Caught in the Middle

As I pulled up behind my mom's car that was towing the trailer with my belongings in it, I felt a sense of failure wash over me. I barely passed college, I had no job, no future and I'd just broken up with my boyfriend of 6 years. I had nowhere to live and no money to rent a place in Chicago so I was forced to move back home where all the memories of my childhood and adolescence remained.
I helped carry in the suitcases of my clothing and boxes of the utensils, books, and other little things I'd picked up over the years, while leaving out the box of things that I never wanted to see again. These were the things that I'd bought while living with Dylan and this box was going straight to the garage where it would never be seen again.

I began to hang my clothes up in my wardrobe, my room still the same since I had moved out years and years ago, only the layer of dust had been removed, the carpet had been vacuumed and there was a fresh set of sheets on the bed.

The biggest reason why I wasn't looking forward to coming to live back home was the possibility of seeing any of the boys again, since I hadn't kept in touch with them at all once I left. I didn't even know if they were still living in Phoenix, or if their band was even still together. I knew that there would be a sense of bitterness in our relationships, given my departure and lack of contact over the years, but a part of me had hope that any hard feelings towards one another would be forgotten.

The one person I wasn't looking forward to seeing at all was John. The last time I had seen him was at Kennedy's party before I moved to Chicago and I hadn't spoken a word to him since he had kissed me. I knew that it would take a long time to be able to get our relationship back to what it was like before the party, but I was determined to make it work because truthfully, I missed my best friend.
I had very few friends in Chicago, apart from the other girl that lived in my dorm in my first year, Christie, Dylan and a few of his friends. Other than my parents, I had no-one to tell about my first day of college, to cry to when I failed an exam, to cheer to when I received a high mark on my essay or to share stories about friends and what wild things we'd been up to. My lack of friends was what had forced me to come back to Arizona after my relationship had failed.

I had unpacked half of my suitcase when my mom poked her head around the doorframe.

"I'm about to go grocery shopping, if you wanted to come with me?"

I tossed the shirt I had been unfolding onto the bed as I grabbed my phone before sliding my flip flops on and headed downstairs where she was waiting for me.

The car ride was full of noise, none of it coming from me though. The radio was playing in the background while mom kept gossiping about the neighbours and people I knew back when I lived here. While I wasn't in the mood for talking, I was thankful for the petty gossip and mindless pop music to distract myself from the rest of my thoughts.

We pulled up at the grocery store and mom pulled out her list and ordered me to get a shopping cart as I followed her around the store.

We were walking down an aisle when I heard my name being called.

"Jessy? Is that you?" a female voice asked.

I looked up to see Kennedy's mom Alison waving cheerfully at me. What I didn't expect was to see Kennedy trailing along behind her, not paying too much attention to what was happening and paying a lot of attention to his phone.

"H-hey Alison," I stammered, finding my voice after it being buried for so long.

Kennedy's head flew up at the sound of my voice, the expression on his face unreadable.

"How have you been sweetheart? I haven't seen you in years!" Alison exclaimed, completely oblivious to her son.

"I-I've been better, I guess, but still good. It's always nice to be home," I said meekly.

"How long are you home for? A few weeks?" Alison asked. I opened my mouth, but the words couldn't come out. Luckily my mother was able to cover for me.

"She's home until she can find a job to put that fancy degree to use, right?"

"Oh yeah, that's right, you went off to college! I can't remember what you said you were going to study," Alison mused.

"English literature, I majored in Romanticism and minored in post-modernism," I explained. Alison's brow furrowed for a second, as most people's did when I told them what I studied. Finding a job out of something like that was nearly impossible unless you went on to teach the subject itself or became an award-winning novelist, and I didn't have desire to pursue either of those paths.

"Well, good luck on the job hunt! Hopefully you find something close to home, we're thrilled that you're back."

"Speaking of being back, how long are you home for Kennedy?" my mother enquired. I furrowed my brow. Where was Kennedy off to if he wasn't still living in Phoenix?

"We're home for a while now, we're about to start writing our next album and then we're recording it here, so we won't be gone until we tour again which we haven't decided when yet."

Wait, so the band finally took off?

"Oh that's exciting! What number album is this?"

"This is our fourth album, we're already pretty excited to start it, what with the positive feedback from the last one and since we broke out of the label we have more freedom with how we want it to sound," Kennedy explained.

I felt so behind in everything, I didn't know that their band had gone so far, let alone be signed, leave the label, be on tour and release three albums.

"That's fantastic! Alison, why don't we leave the kids to catch up for a bit, I'll meet you back at the car when I'm finished Jessy." My mom walked away with her cart, saying goodbye to Kennedy and Alison before she too walked off, leaving Kennedy and myself standing awkwardly in the centre of the aisle.

"So, you're back," Kennedy finally said. I nodded, trying not to seem too interested in it. Truthfully, I didn't want to be anywhere near any of the boys until I had thought about what I could say to them. "And you're just going to ignore us all now?"

"Kennedy," my voice cracked, but he interrupted me.

"Were we not good enough for you? Did you find everything you needed in Chicago? Are you gonna leave us again without saying goodbye?"

"Kenny, please, you have no idea," I started, only to be cut off again.

"No idea about what? About how you just left us all without saying goodbye? About how awful you made John feel? About how you have no idea that for a whole year after you left the only thing keeping John here was this band? And yeah, the band's going really fucking well, thanks for asking," Kennedy spat.

"I'm sorry Kennedy. You don't know what happened at that party before I left and you sure as hell don't know what happened in Chicago, so excuse me for being a little distant," I replied, my bottom lip starting to quiver as I thought about the scene that unfolded a few days before I left Chicago. Dylan's clothes tossed haphazardly on the floor, a trail of women's clothes that weren't mine leading into the bedroom...

A tear slipped from my eye and I wiped it away before Kennedy could see it. Judging by the look on his face, he did.

"Are you okay? Fuck, I'm sorry for what I said before, I just still can't understand what could have happened that would make you leave without saying goodbye, it hurts that you'd do that to us," Kennedy said softly as I wiped away any tears that had fallen. I couldn't let him see me as weak, no one was allowed to see me as weak.

"It's okay, you don't know," I said meekly, not wanting to let the conversation go any further into my past.

"Hey, I'm having a little get together next Friday night, you should swing by, say hi to everyone again," he suggested.

I hesitated. By everyone I knew that he meant his band and his old friends, who were my old friends as well, and with my abrupt departure I wasn't too sure how that was going to go down.

"I'll see what I'm doing, I might have something on," I trailed off.

"Jessy. Apart from your parents, the only people you know in Phoenix will be at that party. You can't possibly have booked up your weekend already," Kennedy cornered me with a smirk. He knew he was right, I just wasn't sure if I was ready to face everyone else again.

"If anyone throws shit at me, I'm blaming you," I said, reluctantly accepting his invitation.

Kennedy grinned at me. "I'll make sure they don't. See you on Friday Jessy." He waved goodbye and I was left standing alone.

I walked out of the store to find my mom waiting in the car.

"Did you guys have a good catch up?" she asked me.

"Yeah, he's having a party on Friday so I think I'm gonna go."

She looked over at me cautiously. "Are you sure you should be going? You don't have to if you don't want to, don't feel pressured into doing something you don't want to do."

"Mom, relax, I want to go."

The rest of the car trip was spent in silence and once we arrived home I spent the rest of the day unpacking my boxes until everything looked almost as it did back in high school. But there was something missing and it was bothering me.

I searched through all my drawers and cupboards, under my bed, in the spare room and the living room, but I couldn't find that last little thing that was missing.

Whenever I was younger and I couldn't find something or mom had hidden something from me, I was always able to find it in her bedside drawers. Most of the time it was when she'd take my favourite toy, hide my birthday presents or as I got older she'd confiscate my phone when I was supposed to be studying.

I went into the room she shared with my father and opened her top drawer, the missing item staring me straight in the face. I retrieved it from the drawer and took it back to my room, wiping the thin layer of dust from it.

I set the frame on my bedside table, angling it so John and I's smiling faces from our high school graduation were visible when I was lying on my side in bed. The photo gave me a new determination and I began to feel more confident about the part on Friday night.

Before they went back on tour, I was going to win John back once and for all.