XPLR | Colby Brock

~106~

My birthday is in three weeks. I'm turning twenty years old.

It feels weird, becoming a full adult. If nineteen counts at all, I'm only going to be a teenager for a few more weeks.

When my mother was twenty, she already had a two-year-old daughter. And she was couching hopping. If she hadn't had me, she probably would've been at Juilliard. So at least I can live this for her.

My mother has been on my mind for a few hours now. Less than four hours to go, now. Until I faced my past.

I haven't called it that, and I won't.

That makes it all to serious. I can't handle it if I think too much about it.

I turned the radio up a bit, and I looked out at the coast as I drove down it. It's beautiful. Not like I remember. The last time I saw Oregon, I was running from something. This time, I'm returning. Just for a little while.

I would say I'm running towards something, but I'm not.

New York City. Momma, you would be so proud of me.

She is.

I stopped along the coast. I stripped off my shoes and got out, walking through the sand towards the beach. I was wearing shorts, even though it's pretty cold, I want to see it. I won't get to for a long time.

Though, I can't see a reason why I'd ever come back Oregon after I leave for the second time.

The nights are hard. When I'm laying alone in my bed, or my backseat when I take a break from driving, or I'm just driving alone on a high way and the car I've been following for hours finally takes its exit- I get sad.

This is much harder than I had ever anticipated. I love Colby. I love him so much, and my mind is screaming to get a grip unless I'm dying to cry my heart out, but my heart is telling me to call him. To call him and turn home, and crawl back into his bed with him and sleep. But the thought of his bed only brings forth the image of him and Elena. And that always breaks me out of my sad spells.

But it's only a moment before something else reminds me of him, and I start the cycle all over again.

Truthfully, the one thing that can keep me from thinking about Colby, is Logan. Not even piano can, because when I think of piano I think of my Little Red Riding Hood concert, and what Colby has said to Gerald Brown. Something about knowing that his girlfriend was a one in a million kind of girl.

Now I'm sad again.

"Almost there, huh?" Logan asked. I hadn't really heard what he'd said, and I'm sure he noticed, but the good thing about Logan is that he knows I'm heartbroken. And he knows I'm trying not to show it to him. But he doesn't know how to tell me I can talk to him.

I know it.

Eugene
Pop: 169,916

Feels good to be home.

I still had a bit of a drive, and since it's only about seven pm, a good amount of traffic as well.

"I just made it to Eugene," I told him. Logan grinned, I could hear it in his voice, it went up a little higher, "Awesome. I wish I could've been there to help with the drive, you must be exhausted."

That beckoned a yawn out of me. "I am exhausted. I'll just... find my house and go to bed."

I have the right not to tell Logan why I'm really here, right? It's too soon to tell him my mother commuted suicide five years ago and my father abused me for most of my life, and I'm going to get an apology out of him, right?

Right.

"It's good that you're going somewhere familiar for a little while. They'll get your mind of Colby, I'm sure," he said. Colby's name leaving Logan's mouth sent a chill down my spine.

"Yeah, it'll definitely keep my mind off him for a little while," I said. That's not a lie.

What will I even say to my father? Will he be sober, will he even recognize me? He has to recognize me, I mean, I'm his daughter for Christ's sake. I'm his daughter that he hated. I'm the daughter that ruined his life.

And I'm here to ask for an apology?

What am I doing...

Colby, I wish you hadn't been so stupid. I wish everything could go back to the way it was last week, when we were madly in love with each other, we had an engagement in our future, and we were okay. We were better than okay, we had each other, after all. I didn't need piano, or Elena, or money and fame and everything else in life if I had you, Colby. You were all I needed. You were all I needed.

No. I still need you. I still need you so bad, that I don't know how I'm gonna make it in New York. How will you make it without me? Will my absence change everything for you like it's changed mine?

I'm replaceable. There's a million girls who would've loved to have my position. And one of them will take it.

Colby always thought I didn't know or didn't care that he had all those girl friends, I knew. But I trusted him. He loved me anyway, I never doubted that and I never will. He spent a lot of time with me.

But I could always tell what he was doing when I wasn't around, shooting videos, the usual. It was work. And he never smelt like perfume when he came to get me. Besides mine, of course. Corey used to tease him for it, say Colby was getting soft. "I'm not getting soft," Colby would answer, "I think it's even more manly that I'm able to love someone." And he would kiss me.

Sometimes, I can still feel his lips hot on my cheeks. All over my body.

It was a thoughtless drive, but I could feel my heart rate picking up when I started to recognize the surroundings I grew up in. I recognized the park that I used to play in with my mother and my friends, when I was really little.

And the route I would walk to school.

And then my house.

I seemed like it was frozen in time. Nothing was different. The lawn was cut, as it usually was. My father prided himself on the stereotypical "manly" things a father could do: I.E., cut the grass, barbeque, well, he never really cooked, that was always my job, but he owned all the equipment so he could say that he does.

That feels like so long ago. I'm a new woman now.

I opened my car door, and I wiped my sweaty palms down my shirt as I walked up to the door. My heart was pounding so loud in my ears I couldn't hear anything else. God, this is stupid. I wish Colby were here to hold my hand. If I was doing this with him..-

Stop that, Rose. You can do this. Be confident, and don't let him scare you. You can do this. He owes it to you.

Damn right he does. I walked up to the house, stepping on the porch. I could feel myself wanting to cry, I can feel the panic attack coming on. As it should. Maybe I should see someone for it...

I knocked on the door regardless. My hands went numb, and I put them in my pocket to wait. The door swung open.

I expected to see my father as I remembered him- unshaven, drunk, overweight, but there was an empty space where his head with me. My eyes went down, and I saw a child standing there. One I've never seen before.