air everything out, to sing loudly, to heal, and ultimately to grow.
As soon as we arrived back in Illinois we ventured home to the city, and I spent the days in my room trying to slowly piece together my life. After all the lies, the hate, and the inevitable heartbreak that feels as if it was written in the stars.
Because as much as I hurt and ache from what went down, it has also taught me to much. It shed a light on the side of me that lived in the shadows forever lost. Because in the light I can see so much more for myself. I want to be happy. I want to be whole. I want more for my life then what I was living before. So I decided in a split second decision to drive home. It's less then a two-hour drive, but a drive I haven't made in a long time. Too long.
Memories assault me as I sit in my car and stare out upon the home that shapes me. When I was younger my mother used to wake up early every new years day to make this big breakfast for us. Even with just the three of us she would make enough food to feed an army. We would have fresh fruit and casseroles and croissants for days. I can still remember how delicious it all tasted. Remember how waking up to the smell of her homemade pastries and her off key singing made me smile.
I wonder if she still does that? Cook all that food for just her? Sing old hymns her parent's taught her?
My car door clicks at the sound of me opening it as I pull my purse onto my shoulder. I slowly make my way to the front door. My blood rushes so loudly as it pounds in my ears. My feet feel heavy like weights as they move towards my past. A place I promised myself I would never go back to, but here I am coming back. Trying to grow, trying to understand.
I raise my shaking hand and press the doorbell. The memorable bells sing to a simple tune. My heart races as I hear a voice, a few footsteps, and then the soft creaking as the front door opens.
