So Long and Goodnight...

Blinking the tears from your eyes, you folded your uncle’s note up and tucked it back into the envelope with the money Charlie had given you. With his words still ringing in your ears, you dashed into the house and up the stairs, glancing at the clock on your way by.

Charlie had left a bit earlier than he had told your father he would so that bought you a little more precious time.

You skidded to a stop in the middle of your room and let your gaze flick frantically over the things in it as you tossed your uncles envelope onto your bed.

’Pack only what you need,’ you said to yourself. ’leave everything else.’

You ran to your closet and pulled out a duffel bag that you hadn’t used in years and began stuffing it with clothes. You threw in some personal things that you couldn’t bear to part with:

Three pictures… One, a photo of your mother, your sister, and you all smiles and laughter after one of your classic “girl’s night out” events… Another one of you, Brooke, Raven, Autumn, and Avril in front of the Farris Wheel at Coney Island… and one of you with your boys; Ray, Mikey, Frank, Bob and Gerard on the Way’s front porch hamming it up for the camera. Gerard was giving you bunny ears and smiling from ear to ear. Bob was licking Ray on the cheek and Mikey was in mid pounce much to the disdain of a clearly fucked Frank Iero.

You laughed as you brushed a tear from your eye and gently laid the photos on top of the clothes in your bag.

You plucked a red rose, preserved in wax from a vase on your dresser and twirled it through your fingers. Gerard had given it to you on the night of your freshman homecoming dance when your date had stood you up. Gerard had meant the rose for his date but said that you looked like you needed it more as he dried your tears and held you until the pain subsided.

Refusing to cry again, you tucked the rose into a safe corner of your bag.

Sighing, you glanced around quickly, trying to decide if there was anything else you needed to take with you. You couldn’t think of anything …except your friends. You would’ve loved nothing more than to take them with you. But you knew that was impossible.

You zipped up the duffel bag and pushed it toward the general direction of your bedroom door. There were a few more things you needed to take care of before you left.

From a shelf near your bed, you picked up a notebook and a pen and sat Indian style on your bed as you scrawled out ten quick but heartfelt goodbyes to your friends and extended families. The first three, you addressed to Autumn, Raven, and Brooke. One was for Autumn and Raven’s parents, Avril and Joel. Yet another had the names of Gerard and Mikey’s parents, Don and Donna printed on it’s front. The last five were addressed to Bob, Ray, Frank, Mikey, and Gerard.

For Rays note, you found an envelope in the drawer of your dad’s desk and slipped the note into it. While packing you had realized that you had forgotten to give Rays necklace back to him, which he had given you in the car on the way to the Disturbed concert the week before. He wore it all the time and it was NOT cheap. There was no way you were leaving without giving it back. You undid the clasp behind your neck and dropped it into the envelope.

You laid the notebook down, folded notes, like land mines all around you, and with a shaking hand, reached for Charlie’s envelope and slid the note from it’s home. You slowly unfolded it and, with tears slowly blurring your vision, you read the words once more:

My dearest Helena,
As I’m writing this letter, I’m sitting in a booth at a McDonald’s somewhere in Danville, Pennsylvania, which, according to my map, is about 20 miles South East of Williamsport and roughly 154 miles from your front door. So far I’ve traveled approximately 2,101 miles. No wonder I feel so worn out.
I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m hoping to achieve by this spontaneous visit but for a long time …two years to be exact …something in my heart has been telling me that I never should have left after the funeral. Something about the whole situation bothered me but I figured it was just my grief getting my imagination all worked up. Now …after two long years of thinking on it …I feel I’ve made a terrible misjudgment.
If you’re reading this letter, it means that you are most certainly your mother’s daughter and that you won’t listen to any reason or wisdom I try to give you. But somewhere in my heart I have hope that maybe after you have a chance to give it some thought (and if you can somehow make it out without me there) that you may change your mind and want to come live with me after all.
You know that space is not a problem. I have hundreds of acres of land that require a small village to care for and a home that could house two or three elephants easy. My horses (including and especially your Star) are well cared for but I don’t ride as much as I used to so most of the exercise they get now is to be led around the paddock by one of the stable hands. They miss the wide-open spaces and the air. They need to run. In their hearts they’re just as wild as the ones in the valley. They remind me of you in that respect. That’s why I think they need you to come take care of them. You and Star were inseparable when you came to the ranch before …your mom and sister passed… so I can only imagine that times all the other horses I have.
Anyway, enough bribery. It makes me feel like a republican (wink wink). While I was there with you, I no doubt made a big fuss about getting your sisters car out of the garage and making sure that it still ran ok. Now this is very important (not that I feel I even have to tell you this anyway but) KEEP YOUR FATHER THE HELL AWAY FROM IT ONCE I LEAVE! I’ve included map quest directions from your door to mine (courtesy of Logan, one of my stable hands, since I don’t know a computer from a toaster) and (if used wisely) more than enough money for food, gas, and lodging on the way. I’ve set it all up for you, Helena. Now all you have to do is make it happen.
Save yourself, I beg you. You’re all the family I have left and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you slip through my fingers like I let them. I love you very much and I hope my words get through to you. Come anytime you can and I mean ANY time. The door will always be open for you and I’ll be waiting, Good luck, pumpkin and God speed.
Every ounce of my love,
Uncle Charlie

You sniffled, brushed your tears away for the hundredth time, folded the note gently and placed it back in its envelope.

Flipping the notebook you had used to write your friends’ notes closed and tucking it under your arm, the pen held firmly by the notebooks binding, you stood and gathered all the notes and Ray’s envelope in your hand and with the same hand, cradled the envelope containing your uncle’s hand written note, the directions to his house, and $2,000 cash.

Heading out, you kneeled, managed to wrestle open your bag with one hand and dropped the notebook and the cash filled envelope inside and zipped it up again. You gently slid the notes to your friends into your pocket, carefully folding Ray’s envelope in half so it wouldn’t slip out.

You scooped up your duffel bag, slipping your arm through the shoulder strap and letting it hang there. You started down the hall …then you had a thought. You’d taken trips before with your mom and sister and your friends families. Though it seemed like it, $2,000 wasn’t a whole lot of cash to get from point A to point B and Belleville to Montana was a dauntingly long journey. The money was a lot coming from Charlie. He ran a good, productive ranch, but he wasn’t a rich man. $2,000 was a small fortune to him and you shuddered to think how much it had set him back. You made a silent vow that you would work off every cent plus loads more on his ranch.

Turning around on your heel, you headed for your fathers office again. You went to his desk and yanked open the top drawer. You sighed as you gazed down at the two bottles of malt liquor lying there all hidden and inconspicuous like the fact that he was a drunk was some big secret to everyone. Gerard’s father being a better mechanic than him was NOT the only reason your father had been forced to take a pay cut at work. The customers he serviced still genuinely refused to believe that he had a drinking problem and thought that he was a good mechanic. He had a lot of loyal customers so his bosses faced losing quite a bit of business if they elected to fire him. You rolled your eyes in disgust.

Tossing the bottles to the side of the drawer, you dug to the bottom and pulled up a money clip with a substantial handful of cash in it. Daddy’s alcohol money. You leafed through it.

$500.

‘Hey, what do you know,’ you thought, smugly to yourself. ‘the worthless bastard’s worth something after all.’

You snickered and stuffed the wad of cash in your front pocket.

Downstairs you grabbed the keys to your sister’s car off the hooks by the door, turned around and gave the house one more look. You didn’t feel any remorse at all about leaving the house itself or it’s current residents. You were only saddened by the thought of all the long gone memories you were leaving behind, the concrete evidence that your life had once been full of joy and happiness and relative normality.

You would never get to look at your sister’s closet and see, in your mind, a vision of you and her dressing up as two of the spice girls and singing into hairbrushes, or the mirror where she would spend hours doing her hair and makeup. You would never again walk by the kitchen and suddenly by struck by the memory of your tenth Christmas when your mother and sister were rushing around, trying to make cookies and food for the family get together and ended up getting into a huge flour fight that left them and the entire kitchen coated in a layer of thick, white powder as they collapsed in a heap of uncontrollable laughter in the middle of the floor.

You closed your eyes, took a deep breath, and said your final goodbye to the life you had once known. You turned off the lights, stepped outside, and once and for all closed the door to your past.