Don’t Let Go

22. Aurora

22

Aurora

The date on my phone dug a hole in my chest, reminding me of the worst day of my life. Two years ago, my papà died in front of me. It didn’t feel like it was that long ago. It felt more like it was last week when I lost him. This morning, the feeling was so raw that tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. My phone fell from my grasp, hitting the carpet with a thud. Thankfully, it was Saturday, and all I wanted to do was spend the entire day curled into the fetal position in bed and weep.

Someone knocked on my door. “Rory! Mamma’s gone. Can you make breakfast?” The door opened and Lizzy stood in the doorway, hugging her stuffed bunny to her chest. If it was anyone else, I’d tell them to fend for themselves, but I couldn’t say that to her.

“I’ll be down in a few,” I replied, sitting up and stepping into my gray slippers.

“Okay!” She sounded happy and padded down the hallway holding the stuffed bunny’s arm.

I grabbed my purple pillow and sat it on my lap. It was soft velvet, and it smelled like my apple-scented shampoo. I grabbed the edges of the pillow and held it against my face, screaming into it. I pressed the fabric to my mouth, masking my screams of agony. I then tossed the pillow toward the headboard and got dressed.

After brushing my hair, I swept it into a messy ponytail and went downstairs to feed the hungry wolves.

My brothers had already left for work. Carmen laid on the couch in the living room watching 10 Things I Hate About You , and Lizzy sat on the floor coloring. She immediately dropped her crayons and jumped to her feet when she saw me in the doorway.

“Can you make pancakes, please?” Lizzy begged, following me into the kitchen.

“Yes,” I said, giving her half a smile. I couldn’t fight off the melancholy feeling. My sorrow was too strong today. It was hard to breathe, yet there I was, standing on my own two feet making pancakes for my sisters.

Lizzy touched my arm with her cold hand. “What’s the matter? You look sad.”

I licked my lips as I poured the pancake mix and water into the mixing bowl. “It’s a gloomy day. Papà died two years ago today.”

“Oh.” Lizzy blinked. “I don’t remember him.” She turned and went to the fridge, looking for something.

I gasped, feeling like a shard of broken glass cut through my heart. It killed me that Lizzy would never have a memory of our papà. He was a good man and loved us dearly. He was the one who taught me how to cook. He used to sing silly songs while cooking. My siblings always groaned when he sang, but I loved it.

As I stirred the contents together and placed the frying pan on the burner, I hummed one of Papà’s songs.

Carmen came in and grabbed the orange juice. “What are you humming? It sounds vaguely familiar. I remember it annoying me.”

I cackled, shaking my head. “You don’t remember? It was one of Papà’s favorite songs to sing when he cooked.”

I stopped stirring and bopped my head a little like a pigeon as I sang, “We like to cook. We like to cook. Come take a look at my cookbook. You’ll come for the smells and stay for the grub. We like to cook. Oh, we like to—”

“God! Stop that! I always hated it when he sang. He was good at embarrassing me even when there was no one around to witness it. I was embarrassed about having to live through it.”

I shrugged, pouring the batter into the pan, making three circles of goo. “I thought a song was needed this morning since today is the second anniversary of his passing.”

“Two years? Wow. I thought it was longer.” Carmen poured herself a glass of orange juice and chugged it.

“Don’t you miss him?” I asked, grabbing a spatula from the dish drainer.

Carmen refilled her glass of orange juice and joined Lizzy at the kitchen table. “I did at first. It was weird coming home from school and not hearing him clash around in the kitchen or outside working on something. Guess I got used to him being gone.” She took a sip of her juice.

A heavyweight came over me. It felt like I was wearing a lead jacket. If Lizzy had no memory of our papà and Carmen no longer cared, that only left our brothers. After we ate, I’d have to check in. Hopefully, one of them shared my pain for this tragic day. I couldn’t mention it to Mamma. She worked extra hard around this day to forget. I wouldn’t put it past her to be working until the wee hours of the night.

The three of us took our pancakes into the living room and finished watching the movie. Carmen pointed her fork at the TV and, while still chewing, said, “You remind me a lot of Kat.”

I studied Julia Stiles’ character for a couple of moments. She and Heath Ledger’s character were playing paintball on the TV screen.

I dipped my piece of pancake in a pool of syrup. “Why?”

Carmen swallowed her bite. “Because you’re both lame. You need someone like Patrick to take that stick out of your ass. Paolo isn’t doing you any favors. If anything, he’s making you worse.”

I snorted, completely offended. “I’m sorry you see it that way.” I stood, taking my plate into the kitchen, and grabbed my phone to call Lorenzo. He answered on the second ring.

“Hey, what’s up?”

I leaned against the kitchen sink, looking at the family drawing Lizzy drew and stuck on the fridge. It had all five of us kids and Mamma. I looked at the ground before another wave of sorrow kicked in. “Nothing. Just checking in. Anything to report?”

“Not really. Mamma is busy helping Cindi with a project. We had to help clean up a mess from a poker game gone wrong, but it wasn’t anything too bad. That’s how slow it’s been.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Okay. I’m glad nothing crazy has happened.”

“What’s wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

I sighed. “Just thinking of Papà. It’s been two years since he died.”

Lorenzo gave a low whistle. “I forgot that was today.” Something made a loud thumping sound. “Hey, Franco! Did you know Papà has been gone for two years? Crazy, right?” he shouted at Franco, who I had imagined was on the other side of the room. There was a pause as he replied, but I couldn’t make it out.

“I can’t believe we both forgot about Papà.” He paused; a crunching sound came over the phone as if he was eating chips. “How are you doing? I know it hits you and Mamma hard.”

I didn’t know what was worse: the memories of my papà flooding in or that no one else seemed to give a rat’s ass he’s been gone for two years.

“The usual depression has sunk in,” I said softly.

There was noise in the background. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll light a candle in his honor tonight. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Talk to you later.”

I hung up before he said goodbye. Out of all of us kids, I stood alone in missing our papà. I was the only one who witnessed him die, but I thought the others would miss him, too. They must’ve figured out a way to compartmentalize his death into their brain so it wasn’t so hard for them. Part of me wished I could, but then, who would I be if I didn’t miss him?

I bumped into Tyler in the hallway. His eyes were only half open, and his hair stuck up in all directions. He opened his mouth to say something, but I brushed past him. I couldn’t talk right now. I needed to find someone who knew my papà. Someone I could vent to.

I lay on my bed and was about to call Chloe when my phone rang. A picture of Paolo flashed across my screen.

A groan escaped out of my lips as I hit answer. “Hello?”

“Hey! You want to go on an adventure?” His cocky grin could be heard across the line.

I raised an eyebrow. “What kind of adventure?”

“You know, the dangerous kind. It will be fun.”

I thought for a few heartbeats.

“Come on, Rory. You know you wanna ride shotgun with me.” Paolo was being playful, almost like how he was when we first started dating.

“Fine, but if we end up in a car chase, I’m saying I was kidnapped.”

He laughed. “That’s cool. Can you be ready in twenty?”

I chewed on my bottom lip, looking down at my shirt and shorts. They didn’t even match. “Make that twenty-five.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

Maybe Paolo wouldn’t be bad company. God, if I needed a good boyfriend, it would be today.

I’ve been with Paolo for two hours already, and I wish I never answered his call. His idea of fun was to do a drug deal. Well, I guess that’s what it was. A supplier sold his entire stash and needed more, and the mafia thought Paolo could use more responsibility, so they had him do the run, or so he claims. Now I was trapped in his car with enough cocaine and meth to be sentenced to decades in prison.

We stopped at a red light. A police car pulled into the lane next to us. I held a hand to my throat, trying to keep my heart from tumbling out.

“Calm down. You’re going to get us pulled over with that look of panic on your face. The cop will probably think I’m kidnapping you.”

Paolo successfully managed to get me to stop thinking about my papà. Now, I was worried about being arrested. I watched enough episodes of Orange Is The New Black to know I wasn’t built for prison.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice shook. It felt like all my insides were on the verge of coming loose.

The light turned green. The cop went ahead of us. Paolo laughed and shot a finger gun at the cop car. I smacked him. My adrenaline made blood whoosh in my ears. “Don’t do that!”

He laughed, hitting my leg. “You need to chill. You’re going to spook our dealer with this attitude. What’s wrong with you? You seemed cool on the phone.”

“I wanted to go out so I’d stop thinking of my papà’s death.”

He glanced at me before looking back at the road. “Hasn’t he been dead for a while now?”

He had such a way with words.

I crossed my arms over my stomach. Suddenly, I felt sick. “Can you drop me off? I don’t feel good.”

He rolled his eyes and pulled over into the parking lot of the closest grocery store. “If you find the chick who was on the phone earlier, call me, and we’ll hang out.”

I nodded and got out of the car. He peeled off.

Part of me hoped he got pulled over and got arrested for drug possession. That would’ve saved me the awkward dance of having to break up with him down the road.

I walked to the store, pulling out my phone from my purse. None of my friends answered. I didn’t want to have Carmen pick me up with Lizzy. I didn’t want to have to explain why I was abandoned to my mamma or my brothers. They would only lecture me on how I needed to make better life choices and I heard that too many times to hear it again today of all days.

I scrolled through my contacts and stopped on Tyler’s name. I went back and forth if I should reach out to him.

An old man walked by me slowly, checking out my ass. I needed to get out of here. This wasn’t a good part of town to be alone in, and I forgot my pepper spray in my other purse.

I said a quick prayer and called Tyler. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Rory. Where are you?”

“I went out with Paolo, but he ditched me. Long story short, can you pick me up?”

“Yeah. Of course.” He breathed into the phone. I heard jingling in the background. “Where did that loser leave you?”

“I’m at a grocery store on the corner of Ninetieth Avenue and Indian School Road.”

He muttered something under his breath before saying, “Damn, that part of town. Even I know that’s the ‘hood. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I pinched my lips together as another man walked by, eyeing me again. “Thank you, Ty.”

After hanging up, I holed myself in the single-use bathroom with a peeling label stating it was the family restroom. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The tiny bathroom was dim and smelled like it was recently cleaned with bleach. I reluctantly put my hands on the edge of the porcelain sink to keep myself from collapsing on the filthy floor. The mirror was scratched with graffiti. I could barely make out my reflection in the hazy glass. I was on the edge and felt like at any second, I was going to shatter.

My phone rang, scaring the crap out of me. It was Tyler. I had no idea how much time had passed by.

“Hey! Are you here?” My voice echoed in the bathroom. I sounded like a little girl scared out of her mind at some sadistic theme park.

“Yeah. I’m idling out front.”

I opened the door and made my way outside. “Okay. I’m coming.”

Two guys were ogling Tyler’s Rolls-Royce. I got in, and he started driving before I shut the door.

“Do I want to know what happened between you and Paolo?”

I shook my head. Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn’t keep myself contained anymore, and I buried my face into my hands and wept.

“Wah! What’s wrong?” His voice was soft and filled with concern. At least someone understood my pain, even if he didn’t know what I was going through.

I sniffed, wiping my face with the sides of my hands, but it was no use. I couldn’t stop crying. “Today is the second anniversary of my papà's death. None of my siblings seem to give a damn. None of my friends answered my calls. Paolo asked if I wanted to go on an adventure, but it was a drug deal, so I faked sick. He ditched me in one of the worst parts of town. And now I can’t stop crying.” I couldn’t stop talking; it kept coming out like word vomit.

“I’m sorry, drug deal? Your dad died two years ago today?” He sighed. “Damn. That’s a lot of info to process. I think I know what might cheer you up, though.”

“What?” The word caught in my throat. It felt like it was getting harder to breathe.

“Just relax. You can trust me.”

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. Oddly enough, I did trust him. I trusted Tyler more than anyone else right now.