January - Epilogue

Taking a look at everyone now that a new year begins.

January

Epilogue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a month since Jace and Greg started sending Alli to therapy with Doctor Saunders. At first, she wouldn’t talk much with him, or her parents for that matter.  After she finally gave in and admitted she needed help in late November after what could have been a total mental breakdown, she became much quieter and more reserved.  No one can tell if she’s miserable or taking time to heal.  But all Alli can think about is the day when she can say that she is better and that everything that used to be wrong is now right.

            Today, Jace is taking her to the fifth appointment.

            “Are you ready for another appointment?” She asks, trying to keep her tone upbeat.  Alli can see through it, and since she decided to abandon her chipper alter-ego, she isn’t going to pretend everything is okay.

            She nods, looking out at the window at nothing in particular. Cars speed past, always in a rush to go nowhere.

            “You think Doctor Saunders is helping?”

            She shrugs.

            Jace doesn’t bother trying to start another conversation after that. She just keeps driving, navigating this route for the fifth time, knowing there could be a hundred more. Doctor Saunders said that even if Alli starts to get better and feel more independent from something that still hasn’t been diagnosed, she’ll still need to see him on a weekly basis for a while.  Jace asked him if he thought she was starting to open up yet, and he said things looked promising, but they had a lot more work to do together.

            When they arrive, Jace drives up to the front of the office, and Alli lets herself out.  Before she can shut the door, Jace leans to the right and says, “I love you!”  Alli looks at her mother for a second and smiles as she shuts the car door.  She watches her  daughter walk through the automatic doors of the medical facility in Providence, her frame seeming much smaller lately.  Her once-glowing hair is faded and dead.  She’s hunching over, as if recoiling from the world.

            Jace leave to get groceries.

 

***

 

            Alli’s appointment is an hour long, so Jace usually goes out to get groceries.  She reaches for her grocery list from her jacket pocket as she walks up to the store, and makes sure to grab the Saturday coupon booklet, in case she can use any for her groceries. 

            However, as soon as she enters the market, she spots a familiar figure: Caroline. She immediately carts over to her surrogate daughter, who is examining the green peppers.  Before Jace can say anything, Caroline looks up and takes a second to realize who is standing next to her.  Her eyes go from confusion to understanding to hesitation.

            “H-hi, Mrs. Miller,” she says, dropping the pepper back into it’s compartment.  She did not consider the fact that she could run into any part of Alli’s family at the grocery store. Which she realizes, in retrospect, was rather silly of her.

            “Caroline!” Jace exclaims, and pulls her in for a hug, “It’s so lovely to see you!”

            “You, too,” she gives Alli’s mother a broad smile, but neither party fully believes it. 

            “I haven’t seen you around lately,” Jace lowers her voice, “How have you been?” Although all she wants right now is for those girls to be friends again, she still cares about Caroline separately from Alli.

            Caroline’s shoulders tense, but she doesn’t say anything at first.  She’s not exactly sure how to respond.  She hasn’t been exactly well the past few months.  She lost her best friend, and that is enough to make someone feel pretty awful for a long, long time.

            “I don’t know what happened between you girls,” Jace continues, “But I want you to know that you are welcome at our house anytime.”  It’s true that Jace does not, in fact, know what happened between the two best friends.  All she could figure out through context clues was Alli did something worth feeling guilty about and Caroline has yet to forgive her.

            Caroline looks from left to right, as if looking for someone to swoop in and save her from this conversation, but Jace is not willing to let her go so easily.

            “Mrs. Miller, I know Alli hasn’t been herself lately,” Caroline says, giving in to the fact that she has to talk to Mrs. Miller, “But she hurt me really bad. I don’t want to cut her out of my life, but I need time. Does that make sense?”

            Jace nods. “I appreciate your honesty, Caroline,” she says truthfully, “I’m so sorry something happened between the two of you, and I’m sorry you’re so hurt.”

            “Thank you, Mrs. Miller,” Caroline gives a small smile, both appreciative of Mrs. Miller being understanding, but also ready for the conversation to be over.

            Jace gives Caroline another hug, then goes on her way, a sense of melancholy hanging over her head.

***

            Greg is sitting at home, his laptop to his side as he sits on the couch.  Instead, he has an old photo album on his lap, carefully looking through them.  He hasn’t had time to look at this album in a very, very long time, and pictures that used to make him smile leave him feeling hollow instead.  There’s a picture of Heather with cake all over her face on her third birthday, and Alli reaching out to wipe the frosting off for herself.  There’s another one of Alli wearing a green shirt with a daisy on it and khakis for her first day of second grade.

            He remembers once looking at these pictures and laughing, smiling, feeling like a proud parent. But now he can only blink back tears as he looks at his daughters before they drifted away from him �" before they grew up. 

            “I could have done more…” he whispers to himself as he flips through page after page of his beloved daughters growing up.

            He thinks back to all the times Jace asked him to help out with discipline, and all the times he didn’t listen to her.  He wonders if Alli would have been safer and happier if he had been in her life as more of a parental figure instead of a friend.  Had he failed as a parent?  He can already feel Heather drifting away from him and spending more time with her friends.  Of course he’s happy for her, but he also doesn’t want to lose her completely.

            But then again, he ponders if his greediness is another problem.

            After a few more minutes, he realizes he can’t take looking at the album anymore.  The sadness and worthlessness is building up like a black hole in his heart.  He slams the book shut and replaces it on the shelf it came from.

            I need to give her more. Which “she” he was thinking of is beside the point.

 

***

            Heather is exhausted but full of adrenaline. Soccer practice for the varsity team is a lot more intense than the ones for her middle school team.  However, she can’t imagine having practiced any other way.  She even sort of likes it when her coach yells at her to do better, rather than giving a slight pat on the back and a “good job!”  It’s much more effective when she’s getting yelled at.

            “Ten minute break, girls!” Coach Simpson bellows from the sidelines inside the gym.  Heather is thankful for the break and brushes a piece of sweaty brown hair from her forehead.

            “Looking great out there, Heather,” a new friend, Anne-Marie, says as she nudges Heather with her shoulder.

            “Thanks,” Heather grins as she unscrews the top of her water bottle.  The first few splashes are for her face, but the rest are for hydration.

            “What are you up to after school?” Anne-Marie asks.

            “Um…” Heather thinks about it, “Nothing. Why?”

            “Maybe we should hang out outside of practice for once,” Anne-Marie suggests.  It’s true, Heather and Anne-Marie are great friends during soccer, but outside of that they very rarely hang out.  Heather spends most of her time outside of school with Naomi, but has been thinking about spending more time with other people.

            Heather laughs and nods. “Sure! My place?”

            “Works for me,” Anne-Marie smiles, “But should you call your parents?”

            “Ugh. Yeah.”

            Heather takes out her phone and calls her mother.  After a few rings, Jace picks up. 

            “Hey, Mom! Could my friend Anne-Marie come over after practice?”

            “Oh, sure,” Jace responds, “But please be mindful of your sister.”

            “Ugh, I’m tired of tiptoeing around her,” Heather sighs, exasperated already.

            “Heather!”

            “What? We’ll just go out, then.”

            “Fine, but be back by nine.”

            “Will do.” Heather hangs up, and Anne-Marie squeals with excitement.

            “Okay, so where are we going to go?” she asks right before Coach Simpson tells her team that break is over.

            “We’ll figure it out later,” Heather smiles, and puts her phone back into her gym bag.  For a moment, she feels a sense of regret.  She shouldn’t have said that about her sister.  Of course she feels as though she’s constantly walking on eggshells around her, but she still loves the girl.  She just also doesn’t understand her and she gets fed up with it every once in a while.

            “Miller! Get your butt over here!” Coach Simpson shouts, and Heather quickly leaves thoughts of her sister on the sidelines.

 

***

 

            “Adam, you’ve been so distant lately,” Megan whines as she tries to hold Adam’s hand, but he’s not paying enough attention.

            “Sorry, babe, what was that?” he asks half-heartedly.

            “That’s exactly what I mean!” she whines even louder, and suddenly all Adam wants to do is kiss her to shut her up. So he does.

            “See? Not distant,” he clarifies. 

            Megan’s bed is nothing like Alli’s.  Firstly, it’s like she’s sleeping on springs with no mattress.  Secondly, the sheets are neon green, which is just an awful color for a bed. Or anything.

            Nevertheless, Adam finds himself on top of Megan, kissing her on those horrendous neon sheets, wondering why he’s even spending time with this girl.  When she’s not being whiney or complaining about everything, she can actually be kind of cool. But he knows he misses Alli.  He misses her kiss, her touch, her smile, her way of making him laugh with a single sentence.  He even misses her crazy outbursts of anger, because at least that gave them something to talk about.

            One thing Megan and Alli have in common, though, is reaching for his belt pretty quickly.  Before he knows it, Megan’s head is in his crotch. 

            “Alli…” he moans before he can catch himself.

            Megan stops abruptly and snaps her head up to look at him. “What did you just call me?”

            But all Adam can respond with is: “F**k.”

 

***

 

            Caroline is sitting in her room looking at her email on an expensive laptop her parents bought her to keep her out of their hair.  She has a blank email composition up, and she has no idea what to write.  After her run in with Jace today, she began to wonder if she should send Alli an email of encouragement, or something.  She’s tried several ways of saying it, but she keeps deleting every idea.

            Dear Alli,

            I’m not ready to talk yet, but I just want to let you know that I’m thinking of you.

            No. Too dramatic and cheesy.

            Hey Alli!

            How goes therapy?

            Way too cheery and upbeat.  Caroline doesn’t want Alli to think they are going back to being friends just yet.  But at the same time, she wants to seem friendly.  What a tough middle ground.

            Alli:

            I ran into your mom today and she said that you’re getting help. Good.

            That one is definitely too mean-sounding.  She definitely doesn’t want to come off that way.  Though, sometimes she still has nightmares of Alli crawling all over her.  Sometimes she still feels so angry and hurt and wants to send a super mean email to make sure Alli understands the pain she caused.  But that would involve making contact, which Caroline promised herself she wouldn’t do until she was really ready to talk about what happened.  She is currently not yet at that point.

            “I can’t do this,” Caroline mumbles to herself and forcefully shuts her laptop.

 

***

 

 

            Jace is driving back to pick her daughter up.  She’s a couple minutes late, so she figures Alli is probably waiting outside.  Although she is happy she ran into Caroline, she is also saddened by the potential deadness of the friendship between the two girls.  She’s known Caroline since the girl was five years old.  Her parents were two notches above neglectful, and the young girl spent a lot of time at the Miller residence.  It’s a shame to see her go.

            She’s also been thinking about whether or not Alli is ready to go to college.  She’s applied to three, and will be hearing back from them in a few months.  Alli specifically chose three because of what Caroline suggested.  One school was Brown, so she’d be really close to home. But if Jace were to be completely honest with herself, she’s worried that her daughter’s sharp turn downwards with regards to grades will greatly affect the chances of her acceptance.  Even Greg has said that the secret GPA cut-off is 3.7.  The other two aren’t terribly close, and neither parent is sure she’s going to be emotionally fit to be on her own starting in September.  Both parents decided that is something for Dr. Saunders to help figure out.

            As Jace pulls up, she sees Alli sitting on the curb waiting.

            “So, how was it?” She asks after she pulls up and her daughter gets in the front seat.

            She shrugs.

            “Was it helpful?”

            She hesitates a moment, then nods, looking out the window.  Truthfully, yes, it had been a rather good session.  For the first time, Alli spoke for a good portion of the hour, instead of vaguely nodding every once in a while.  But, again, she is not one to get her own hopes up, let alone her mother’s, so she stays quiet.

            “Oh, good!” As far as Mrs. Miller is concerned, that’s the first relatively positive thing the sullen teen had to say about the whole process so far.

            Silence for a few minutes.

            “Do you think this is going to work for you?”

            Alli’s head is turned towards the window again, avoiding her mother’s eyes and question.  She let’s the silence go on long enough so that Jace will drop it, but then thinks better of it and turns her head.  They’re at a stoplight, so Mrs. Miller can look to her eldest and see she’s smiling weakly.

            “I’ll be fine, Mom.” At this point in time, Alli is very unsure if this is true, but there was something she did pick up from being fake Alli: sometimes, it’s better to give people what they want to hear, rather than what they already know deep down.