Illusions That May (Court High 2)

The second the dead battery signal faded away made my life, my phone screen lighting up. Immediately, text messages and missed calls started flooding in, and I hunkered down, trying to stay quiet in the library’s bathroom. It was just about the only place I could go where Ramses didn’t hover, and as he tended to hover everywhere, I had to wait until here and this moment to put good use to my first paycheck. I got the cell phone charger as soon as humanly possible, and after obviously feeding myself, I headed down to one of the local banks to cash my paycheck. I’d been working about a week in the library, and it’d been great for the most part. Albeit boring.

I’d choose that over what I came from.

Dragging my thumb across the lock screen, I studied text messages first, Birdie, Kiki, and Shakira, as well as some from Rosanna and, of course, Aunt Celeste. Dad hadn’t left any text messages, obviously not his bag, but he’d left enough phone calls to fill my voicemail box to the point of suffocation. He’d probably shut my cell phone off by now, but maybe not if he wanted a means to call me.

I put the phone to my ear, not listening to his voicemails but Aunt Celeste’s.

“Please call me,” she said about three weeks ago. “What are you thinking? This isn’t like you, and it’s scaring me.”

I closed my eyes, going to another.

“December Lindquist, you’re putting me through hell right now. Call me. What the hell…”

Her voice had broken up, and before I thought better of it, I called her, hoping to God my dad did shut my cell phone off.

“December? December, thank God!”

He hadn’t shut my phone off, my back sliding down the wall until my butt touched the floor. I closed my eyes. “Hi, Aunt C.”

“‘Hi, Aunt C.,’” she chimed, an exasperated and almost disturbed tone to her voice that gutted me. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, just wanted to relieve her. She sounded anything but, breathing hard into the phone. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

I wasn’t telling her that, staying silent.

“You’re not telling me that,” she concluded, my aunt smart. “But at least tell me if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. I swear, and I haven’t been ignoring you on purpose. My phone died and…”

“Oh, don’t give me that, December Lindquist. You could have called. You could have called instead of leaving your dad a note and me a cell phone message. Christ.”

She didn’t normally talk that way, and though she had worked a lot and I pretty much raised myself growing up, she had been there for me. She cared about me, took me in.

I pressed a palm to my eyes. “I just needed space, okay?”

“You needed space.” Her tone was dry. “What about me? What about your dad? December… he didn’t know what to think.”

This had been the first time in true history my aunt went to bat for my dad—ever—but she was so wrong about what she was saying. My dad didn’t care, not really, and those last words I heard him share with her through a thick wall showed me that. I was an obligation just like I had been to her. He didn’t know what to do with me, something he’d actually said on, of all days, the worst one of my life. I buried my sister that day. He buried a child, and his first thought was to rid himself of another. You’d think he’d learn after losing my mom and sister the value of family.

I squeezed eyes beneath my palm.

“This is something your sister would have done, did do,” Aunt Celeste said, teary. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Please don’t—”

“I’m not,” I emphasized, true tears now. Fuck, I hadn’t managed to cry in weeks. I wiped them away. “I’m safe. I’m doing well. I took a bus out here and I’m fine.”

“Took it where? Honey, let me come and get you or at least send for you. Are you close?”

“No, I’m not, and no, I’m not coming back. At least not now, Aunt C., and don’t push.”

My warning had her silent, a true warning even if I hadn’t meant to threaten. My aunt had about two more seconds of this before the call went stale, and I think she knew that.

“Call your dad and call me every day, or anytime you need something. Do you have money?”

“I do. I got a job.”

“You got a job,” she parroted, her voice dry. “A high school dropout.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I guess I was. My dad had called the school before we left the Midwest for my sister’s service, telling them it’d be a little bit before I came back. Something told me running away hadn’t been what he had in mind when he originally made the call, though.

I dampened my lips. “Goodbye, Aunt C.”