Changing Leaves Read online

  And yet, I still chose to walk away from them when I was eighteen and never look back.

  I didn’t know what there was to say about it. I was kind of a shithead kid. I was going through a really difficult time in my life and I panicked. I couldn’t shake the sense that I was never going to get out of this hellhole of a town. So as soon as I graduated, I found a job out of state at a ski resort that would pay for room and board, and I left.

  I left a note, but besides that, I didn’t even bother saying goodbye. And I didn’t tell them where I was for two years because I was scared they were going to come after me and, I don’t know, drag me back or something. Although how could they? I was technically an adult.

  I still cringed when I thought about that. It was such a shitty thing to do and I knew I broke their fucking hearts when I bolted. I wished so badly I could go back and undo the pain I’d caused.

  It wasn’t as if I’d written them off completely, though. I still called and I still checked in; I just didn’t let them know where I was.

  And I didn’t come back to visit. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. At the time, I never wanted to see this town again. Which meant for two years, we didn’t even see each other. We talked on the phone and over email and that was it.

  I couldn’t tell you how many times my mother called me crying, begging me to come home. It was positively heartbreaking, but I never did.

  Our relationship was never really the same after that. We used to be close, and I always told them everything, but after graduating, I put a distance between us that never could be bridged again.

  I loved them and they still loved me, but it just wasn’t the same. Sometimes I wished it could be, sometimes I didn’t. I mean, the original reason I put distance between myself and them was because I didn’t want to talk about myself. I didn’t want them to know everything about me… Especially at a time where I didn’t know much about myself.

  And in a lot of ways, I still didn’t.

  Although my treatment of them got a lot better after those first two years, I was still a bit of an ass because I always refused to come home. Whenever we met up, they had to come fly to me. Which was shitty because they didn’t make that much money. It was always a financial burden on them and I knew they would have liked to see me more than they were able to afford.

  After I decided to go back to school and get my degree, I was able to find a decent paying job, though. And after that, I paid for their flights any time they wanted to come. Which eased the financial burden, but travelling was still a lot for both of them. They were getting older, after all.

  Man, I should have just come home. I couldn’t stop beating myself up for it. I could have visited. I should have spent more time with them… Hindsight was twenty twenty, I guess.

  What was I even afraid of? That by just stepping foot in this town I was going to get sucked in? I was never going to leave again? No, that was ridiculous and that wasn’t the fear.

  The real fear was that I’d run into someone I never planned on seeing again. Or, well, one specific person I never planned on seeing again.

  But the fear of running into Gina was no excuse to neglect my parents. I could have taken a flight and stayed cooped up in their house for a week. There was no way I’d run into her just on the car ride from the airport. Also no way she was going to show up at my house the same way she used to do when we were kids.

  But, well, if I was being honest with myself I didn't really fear running into her randomly either. The real fear came from wanting to run into her. I always thought that if I came back here, it would be way too tempting to run out and see her.

  And, you know what? I was actually kind of right. Since coming back to this place, the only thing I’d been able to think about was her. And it really fucking sucked.

  But I had to push that thought aside. I couldn’t reach out to her; that was definitely out of the question. It’d been almost ten years. You couldn’t ignore someone for ten years and then ask if they wanted to do a coffee date.

  God, I couldn't even imagine how awkward it would be to see her again. She probably held so much hatred in her heart for me. And I couldn’t blame her because what I did was so fucked up… But it still hurt me to think that my best friend who used to genuinely love me for the person I was now hated me.

  But, well, the person that I was turned out to be pretty shitty. I was selfish. Whatever negative feelings she or my parents had for me, they were completely justified.

  Not that my parents did have negative feelings for me. On the contrary, they were always so nice to me. And they were thrilled to have me back home, even if it was under such horrible circumstances.

  The cold wind was nipping at the back of my neck as I searched for Lyla. You’d have thought those couple years I worked at the ski resort would have acclimated me to the cold air, but they didn’t at all. I still shook like a leaf every time October rolled around.

  Every house that I walked by, I knelt down to look under cars and squatted at the edge of bushes while I called Lyla’s name. Not that she knew her name, of course. She was a very young kitten and actually, she’d only been mine for a couple of weeks.

  And though we obviously had not spent much time together at all, I had found myself very attached to this kitten already.

  I never considered myself much of a cat person, but Lyla was so sweet. She loved to cuddle, she mewed in response to nearly anything you said to her, and she was a doll. Already, I'd be heartbroken if I lost her.

  Especially because of where she came from. She was a gift from my mother. I know, animals don’t really make the best gifts. I mean, what if I hadn’t wanted a cat? What if we didn't bond? It was generally recommended that people pick out their own pets for this reason.

  But it wasn't that kind of gift. It wasn’t something she planned on giving me. Lyla was actually originally a gift to herself.

  She’d always been a big animal person. My dad was allergic to dogs, so it was always cats that we had around the house. My mom’s most recent cat, one we had during my high school years, had passed away a month ago. She was completely heartbroken, and to cope, she found herself this adorable calico cat.

  Although my mom was getting older, she thought nothing of getting a kitten. She was really active and would usually have no problem keeping up with the upkeep of a cat.

  And then she got the news that changed her entire life. And, well, it became immediately evident that caring for a cat was not something she was capable of doing.

  The first few days I returned home, I really bonded with the kitten. She had been trying to find a home for the sweet girl, but when she saw how well Lyla took to me, she offered me the cat.

  Admittedly, I wasn’t thrilled at first. There was definitely a reason I hadn’t had pets of my own so far in my adult life. They were a lot of extra work. And usually, I was a bit of a workaholic and didn't have a lot of time to spend at home with an animal.

  But that was all going to change. When I chose to move back home, I quit my job so that I could freelance from here. It wasn't as much money and I wasn’t going to lie, it was a little disappointing to have to do, because my work was my everything, but it became a necessity.

  I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t miss my job, though. It was hard to feel fulfilled without it. So much of who I was was tied into my job and how successful I was at it.

  That was my fault, though. I’d never bothered to do anything other than work. I’d had a few hook ups here and there, but I never actually tried to begin a relationship with anyone. I’d never found anyone I liked enough to want a relationship with, honestly. Though I didn’t try very hard.

  I was going to have to develop the other aspects of my life now, though. Which I was fine with. Excited to do, even. I needed to change things. I hadn’t exactly been happy with the way my life was going.

  And I wasn’t happy now. But nobody would be in my circumstance. All I could do was hope to eventually work toward happiness�
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  I had inspected every front yard on my block when I got a call on my cell phone. I looked down to see my mother’s number pop up on the screen.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Hi, honey, are you home?”

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I went to look for Lyla again. You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “No problem, I was just wondering where you were,” she said in a hoarse voice. “When will you be back?”

  “I’m coming back right now,” I answered. I would have stayed out longer looking, but my mom needed me and was too polite to say so. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Well, I’m a little nauseated. Maybe some ginger tea?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be back in a few minutes and get started on that.”

  “Thank you, sweetie,” she said softly.

  “Not a problem, see you soon.”

  I kept my eyes peeled on the way home, but I knew I wasn’t going to find her. Fuck, was I ever going to find her? Losing this poor kitten was making me feel like more of a failure. It wasn’t helping my self-esteem.

  As soon as I walked through the door, I went to the kitchen and put the teapot on the kettle before I got to chopping up ginger for my mom. This was the one thing that seemed to calm her nausea.

  I made up a cup and then took it to her room. She was lying in her bed, as she had been all week. She got up to go to the bathroom, but that was the extent of her out of bed activities. If she needed anything, me or my dad got it for her.

  Mostly me, actually, since my dad had been forced to work overtime lately to make ends meet. My family had always been a two salary household, with my mom being a school teacher and my dad working in construction.

  We never were poor growing up; between the two of them they made good money and I never wanted for anything. But now that my mom couldn’t work and the medical bills were piling up, my father had to put in all the overtime he could get.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said softly as I opened her door.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said in a miserable voice, though it was obvious she was trying to stay perky.

  “I’ve got your tea.” I set it down on her bedside table and then sat on the bed next to her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not so well,” she said hoarsely.

  “Is there anything else I can get you? Some soup, maybe?”

  “No, definitely not. I can’t stomach any food right now.”

  “Ugh, I hate seeing you like this,” I said softly.

  I had been kicking myself for not coming home earlier. I should have spent time with my parents when things were better. I should have been there for them when they were all healthy and we could actually enjoy our time together. Instead I had to be a fucking asshole who didn’t bother coming home until shit got bad.

  “The doctor says I’ll start feeling better in a few weeks,” she said softly. “Not completely better but… a big improvement. I should be able to eat just fine, and get around the house.”

  “I really hope so. I want you better. Here, drink your tea.”

  “Okay,” she said as she used all her energy to prop herself up in bed.

  She took a few sips and then gave me a hesitant look.

  “What? What is it?” I asked.

  “In a few weeks, when I’m feeling better, you’ll be returning to your home, right?”

  “What? No! Absolutely not. I told you, Mom. I quit my job, I moved everything out of my apartment. I’m freelancing from here now.”

  “Yes, I know, but I assumed you simply didn’t want to take several months off work and this was a better alternative for the time being. I didn’t really think you planned on staying here much longer than that.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe because you hate this town and everyone in it.” She gave a teasing smile.

  “I mean… That’s not it,” I said guiltily. “I just didn’t want to get stuck in this town, that’s all there is to it.”

  “Oh? Well, in that case, have you spoken to any of your old friends? Like Gina, maybe?”

  I could feel my face flushing. “No, I haven’t…”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Mom,” I sighed, “it’s complicated.”

  “It’s complicated because you made it complicated. Just the way you did for your father and me. Maybe it’s time to take some responsibility for that.”

  These were the first harsh words she’d spoken to me since I got here. On one hand, she was making me feel horribly guilty, but on the other, it was nice that she was feeling well enough to scold me.

  “Gina doesn’t want to see me. After all these years of no contact? It would be just weird to reach out to her.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand, Jess. You two were so close. What happened? I can understand an eighteen-year-old moving away and trying to phase their parents out, but their best friend? Why didn’t you at least talk to her?”

  This was the first time she'd ever confronted me about what I did when I was 18. It was like every thought she ever had about my leaving was on the edge of spilling out.

  “Why are you asking about this now, Mom? It’s been almost a decade. Why haven’t you brought it up before?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because I was always afraid to scare you off. That if your father and I ever made the wrong move, you wouldn’t hesitate to fade us from your life completely.”

  “Mom…” I said quietly, but she ignored me and continued.

  “Or maybe now that I’m sick, I finally see how short life is. And how pointless it is to avoid saying the things you’re thinking.”

  I took her hand in mine. I could see her getting worked up and that was the last thing I wanted.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for leaving you, but I was never trying to just fade you out. I could never fade the two of you out of my life. You’re both too important to me. I never wanted to get you out of my life, I just wanted to get out of this town.”

  “But why, Jess? What is honestly so bad about this place that you said bye to everything and everyone you’ve known?”

  “I didn’t want to get stuck here…” I mumbled.

  “It’s more than that. I know there must be more to it than that. I’m not sure what it is that drove you off, but I know you’re lying about it. Nobody runs away like that for no reason.”

  She was right. But this wasn’t something I could tell her. It was something I hadn’t told anyone.

  My phone started ringing and I glanced down to see a number that I didn’t recognize.

  “Who's that?” my mom asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, shutting the ringer off.

  She eyed me suspiciously. “Is that the truth? You really don’t know?”

  “What? Yes, of course, why would I lie about that?”

  “Why would you lie about your reason for leaving? I don’t know. I don’t pretend to understand your motives anymore.”

  “Mom, can we please not fight about this right now. You’re not feeling well and I really don’t want to make that worse.” I hadn’t seen her angry like this in a long time.

  “That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I’m sick. I’m sick and maybe I’m dying and I feel like I no longer know my one and only daughter. When I was healthy, I was able to push that from my mind. When I was healthy, I could imagine that one day we would reconnect and things would be different between us. But now, now I’m not sure if we’ll be able to repair this in time.”

  “Mom, you’re not dying!” I insisted. “You’re nowhere near dying. For all we know, we’re going to find out in a few weeks that the chemo successfully destroyed all the cancer. But even if it doesn’t, there are surgical options to look into. You are not terminal.”

  “But we could find out that it spread, too. I admit, it’s not likely, and I hope you’re right. I hope I beat this. But even if I do beat this, I don’t want to go back to living life the
way I was before. I don’t want to go back to keeping my mouth shut and ignoring my feelings, all the while hoping things will work themselves out. I want to know you again. I want to know why you left and I want to know it isn’t going to happen again.”

  I sighed. I deserved this, I really did. Honestly, this was a conversation I expected to have years ago. And when it was never brought up, I assumed it never would be, but I should have known better. Feelings this heavy didn’t just disappear.

  “We will work this out, Mom, I promise. And as for why I left… Yeah, okay, that’s a conversation I guess we’ll eventually need to have. But not right now. Right now, I want you to focus on healing and not work yourself up like this. Okay? Can we discuss this at another time?”

  “Sure, fine,” she said grudgingly. “I am getting sleep, anyway.”

  “All right. I’ll let you rest, then. And we’ll talk later?”

  “We better,” she insisted.

  I nodded guiltily before I walked out of the room.

  This whole conversation had really caught me off guard. This wasn’t my mother’s usual behavior. She was normally so subdued. Even when I was growing up, my mom had always been a passive woman. Seeing her be so upfront this way was weird.

  Though I guess there were clues since I’d been home that this was coming. She did seem a lot more irritated than usual, but I attributed that to her constant discomfort. I’d have been pretty bitchy in her situation, too.

  I had had no idea that she was really stewing over everything I’d done. Not that she didn’t have a right to be pissed. In her circumstance, all my old bitter feelings would probably come to the surface too.

  It was a little much to take right now, though. How did I begin to explain to my mother why I walked away when I didn’t even quite understand it myself?

  I needed to do some thinking. I had to reflect on my life and my choices in a way that I hadn’t done in… Well, pretty much ever. I’d always avoided this shit like the plague. Which was another reason I tended to throw myself into my work and stay as active as possible. I avoided thinking about my past when I focused on the future.