Spreading Roots

There were many things I managed to overcome, ignore, or just simply learn to live with these past few years. When I went to the cemetery, however, my tenacity just seemed to unravel. I became the helpless kid I was nearly six years ago, crying and alone and scared. For the thousandth time I wondered where and why my sister had gone and why my nine year old self didn’t do anything about it.

Grass gripped tightly between my fingers, I tried my hardest not to let the few tears slip as I squinted at the headstone. Goddamnit, why did I have to come here? Why now, after so long dealing without? Couldn’t I live without coming here for my usual breakdown, or was I just as clueless as I was the night it happened?

I thought about Kara but I couldn’t think about what happened. I couldn’t think about how it was my fault—it hurt too much still. Even breaching such a thought had the tears spilling down my cheeks. It didn’t matter so much, I suppose. I was alone in a cemetery sitting in front of my sister’s grave; this was what was supposed to be appropriate. But I still couldn’t help feeling like a wimp.

How good of a sister she was to me. How easy things had been. We were just another normal family. Now we had to deal with Mom slowly losing her mind, my supposed ‘PTSD’ and Frank turning into the jaded, incomplete man he was today.

Most of all, we didn’t have Kara.

She’d been our catalyst, the figurative glue that held our family together. Since she’d been gone, it all went to shit. Mom and Frank knew it as well as I did, but we all just learned to deal.

After all, dealing was much easier than talking about it. Placing the blame. Reliving it.

Dealing was easiest. Maybe not the smartest since my relationship with my mom was unraveling at the seams, but the easiest.

I hated myself for that—blamed myself. I took the cheater’s way out, letting all of this happen from day one. Never once did I speak up, tell anyone how I felt or what I saw. Hell I’d been burden enough, so why bother them anymore? I hastily wiped the tears from my face with a grimace, my nose stuffed as I released a shaky breath. I was cold after the ride here on my bike and I was willing to bet that coupled with the crying, my face was red as a tomato.

A shrill, familiar AC/DC tune exploded from my front pocket. After jumping half a mile and forcing myself to steady my own breathing, I slowly checked the caller ID and heaved a sigh. Speak of the freaking devil and she doth appear, I guess.

“Hello?” Due to years of practice my voice was even and steady; not a trace left of my crying.

“Devon, this is your mother.”

“Thanks for filling me in,” I replied blandly. Today was not a good day to deal with her crap.

A sigh rang through from the other end, causing me to roll my eyes. Couldn’t she try and lighten up for once? Instead her tone was short and I knew just from that little remark I pissed her off. “I need you home for a few minutes. We have some issues to discuss.”

“And what would those ‘issues’ detail, Mother?” I shot back, my tone mockingly matching hers.

“Devon, I am in no mood to deal with your attitude today,” likewise. “Just come home. We need to talk.”

I cursed under my breath. Nothing good could possibly come of this—since when did Marilyn ever want to talk? Ever curious, however, I just had to bite. “Fine, whatever, I’m on my way.”

Just barely waiting for a resounding ‘goodbye’, I shoved my phone back into my pocket and stood on shaky limbs, throwing one last glance at Kara’s headstone before I straggled out of the cemetery and back onto my bike. It was much a longer means of transportation time-wise, but I sure as hell wasn’t keen on asking Mom or Frank for a ride here.

Not allowing my mind to lead me back to the cemetery and the memories that came with it, I wondered why she wanted me over. I hardly heard from her since Dean’s little introduction at the house and she avoided me like the plague. She wouldn’t even let me come over for some clothes while she was there. So why the sudden change of heart?

Part of me hoped that Mom would finally level with me. Tell me why she was acting even weirder than ever, or maybe the reason behind Dean Winchester’s visit. Marilyn had always been secretive, however, so I really didn’t see that one happening.

No, she would probably just ream me out for getting suspended. Talk about how school is important, how I’ll never get anywhere in life without it. I got it, mom. Stay in school. Don’t do drugs. I got it. She was never been satisfied with such a reply even though I was passing all my classes—just scraping by, but passing nonetheless. This was the first time in months that I’d been out of school, so in reality it wasn’t that big a deal. But ‘reality’ wasn’t something that Marilyn was in touch with those days anyway.

It was hard, even trying to remember what life was like before. When I could sleep in my own bed in my own house without reliving my nightmare. When Mom didn’t jump on every little thing I did, when I felt like she actually cared about me.

She did. I knew for a fact she did, and that made it hurt more I suppose. Eventually that hurt turned to anger and after that, I had to force myself not to care because that was exactly what my mother was doing to me.

I tried to shake off the feeling the cemetery always gave me. Only when I went there did I get so emotional—did I think about things in such a different light. I thought about the stuff that I wouldn’t let myself feel. But everything was on the fast track to becoming too much for me. I no longer had the strength to keep up those walls, the façade I had been sporting for the past six years.

Every day it got just a little bit harder. At that moment, I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up… this whole ‘pretending not to care’ thing. Because I did care. A lot. Sometimes I felt such an immense volume of guilt for something that happened—and for what I didn’t do—at nine years old came back to haunt me every single night. Though I knew from firsthand experience there was no escaping it, I used to do a pretty bang-up job at pretending and leading people to believe it wasn’t there.

Contrary to what I liked to tell myself, I loved Marilyn. She was all I had left, unfortunately or fortunately. I wasn’t quite sure how to look at it anymore, so usually I didn’t at all. But she was family. And I stuck with my family no matter what. No matter how crazy it got.

With Frank leaving and my mom crazier than ever, I was in over my head when it came to dealing with all of it alone. Still I would go on without as much as word about it because goddamnit, I was Devon Baker. This whole dwelling on my guilt, no hope for the future thing? This was not how I enjoyed spending my spare time. And I sure as hell didn’t let my emotions get the best of me.

When I realized what I was doing to myself, I gripped the handlebars of my bike in a hold that left my fingers aching. I focused all my brain power solely on driving.

The weight on my shoulders grew the closer I got to the house. For once I only wished to have good things come out of this, but I sincerely doubted anything of the like would.

Much sooner than I would have liked I came to a stop in my mom’s backyard, cutting the engine with reluctance. I took off my helmet and rested it on the end of one of the handle bars and just sat, steadying my bike for a few minutes, not thinking, not feeling, not anything.

I may not have much liked being this way but it was all I had to keep myself calm. Momentarily I wished I had Uncle Frank with me to at the very least mediate the supposed conversation… if you could even call it that. No, I could never consider the possibility that my mother actually wanted have something other than a one-sided argument with me. What can I say, I’m a ‘half-full’ kind of kid.

From years of getting my hopes up only to be sorely disappointed, I believed I had every reason to feel this way.

Before I could change my mind and take off I was up and off my bike in a matter of seconds. I stopped at the back door for a moment. Counted to ten. I couldn’t hear much from inside, not even the TV echoing in the living room. Unsure if I should take it as a good or bad sign, I let out a sigh and trudged into the kitchen. The backdoor screeched behind me as usual.

Nothing. No one jumped out at me, apprehended me, hell… Mom didn’t even yell at me to be quiet.

At the counter, Marilyn didn’t look up from chopping her vegetables. I watched her knife slice through the tomato at a lightning fast speed. She didn’t even turn to acknowledge me, just continued to prepare for a dinner that I clearly wasn’t invited to.

What a wonderful, caring mother.

Already I could feel my annoyance grow. She continued to slice her stupid vegetables and with my trademark condescending smirk I leaned one elbow against the counter and gave her my most ‘friendly’ stare. I waited ‘patiently’ for her finish up, and when she finally set her knife beside the chopping board I was near my breaking point. After looking up at me and rolling her eyes at my expression, I gathered that she was wholly unimpressed with my ‘attitude’.

“Is there a problem, Devon?” She asked, as if she weren’t as ready to flip her crap as I was.

Instead of telling her how I really felt, my smirk only widened. “No, not at all. Just that when you called me over I assumed you really did want to talk, not just ignore me the whole time.”

She fixed me with her usual glare, the one that would usually shut me up. Today it just had me more annoyed than ever. “That attitude is exactly what I wanted to discuss.”

Before she even had the sentence out, I let out a groan. Just what I expected. Awesome.

Even the thought of letting slip her my reason for getting suspended left me queasy. If she knew she wouldn’t let me see Uncle Frank until he got back from his tour.

I pushed myself away from the counter and glared at nothing in particular. I wished that for once Marilyn would surprise me. If only to keep me on my toes. My next course of action, obviously, was to take the classic ‘rebellious teenage daughter’ route. It was the easiest, after all, and always had the very best results. “So in other words you dragged me all the way over here just to bitch at me?”

The shriek that preceded such an accusation was expected. I didn’t even bother to flinch. “Language! You see, this is exactly what I’m talking about. What did you think I wanted you over for, anyway?”

Ouch. That one really stung. But the stony mask I wore betrayed none of my emotions. “Oh, I don’t know. Some quality time maybe. You know, mother to daughter bonding and all that good junk,” the wry smile was very real, however, and if I wasn’t careful my emotions were going screw me over. “Or how about we talk about what the hell’s been going on with you lately, huh?”

I was never one for subtlety, and today certainly wasn’t any exception. I didn’t have time for being discreet and beating around the bush. Not when I’d be all alone to deal with this mess in just a couple of days.

Outside I heard the ever-so familiar roar of a somewhat badass car. If Marilyn wasn’t giving me her best outraged face, I would have cursed my own dumb luck.

Her response was dangerously calm, which was a little creepy to me because it was Mom. She was never calm. The look in her eyes had me shifting uncomfortably—but I couldn’t stop then, not when I was so close. “And what do you mean by that, Devon?”

Answering my question with another question. How she rolled.

However calm she managed to be didn’t rub right with me at all. And I was just done. She took a step closer… in an effort to intimidate me, I suppose, but I held my ground and fixed her with a steady gaze.

“Hm. Let’s start why you’re suddenly best buddies with a dude Uncle Frank seems to have it out for, and coincidentally I have never met in my freaking life. What the hell is going on?”

Jesus, I’d have never thought it but it was good to get that one off my chest. Although I doubted I would, I could feel bad about yelling later. In the middle of my semi-rant I heard the living room door open and shut, and if it could be heard even over my shouting I guessed whoever it was wasn’t trying to sneak around by any means.

My best bet was for it to be Frank—but unfortunately, I knew otherwise. Today though I didn’t care if the Pope wanted to listen in.

“Shut up,” I tried my hardest not to flinch, and upon hearing such a thing leave my mother’s lips my gaze grew cold. If she was going to do this, I couldn’t let myself care… but as much as I tried to pull the ‘tough kid’ card, it still hurt a hell of a lot to hear that from my mom. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t you dare act like you do.”

No backing down now. I can’t. “And I wonder why that is. Nobody ever tells me anything around here. And I do know, Mom. I know that you haven’t been acting weird just these past few weeks. It’s been going on a lot longer than that.”

All I could think about was that if Kara was there we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

Usually I didn’t much enjoy breaching what I normally called the subject. Hell I didn’t even answer others when they asked me about it. If I didn’t lay it all out for Marilyn, though, I knew I’d have a hell of a time staying here with her without Frank. Enough was enough. I was tired of being left in the dark.

Marilyn just kept on mumbling, not really answering the one and only question I asked her. When I saw tears in her eyes, I had to brace myself. It wasn’t often I saw my mom cry. “This isn’t your place, Devon. I’ve been through a lot.”

“And I haven’t?” By then I was the one outraged. “For years now it’s like I don’t even freaking exist to you. Ever since Kara—”

Before I could even get the whole sentence out I saw Mom’s whole demeanour change, right when I said my sister’s name. I expected that, sure, but I sure as hell didn’t anticipate the sneer that gnarled her lips or the hasty step she took toward me. I was almost too shocked to even comprehend her hand up, aiming for my face. I just barely ducked the sure-to-be ugly slap I would have received and stumbled back in utter shock.

“Enough!” The deep bellow seemed to shock her out of her enraged trance, but not by much.

But it sure scared the hell out of me, and just as quickly as it all happened Dean Winchester was there to save the day, hand around my forearm, pulling me back even further from Marilyn. One last look at her before Dean hauled me out to the living room told me she was still pissed. The fire burning in her eyes was more than enough proof.

It was all too much for me to process and think about what Dean was saying… or yelling, rather. When I finally managed to yank the metaphorical cotton from my ears, I couldn’t listen to Dean. All I could hear was Marilyn, still shouting from the kitchen. Finally, I reacted. I grew angry at her stupid thoughtless actions. Hurt almost always turned into anger for me, and I was fucking irate.

More than ever I wanted to give her a piece of my mind. Then Dean gave me a slight shake and startled me just enough to get me to look in his direction. “Look at me,” he demanded, and I did so unwillingly. His gaze was knowing.

“Can you freaking believe that?” I said more to myself. “Did you see what she just tried to pull?”

“Devon, come on,” his hand still tight around my arm, it was painfully obvious I wasn’t going anywhere. “You go back out there and you’re just as bad as she is.”

Knowing he was right, I stopped my subtle struggle against his arm and breathed a heavy, worn out sigh. My chest was tight—if I didn’t calm down soon I’d have to take my inhaler… but not if I could help it. Over the course of thirty seconds I felt myself simmer until my anger was just about controllable. Dean must have sensed it, too, because he trusted me enough to let go of my arm.

“Look, I get that you’re pissed okay? But now’s not the time. I’ll deal with your mom, you get out of here. Cool off. Alright?”

His tone was forceful, and I doubted he’d have considered taking ‘no’ for an answer anyway. It was obvious, too, there was no way I was getting near that kitchen again today. For that… I was almost glad. For once I had someone around to watch out for me.

Emotions still all over the place, I took another deep breath and stepped away from him. Nodded slowly; I did get it. I glanced up at him one last time and muttered out a half-assed “thanks,” before I made a beeline for the door. Even from outside I could hear Marilyn demand to know where the hell I thought I was going, but I ignored it and instead made for the backyard to retrieve my bike.

Without thinking I got back on my bike. And I drove.