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“I somehow doubt we’ll ever be the same. There’s too much poison and confusion on your face…” ---Goo Goo Dolls, Hate This Place
Mom closed the door behind us and I sat down on one of the tiny couches in the corner. I could see her eyes scan the room for my backpack, but I know she was trying to be inconspicuous about it. Upon seeing it on the pile with the others, she turned and faced me, a very unconfident look on her face. It looked a little sad too. I wonder why. She was wringing her hands and avoiding my eyes. I got that habit from her.
“Mom?”
I said finally and she looked at me, her eyes nervous. She took a deep breath.
“Jessie-,”
she started, but then stopped and started again.
“Baby,
your father and I have been talking and we know you’re unhappy here, and we
know you’d rather be back with your aunt, so…we’ve decided that it’s all right
if you want to go back. It’s your choice. This-,”-she gestured around the room
with her hands-“may not be the kind of life you want and we understand that, so
if you want to go back to Arkansas, you can.” She let out a deep breath after
her speech and looked at my face to try and see what I was feeling.
I
know why she looked sad now.
I
think that maybe my mouth was hanging open. Maybe not. I don’t know. But my
mind was racing a mile a minute. Have you ever been in a situation where
somebody tells you you can do something or somebody asks you a question and you
can’t say no and you can’t say yes?
This
is one of those situations.
I
have a life there. It’s on hold there, waiting for me to come back and live it.
I have Adriann and Lucile and Elizabeth and Marie and everyone else there. And
of course there’s Aunt Kate and Uncle Tom.
I
have a life here. I live on the road. With my family. All my brothers and
sisters and my mom and dad. But here, I’m left out a lot. Here, I don’t always
have a choice. But here I have my family.
Oh
dear God, what was I going to say?
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Zac’s POV.
I could faintly hear Isaac and Taylor talking to the crowd through my cloud of thought. I knew I should be saying something. But what? I didn’t even know what they were talking about.
Where
had Jessie been all day? What had she been doing? Had she been thinking about
running away? About never coming back? Why had she left and worried us all that
day? Why had she ever left in the first place?
I
heard the intro to a song. I knew I should be playing something. Ike and Tay
were giving me looks out of the corners of their eyes. I quickly reoriented
myself and began the intro to Soldier but I could feel their eyes on me every
once and a while after that. I tried to
block out all thoughts except those of the concert. I had to concentrate on
this now.
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Back to Jessica.
Mom was looking at me, waiting anxiously for an answer. I didn’t know what to tell her. I searched my brain and finally came up with something:
“I
don’t know what to say.”
It
was only the truth.
I
looked down at my hands. The two options bounced back and forth in my mind like
two of those rubber, plastic bouncy balls.
“Well…honey,”
Mom said, sitting down next to me and putting her arm around me. “You have a
choice. And you take your time. You don’t have to decide right now.”
I
looked up at her.
“Are
you sure?”
She
nodded emphatically.
“Okay…”
I said, trailing off into silence.
“Well,”
she said at last, “I better get back out there. I left Zoë with your father.”
She smiled good-humoredly. I did my best to smile back, and as I did, an idea
popped into my head.
“Mom?”
I asked when she was almost out the door.
“Yes,
sweetie?” she asked, turning around, her long blonde hair swirling around her.
I wish my hair was like that.
“Can
I come?”
She
looked a little stunned. I had always sat in the sound booth with her and
whoever else was down there before, but I knew that she hadn’t expected the
question.
I
hadn’t either.
“Well,
sure, I guess…” she said. She seemed a little unsure at the time, but then she
smiled. I smiled. A real, genuine smile. I switched the lights off and followed
her out into the screaming crowds.
We
both knew I had made my decision.
But
that didn’t mean that it was over.