I Hate Myself Without You

I never thought I would say that I was glad to be back in Salmo. As soon as we hit Castlegar, I started to feel excited. Josh could see that I was. I hadn't see my parents, or my hometown in 2 years. Salmo had always been the place that stressed me out the most, however, for some reason, I always missed it and wanted to go back.

My parents still lived in the same house; they couldn't bring themselves to move. I could understand why. It's the place that they built themselves (well, my dad designed it, a company built it), the place where their children mostly grew up. It was also the place where Airin and I found the loves of our lives. No one could really take that away from us.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled up in my old dirt driveway. I noticed the grass was growing at a wild height at the side of the house, much like it always did. The front lawn, however, was neatly trimmed and had multicoloured flowers lining the walk way. Not once had I ever seen my mom outside gardening. Each house I lived in, always had flowers growing. My mom, who was a lovely woman, was a city girl; she hated doing anything the involved dirt. Dad, however, grew up in a farming part of England. He loved dirt and mud, much like me. Which, adds another point to how much of a daddy's girl I was. Airin was definitely a momma's boy, because he didn't care for mud, or dirt.

I killed the engine and turned to Josh. He leaned over in his seat and gave me a quick kiss. “Welcome home,” he smiled at me, unbuckling himself. I unbuckled myself and got out of the car, getting Finley from the backseat. I set him on the ground and took his hand. Josh was already standing at the front door, knocking on the aged wood. Finley was tugging me along, complaining that I wasn't walking fast enough. Once we got on the door step, the door swung open, revealing my small mother. I was built much like her, petite. My moms naturally black hair was showing signs of greying, and he once smooth face was wrinkling, but she still looked lovely. She wrapped her arms around me.

My mom didn't say anything for the longest time. She just held me. I think she had been wishing to do that since Jazz's passing. Airin and Marque had gone to see mom, and Marque's dad Chris, and Airin told me all that mom did was hug him for the first few minutes he was home. When my mom finally let go of me, she smiled. “I missed you Josline,” She said.

“And what about me?” Josh smirked. Mom flung her arms around Josh.

“Of course I missed you Josh!” Mom smiled. Finley tugged on mom's pant leg. She looked down and picked him up.

“Oh, you've gotten so big!” Mom exclaimed. Finley wrapped his little arms around her neck. She turned back to me. “How was the drive here?” She asked, letting us inside. The interior of the house hadn't changed much, aside from there being less clutter from Airin and myself. Josh still seemed overwhelmed whenever he walked into the house.

“It was good. Didn't make many stops, except to get gas, or to let Finley run around for a few minutes,” I said. “Josh slept most of the way,” I nudged him in the side.

“So did you!” Josh commented back. “I wouldn't have fallen asleep if I didn't have to get up at balls a.m..”

“I didn't want to get here at 12 at night!” I retorted. Mom chuckled at the two of us. I sat myself down onto a couch in the living room.

“I thought I heard your bickering,” my dad's voice sounded from behind me. I turned my head to see my greying father. His hair was more grey than moms, but he still had a young look to his face. I got off the couch and wrapped my arms around my dad.

“It's not bickering, it's discussing loudly,” I said into his chest. I felt the rumbled of laughter in his chest, and that made me smile. I let go of him, and dad exchanged a hug with Josh.

It really was great to be home.

We had been there a few days, and I was already starting to feel better. My had changed my old room into a storage room. I was looking through it, and found a lot of old things of mine, including photo's, and old clothes I didn't want anymore. One of the photo's was a grad picture, of me and Marque. We promised we'd be each others grad dates at our graduations. The best picture I found was an old one, that I swore I burned many years ago. It was my class picture from when I lived in Vancouver. I leaned against a wall and just laughed at it, and how ridiculous everyone looked, including Josh. It still stumped me how I was with the guy who used to pick on me. I don't even remember why he started calling me names, but that was in the past.

I had become extremely bored when Josh was sleeping, at 2 in the afternoon, and my parents had taken Finley to see Chris for a little while. TV had become a daily thing for me, and I was trying to break that habit. I went into the kitchen to get myself a snack. I leaned against the counter, taking a bite of apple. I looked across from me, and the door leading into the basement was there. I put the apple back in my teeth and held it there while I walked to the door. I twisted the creaky handle and pushed the door open. I looked down the stairs. They were the same creaky, steep stairs I remembered. I carefully walked down the stairs, keeping the apple in my mouth, and my hands on the walls beside me. I managed to get down to the bottom step, and I opened the other door that was blocking me from the basement. I swung open the door, and to my surprise, it was the only room in the whole house that had been changed. It was turned into a living room/family area. The walls had been painted a caramel brown colour; the old puke-purple chairs (as Airin described them) had been moved out, and were replaced with elegant, white looking ones. My mom always had to have a touch of elegance to every room. Even Airin's bedroom did...if you could find the elegance in there. There was one, long black couch pushed against a wall, where my drum set used to be. I frowned at how much it had been changed around. The one thing that hadn't changed was the white, baby grand piano of mine that I couldn't take with me. I walked over to it and sat down on the piano bench. It had been so long since I actually played it. Since my car accident, I had been pushing myself to relearn everything I knew on piano. I still hadn't gotten everything down, and I wasn't as clean with the notes as I once was, but I was still trying. I brushed my fingers lightly over the keys, and pressed an “A” key. The sound rang out and I smiled. I pressed a few more keys before finally playing a song. It was a song I had composed a good 3 years before hand, but I had never written any words to it. I just never had the time to write any lyrics to it. If I put my mind to it, it probably would have been one of Ellaries Dollhouse's biggest hit.

I lifted my hands from the piano when I heard the door creak behind me. I turned around on the bench to face Josh, who seemed to of just rolled out of bed. “Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?” I asked.

“No, I rolled over and found you weren't there,” Josh said. “Then, I realized that it was 2 in the afternoon, and you had probably been up since 8.” I smiled at him. Josh yawned; I knew he hadn't been getting much sleep, due to the stress of trying to prepare for another tour for Marianas Trenches new album. They were touring with Carly Rae Jepsen, who I had met once before and The New Cities, a personal favourite of mine. Josh had asked if Ellaries Dollhouse would want to go on the tour with them. We ended up declining because we wanted to focus on our new album. “What were you playing?”

“I don't really know what I was playing,” I said. “It was a song I composed a while ago. It doesn't have any lyrics.” I turned back around and stared blankly at the keys. Joshes arms snaked around my waist, and he rested his head on my shoulder.

“I think you just need a little nudge to get you going,” Josh said.

“I don't know what that nudge is though,” I said. Josh kissed the side of my neck.

“You'll figure it out.