Silence, and blank lonely walls. As I bite into my dry turkey sandwich from the vending machine beside the hospital doors, I wonder how many sleepless nights I will spend like this. I have my SATs tomorrow but that doesn’t matter. Nothing about your own life matters when you know my sister Sarah.
I look at her. Laying there in that bed with her paper-white face and deep black holes underneath her eyes. I hate her, I hate IT. “Is it almost time?” I ask my mother.
“Just be patient, son,” she responds to me.
Patient. God I hate that word. I then turn and look at my mom. I can see it in her sunken eyes, the hurt and fatigue as she struggles to hold back tears. “Ok kids, let’s head out,” my mom says to us, trying as hard as she can to act ok.
I wasn’t fazed though, not in the slightest. As strange as that sounds, this was very normal for our family. You see, ever since my dad left me, my mom, and sister, things got a lot worse. Sometimes I blame myself for not seeing what was wrong earlier. Maybe I could have prevented it from getting this bad… a thought that keeps me up at night. My sister, Sarah, she’s sick. And no not the kind of sickness where she eats soup and feels better, the kind of sickness that makes everyone around her feel like they’re walking on eggshells. The kind of sickness that can take the person you know most in the world and turn them unrecognizable.
The ride home is silent like most of the time spent between my family and me. We pull into our driveway, and my sister runs up our stairs without saying a word. I hover my fist over her door contemplating if I should say goodnight, but I don’t.
I walk away and think how merely six months ago she would have greeted me with a huge smile and asked me to watch our favorite show. I remind myself that Sarah is gone and she’s most likely not coming back.
The sun rises Monday morning, and I crawl out of bed. As I get ready for school I dread walking through those doors. I know immediately I will be taunted and ridiculed all day long by my “friends.” And god forbid I ever make something about myself in that house.
“How was school?” my mother asks me, pretending to care.
“Fine,” I respond.
I hear the house door creek open; Sarah’s home. My least favorite part of the day. “Hey Sarah,” I decide I’m going try talking to her. “Do you wanna talk? I had a really rough day.”
She looks at me, emotionless. “I have my own problems to deal with, Matt.”
She really is gone.
“Dinner!” Mother calls from downstairs. “Sarah, I made your favorite,” I can tell she’s trying, “lasagna and garlic bread.”
Sarah mumbles something under her breath.
“Thanks Mom, it looks great,” I say, trying to mend the awkward situation like I normally do, but mom just shoots me a look. The kind of look that means, Shut up, Matt. A look I get on the daily.
“I don’t understand why we have to eat together,” Sarah grumbles. “Can’t I just eat in my room?”
“No,” Mom responds. “The therapist said it would be good for us to have family meals.”
“God, you are so annoying,” Sarah shoots at Mom. “I mean, Jesus, can’t you tell I don’t want to be around you guys?”
Can’t you tell none of us want to be around you? I think to myself.
This is about the time where I just drown everything out, the yelling and screaming and crying. I’m so tired of this, living my life in fear and anger. No matter where I am, I’m always trying to hide. So, in that moment between the screaming and fighting, I made a decision. I’m leaving. I think for once in my life I finally understand my father.
I slink away to my room while no one’s paying attention to me, which isn’t hard because no one ever is. I shove everything I need into my duffle bag. Once it’s full, I open my bedroom window and begin to climb out. I look back one last time just to look around. I look at the blue paint that’s been chipping from my walls and try to remember the last time blue was my favorite color. I look at the old beach souvenir from our last family vacation still hanging above my bed. It’s funny how everything can look the same but it isn’t at all. Then I jumped.
I know at the moment it seems like I was some ballsy impulsive teen who decided I would flee from home during a family fight, but that’s far from the truth. I’d actually been planning this for about a week. I did some rummaging around my mom’s room and was able to find where exactly my father ended up.
It was quite simple, really; I just found a letter for some legal papers and looked at the return address. 17 Murray Way, Brooklyn, New York. So that was it, the place my father had been hiding out. We were located in a small town in New Jersey about an hour south by train from where my old man was.
So I catch a bus to the train station and then a train to Brooklyn. “Next stop, 31st Street,” I hear over the intercom.
That’s me. I step off the train and look down at my watch. It reads 2:13 AM. Knowing my father goes to bed early, I decide to crash in the subway. It’s so weird that I know things like that about him even though now he feels like a complete stranger. I guess that can happen: you think you know someone, like truly know them, and then one day you don’t.
After a cold and unpleasant night in the subway, it is finally a new day. I had never been to the city so trying to navigate to my dad’s apartment is like finding a needle in a haystack. “Excuse me,” I tapped an older woman on her shoulder. “Could you by chance point me in the direction of this address?” and show her my father’s address written on an old napkin.
“Of course I can, Doll,” the nice woman responds. “You’re gonna wanna go right down that street there take a left and you should be where your askin’.”
“Thank you so much,” I say with gratitude.
“Sure thing.”
I stop at a breakfast joint along the way deciding I’d give my dad some time to get up and start his day. Either that or I am just procrastinating seeing the man who walked out on his entire family without saying a word.
I finish my scrambled eggs and silence my phone that by now had about 50 missed calls and texts from both my mom and sister. Weird, they actually care that I’m gone, I think to myself. After a few minutes of walking, I am here. I go to knock but my body seems to be frozen. I can’t move. I am in shock. “Come on, Matt. You came all this way, I’m not letting you back out now,” I say to myself out loud.
Then I knock, no answer; again, no answer. “Hey, I’m looking for Jim. He lives here,” I call out to the man who appeared to be my father’s neighbor. “Any idea where he’s at?”
“Oh yeah, your best bet is Rusty’s. Old man practically lives there,” the burly man answers. “Down the block on your right.”
Ok, a couple more minutes and I’ll be there. I walk down and find myself outside of what appeared to be a run-down bar. I hesitantly open the door and look around, then I see him. I almost don’t recognize him: long hair with an overgrown beard and bloodshot eyes. “Hey!” I call out. “Jim!”
His eyes shoot over to me, and he goes silent. “Son, what on God’s green earth are you doing here?” He drunkenly slurs his words and wobbles on his stool.
“So, this is what you’ve become, huh?” my voice is stone cold now. “You leave your family to be some piece of shit who’s trashed on a Tuesday at 11 AM.”
I don’t even give him the chance to answer me. I swing open the doors and run away as fast as I can. I call my mom and sister back with tears rolling down my face. I guess the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.