Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

Bailey's POV

“What do you mean you’re leaving?!” My father’s voice thundered through the living room. I could almost see the picture frames shift and the crystal clank with the volume of his anger.

I shrunk farther into my skin. I felt so insignificant when he yelled and got irritated. I looked down at my sock clad feet and shuffled around a bit, my suitcase and bags laying inches away, stuffed and ready to go.

“I-I-I’m leaving,” I whispered out. Oh how I wish Jade was here to stand up for me and for both of our feelings.

“And when were you planning on telling us?” my mom asked cynically though her face held distraught.

I tucked my long hair behind my ear and looked them in the eye. “I was going to tell you tonight, after we packed all day, but you got home early.” I looked at the clock that was hanging behind my dad’s head. 2:02. If I just would have moved a little faster, I could have gotten both my sister and my luggage into the car without my parents coming home and seeing we skipped school.

“This is unacceptable.” My dad was staying firm and I didn’t have enough confidence to stand up to him; I was too shy. “You can’t just pick up your bags and leave. It doesn’t work like that!”

I opened my mouth to reply to my dad, but a soft knock on the door interrupted our yelling and brought the tension level down a notch. We all stood still, no one wanting to make a move. The quiet tap sounded again and I reluctantly turned my back to my parents and trudged out of the living room archway into the entryway to open the door.

A face that was not expected was smiling back at me.

“Hey Morgan?”

“Hi Bailey,” she said warmly. I continued to look at her, waiting for a reason of her presence. “Um…I noticed you weren’t at school today, so I thought I’d stop by and go over the calc and English homework with you,” she offered. I smiled; she knew how important school and my grades were to me.

“Sure, yeah, come in.” I swung the door open so she could step in and I took her puffy winter jacket from her and hung it on the railing post.

“Hi Mr. and Mrs. Bates,” Morgan greeted happily and totally oblivious to the strained smiles on our faces. But on the other hand, our family was good at masking our emotions to seem perfect.
I looked at my parent’s faces; they were hiding their irritation but I could still see it in their eyes. Morgan was bent down over her backpack getting her folders and books out and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just shoo Morgan away but I couldn’t ignore my parents no matter how much I wanted to. Unfortunately my parents decided for me.

They looked over at Morgan and then back at me standing awkwardly in the entryway of the house and spoke up, gritting their teeth, “Bailey, we are kind of in the middle of something here.” Morgan immediately looked up, guilty.

“Oh, I-I...” Morgan’s eyes flashed between my mom and dad’s face not knowing what to do. But she didn’t need to anything else because laughter from the girl who speaks for two boomed from outside.

In stepped Jade, with Mandy and Bryan trailing her. They were on the verge of tears as they all laughed, stumbling and struggling to keep their balance as they bent over holding their stomachs. Morgan, my parents and I stared awkwardly until the laughing died and Jade finally took the time to look around and immediately saw the distress that was hidden from my face.

“What’s going on?” she asked slowly, looking to our parents, knowing they had something to do with it.

“Honey, we are having an important conversation,” my mom warned, trying to break it to our friends easily. “And I really think that we should talk in private.”

My dad seemed livid and he couldn’t hold it in anymore, he burst. “You think you can just skip school, decide to move out whenever you feel and ditch the only family you have left?!?!”

All the guests looked surprised at the news. My heart skipped a couple beats and I impulsively took a step back. Jade took two steps forward. “What the hell are you talking about? This isn’t a family! It hasn’t been for almost a year!”

“Watch your language,” my dad said sternly. I knew Jade wanted to roll her eyes, but she held back.

“What I’m saying is…How do you think you know what’s best for us?”

“We are your parents!” my mom said shocked.

“You haven’t acted like it! When did you ever call us when we were at Clara’s? Not even a text. When we got home, you were on a month long cruise!” My dad opened his mouth in protest. “And you don’t even love each other!”

“Jade Elizabeth Bates!” My mom’s face was contorted into a look or horror. “You have no right to talk like that to us. This discussion in over. Your friends can leave and you can go to your room.”

“No mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, no.” There was a long pause where my parents eyed my sister and the rest of us stood off to the side, completely in shock. “The fact of the matter is Bailey and I haven’t felt at home in so long. And when we were at Clara’s? We belonged. You should have seen us there. We were happy.”

Jade walked over to me and grabbed my hand. “Yes, we left you guys, our friends and everything we grew up with here in Essex. And yes, it was very hard. But Lutherville brought back happy times. Sometimes it felt like Sam never left because we were both so happy.”

Our parents looked between the two of us and my mom was the one to speak up, “It’s not that we don’t want you to be happy, but we don’t want to lose you. We’ve already lost one,” she whispered out.

“Don’t you think that’s kind of selfish?” Jade asked calmly. Jade was right. They couldn’t just keep us here because they wanted children around to keep their disastrous marriage together or to not feel as bad because Sam was gone. Of course, just like Jade and I, my parents blamed themselves for Sam’s death. I could imagine losing one son would be heartbreaking, but then the two they had left, left six months later? I’m positive it was rough for them.

Before, we were one happy family. We took trips together over the summer and had family dinners every Sunday and enjoyed laughing and telling about our days with each other. But when Sam died, he took our unity with him.

Our parents didn’t have the energy to get things done and distanced from us and them. We didn’t talk to them that often and my sister and I were forced to lean on each other for support during the dreadful time. But my parent’s marriage is what took the toll the most. It was like their love dwindled every passing day and the tension between the two was foreign. I always thought that would pass though and we’d become one big family again but they only brought Jade and I down with them.

When Jade and I returned, it almost felt like everything was fine, but the feeling that we all had with Sam in the family would never be able to be recreated. But my parents still thought that with their twins back in the house, it would not only restructure the family, but they secretly prayed their marriage would somehow be magically fixed.

But if they made us stay, we wouldn’t be happy. We couldn’t bring back the love in our mom and dad’s relationship.

Being here in this house was hollow memories. And I knew that I couldn’t run from my past forever, but would my parents actually deny me my gladness?

Guilt was being hit back and forth between my parents and me and my sister and it was sad to see that the only way we could settle this was to blame each other for our gloom.

We were all staring at each other hardly and I could tell my parents were thinking everything we said over. I took the time to look behind me at Mandy, Bryan and Morgan. Mandy looked like she was trying to hide a smirk, Brian looked nervous and Morgan was just confused. I wondered if I looked scared shitless. Because I was.

Tension rose as each second passed. I felt Jade squeeze my hand that she was still holding and I lifted the right side of my mouth in a weak smile. I just knew Jade was proud and secretly delighted that she finally stood up to our parents and showed them we knew how fucked up this situation was and I was glad she did it too.

Finally my dad sighed. “I’ll go call Clara.”

==========

“Is the last bag in?”

I slammed the trunk of the car shut and nodded at my sister who was smiling broadly behind me.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving!” Courtney exclaimed, embracing me in a hug. I chuckled and hugged back tightly. I had no idea when I would move back or even see all the people here in Essex again. It was kind of a scary thought; leaving. When I left last time to live with Clara, I thought it would be temporary; to relax and calm down. Now I was leaving without a plan of homecoming.

“I know, it went so quick,” I smiled at Courtney and walked to Kayla to hug her goodbye as well. “I’ll miss you guys.”

“We’ll miss you too,” Kayla said sadly at me.

I walked over to Morgan and squeezed her the hardest. “I’m going to miss you so much,” I whispered into her hair. She murmured a farewell back. I felt a tear brimming in my eye.

Leaving now was so much different than before. When would I ever see them again? Even though I never really had a true group of friends, the girls I talked to here still made an impact on me. They got under my skin and bore me now, but before I moved I sometimes enjoyed their presence or more like me enjoying a presence to be in. Either way, I could tell I had definitely changed.

Morgan pulled away and placed her hands on my shoulders to look me. “Now get outta here, girl.”

I took a last look at my friends and smiled shyly and then looked past them to the house from my spot on the driveway. My parents were standing at the window looking at my sister and me. It was different leaving them on bad terms when last time they encouraged us to go.

I saw my sister giving her last farewell to Bryan and Mandy, who were there to say goodbye to her, and took it as my cue to head over the car. I waved one last time and jumped in the driver’s seat of the car with anticipation.

“To Lutherville?” I asked with enthusiasm when Jade hopped beside me in the passenger seat.

“Lutherville or bust, baby!” she yelled out the window. I took that as a yes and backed out of the driveway and drove off, leaving everything behind.