Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

Bailey's POV

“Would you like another waffle, Sweat Pea?” my dad asked from his place at the stove. I nodded and shoved the last bit of waffle in my mouth. Jade sat beside me at the table, swirling her soggy waffle in a pile of sticky syrup.

I had to admit, having breakfast made for me every morning was a big change. Even having a grown up home was an adjustment from Clara’s house. Everything that seemed foreign at Clara’s had become to my liking and now returning to what I was accustomed to was challenging. The raw pop tarts and echoing halls on Friday nights were definitely missing from my house.

When my parents came home from their two month cruise in the Bahamas, it was definitely a surprise for them to see their long lost daughters. I thought it would be awkward to return to them after all this time, but they didn’t waste any time pulling us in to them. From there on forwards, everything has gone back to normal. Whatever normal was.

“Honey, your friends are at the door for you.”

I looked at my mom who was smiling at me. She was happy and surprised as well to see me happy, talking and joking softly with everyone. The last time she saw me was the day I left for Maryland. I was sad, moody and the only one I wanted to talk to was Jade or Sam. She loved seeing me back to being my timid and giggly self and my friends coming over for the third time since my arrival was a good thing for me.

I never really fit anywhere my whole life. The only time I felt I had found the spot I belonged was when I was with Jade and Sam. I got along with my friends fine but I never felt like I couldn’t live without their existence like my siblings.

I heard my return from Lutherville was the talk of the school the day before Christmas break. “The Bates are back” “The Bates?” “You know, the ones whose brother died?” That’s what everyone said. My group of girls on the other hand rushed to me, asking me how I was doing, giving me sympathetic head tilts still and reminding me why I left Essex in the first place.

Knowing I wouldn’t have much time before my friends let themselves in, I scooted out of my chair and ran to the door.

“Hey guys,” I greeted softly.

“Morning Bailey!” Morgan said cheery. I smiled at her and the other two.

“Well are you going to let us in?” Courtney said, a smile poking through.

“Umm, yeah…” I swung the door open and allowed them to walk past me. I heard my mom yell a greeting to the girls from the kitchen and they muttered one politely back.

“So are you ready to go?” Kayla asked with underlying attitude and looking me up and down as she did. I looked down at my fuzzy socks, baggy sweatpants and sweatshirt. Kayla always had a way of judging people with her eyes and making them second-guess their every move. She had a prissy attitude and was the biggest wannabe I had ever met in my life.

“Where are we going?”

“Shopping!” Courtney blurted. She was always loud. Her obnoxious personality drove me insane sometimes, but she was also the sweetest. She stood at five feet, one inch and even though her size was atypical her abrupt outbursts were her best asset.

“For what?” I wasn’t used to going out so early let alone go out on weekends. My friends always had somewhere they had to go or see. They never could just hang with one another like I had been doing for the past months with my friends in Maryland.

“Dresses for the winter dance. Duh.” I looked over at Kayla confused. “Morgan must not have told you,” Kayla said, rolling her eyes at Morgan causing Morgan to stick her tongue out at the back at Kayla’s head.

“The winter dance is more than two months away!” I exclaimed.

“Actually it’s two months exactly.” I gave Courtney a look saying that was irrelevant and she should stop.

“Besides!” Kayla clapped her hands, “I need to start the search for my perfect dress. No one, I repeat, no one, will have the same dress as me or even close to it.

“That’s ridiculous,” I spat out incredulously and critically. All the girls’ eyes widened at the tone of my voice.

“Wow Bailey, calm down,” Courtney laughed. Usually I was the quiet, afraid to speak up and exert my opinion kind of girl so none of them had seen me actually say what I was thinking. Most of the times I would just shrug my shoulders and follow them, not really caring but I felt different now.

“Whatever,” Kayla said dryly, still a little surprised. “I’m still going.”

“Do you even have a date?” Courtney turned to Kayla and smiled smugly.

Kayla rolled her eyes and scoffed. “No. But I’ll get one.”

“Who are you going with?” I pointed my question at Courtney and Morgan, who had been listening quietly in the corner.

“I think a guy from math class is going to ask me!” The loud one said overjoyed.

“Mark,” Morgan smiled, talking about her boyfriend for the past three years. “Bailey, who are you going to go with?”

I hesitated and shrunk back a little from the question. I hadn’t been to school here in almost five months and I couldn’t even remember half of the people’s faces. One face randomly came to mind and stood out to me, but I pushed it away and shrugged.

“Eh.”

“No boys here?” Morgan asked, a smile crept to her face as she thought. “Any boys in Maryland catch your heart?”

I smiled with her and I felt my cheeks start to blush. I hesitated and the smiling face pushed its way to the front of my brain again.

“There is!” Morgan clapped. “Tell us about him!”

“Well, there’s not just one. I met some really cool people there and they--”

“Can we talk about people we actually know?” Kayla said bored, downing my excitement. I looked at Morgan and raised my eyebrows in surprise. She shrugged and mouthed “later” to me.

“Can I use your bathroom before we go?” Courtney asked. I nodded and she flicked off her shoes and started to run up the stairs. She stopped abruptly on the fifth stair and spun around to look back with a puzzled and contemplating face on. “Is it okay that I use this bathroom?” she asked, pointing to the upstairs door.

“Yeah? You’ve used it before?” I said confused.

“Well yeah, but, I wasn’t sure if you wanted people to use it because…well you know…what happened…”

I didn’t understand what Courtney was talking about but I stood there looking at for a moment trying to make sense of what she was getting at. Finally the guy that was always in the back of my mind popped up.

It was starting. The girls would always bring up Sam, wincing whenever they said anything close to the subject of suicide, blood, brothers or bathrooms.

“Yes, Courtney. Go,” I said, a little annoyed. That was definitely one thing I never got in Lutherville and I hated to see it return. I missed the people I met in Maryland. The people that actually made me laugh so juice would spray out of noise and give my stomach a workout and make my eyes water from my giggles.

I had ignored all the calls and texts so far. Opening and reading them, but only rarely pushing the reply button. I just didn’t know what to say, so I would tuck my phone away and pushed their begging words out of my head.

“Um, I’ll go throw on some jeans before we go,” I muttered, my mood suddenly down.

“Bailey,” Morgan said sympathetically. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to bring it up…”

I shook my head at them skeptically. “It’s not that.” How could they not see I have changed? Couldn’t see I was happier? That my eyes weren’t puffy? I was different and they didn’t need to walk on glass around me. I accepted my past and the people that understood that weren’t even here.

I ran up the stairs to change and the whole time I thought about Lutherville.

==========

I was woken by music that was floating through my floor boards from below. It wasn’t Jade’s iPod that I was used to hearing, but rather melodies that made me nostalgic of my childhood. Soft bops and jazz were playing downstairs and that only meant my mom was doing her house cleaning.

I continued to lie in bed and listen to the swinging music, thinking about memories. I always lay in bed Saturday mornings and listened to what was going on or looked out my window or thought about the questions that were prodding me, but this felt different.

For starters, there was movement in the house and cleaning going on, but that wasn’t why it had an odd sentiment. It was more of what wasn’t there. There wasn’t the sound of water on the other side of my wall and Clara wasn’t in there talking to herself and boosting her self esteem and Jade wasn’t singing shitty choruses. I couldn’t hear anything through my walls here. The smell of breakfast actually being cooked also wasn’t expected and the feeling of loneliness, even though I was surrounded by more people than I was in Lutherville, never felt larger.

I finally decided to get out of bed and out of habit I checked my phone for the time and any new calls or messages. No missed calls, which was a first. The first couple of days back home, I received so many calls that I got fed up and turned my phone off. Eventually the calls dwindled and the voicemails stopped as well but I still got plenty of texts. I figured it would be easier to just cut all of my friends from Lutherville off immediately; it would be the less painful way, to just forget about them. No matter how hard I tried though, I couldn’t resist texting back a couple times.

Jack never really kept a conversation. He mostly sent me random text messages saying “Take off your pants and jacket” or “woo bop a doo!” nothing too important, but it always kept me entertained. Kaylie texted me the most out of the group, wondering how I was doing and asking if there was anything she could do. I always had the same answer, no, and the conversations died pretty quickly.

Today though, I got my first text from Zack. He gave up calling me after the first two days and I hadn’t heard anything since.

I’m sorry i yelled at you. i feel horrible. please come back?

I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I didn’t leave because he yelled at me. I left because of so many different reasons that it was hard for me to even think about. I slammed my phone down on my bed, suddenly angry. I wasn’t sure if it was because of Zach, but mostly I think it was because I was so damn confused. I didn’t know what I was doing or feeling.

But I had more things to do than contemplate what Zack meant by his text and why I was even here in the first place. Jade wanted to be here and I wanted to be with Jade. Believe it or not, I was back in Essex to stay.