A Mess of Things

Chapter One

     I felt my phone buzzing uncontrollably in my jeans pocket. I knew it had to be sometime after midnight, because my mother had told me to be home by 11:30pm. Thing was, I didn't want to be home by then. In fact, I didn't want to be home at all, ever again. Not with her.

     My mother decided two and a half weeks ago that our time in this town of Winston, Pennsylvania had expired. She made this decision on her own, excluding myself and my three brothers and two sisters. She tried to tell us it was for work-related reasons, but we all knew it was because dad had left her only six weeks prior to her making this decision. It didn't occur to her how obvious it was, but we all knew.

     Dad completely took off on us, after seeing another woman for almost an entire year while still being married to my mother. When mom found out, she took the betrayal very harsh. She fell into a depression that made her completely bed-ridden, almost costing her her job. Somehow she kept it though, after my oldest brother Steven stepped in and forced mom back into reality. Steven and I didn't have any contact with our father. We still hadn't forgiven him for what he'd done. On the other hand, Fauna, Lilith, Brady, and Zander have all made amends with dad.

     I couldn't really say much about that, Steven and I took care of mom on our own with no help from them or anyone else. Lilith and Brady I certainly couldn't blame. They were both under the age of thirteen and didn't have a clue about the world. They didn't understand what a horrible thing our father did to our mother, and they certainly still wanted a father in their lives at that age. Fauna and Zander though, I had hoped would riddle him off. They were sixteen and seventeen years old - old enough to know better - in my opinion. I had just turned 19 in July, and today was August 18th. Steven was already twenty one.

     Steven didn't really care about moving out of Winston. He didn't have any friends here, and was already fixing to move out on his own in a few months. I felt differently, though. My whole life I've lived in Winston. All of my friends lived here, and every good memory other than my dad took place here.

     I spent a lot of my time outdoors, Winston was such a beautiful town. The center of town had dozens of shops and restaurants, some even sitting along the river that passed through. All of the bridges that went across the Sandusky river were huge pieces of art, made from cobblestone. It reminded me of castles you'd see in movies that were made of the dark grey cobblestone; historic and works of art. There was one bridge in particular that sort of became my hanging spot over the years. It was smaller than the other bridges, and it was more upstream from the wider part of the Sandusky. It was also closest to my home, a straight shot through the forest.

     Past the bridges was nothing but a dense forest. The closest home from any bridge was no less than a fifteen minute car drive. After that, it was house after house, after house. Then, more forest. The trees were beautiful around this time of year, autumn approaching of course had all of the leaves changing colors.

     I continued to sit on my wooden stool underneath Little Bridge while my phone buzzed away in my jeans pocket. I had no intentions of answering it. What anyone might wonder is, why not just find a place in Winston so I wouldn't have to go with my mother, right? I may have been nineteen, but I was not ready for that yet. I didn't even have a job, and I seriously doubted that my birthday and Christmas money would be enough to cover food and rent for more than a month. I guessed if nothing else, maybe I'd get a job in this new town and save up enough money to come back to Winston. I didn't have to live with my family forever.

     Probably the best thing about Winston, was that it was a very low-profile town. Nothing bad ever happened in Winston. Everybody knew pretty much everybody that lives here, which was also another reason I believe mom wanted to move. Dads office building was connected to the one she worked at. That's where dad met the other woman. He had transferred from moms building to hers and I guessed that was when it all started.