Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Yeah. Addie had applied because I had, and she got in too, but we both knew she wouldn’t go. She loves Owl Island, loves nature. She’d hate being in a city, even a little one like Portland. Anyway, that was kind of the beginning, I guess. Sadie said it was selfish of me to go to school far enough away that I couldn’t help Mom and Dad out with the business on the weekends. Addie was sad I wouldn’t be around all the time to make her be social. My dad said he worried for me in the big city. For context, Portland is not a big city by any stretch of the imagination.”
Carys nodded thoughtfully. “And what about you?”
“Me? I…was so excited for a chance to start over that I felt guilty.”
The night before she left home, Greta couldn’t sleep. She’d walked around the only place she’d ever lived, gently touching the piano, the ragged lines of her father’s catastrophic Holiday Fair crafts, the magnetic calendar dry-erase board on the refrigerator that told everyone where each member of the family was for the week. Almost as an afterthought, she pulled the cap off the dry-erase marker and left a small note in the bottom right corner of the calendar, beneath Sunday and beneath the list of everyone’s telephone numbers. I love you, she’d written, then a small black heart. G. Five years later it was still there.
“After I left, there was this space between me and the rest of the family that had never been there before. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we were always texting and calling, and Addie and Maggie came to stay with me for weekends and stuff. But it was like my world had expanded and theirs…”
She inhaled and shrugged, holding the smoke until her throat stung, then exhaling. She wished the issue would dissipate as easily as the cloud of smoke.
“I mean, I love them. They’ve been a huge support system for me. Always been there. If I was in trouble, I could call them at any time of day or night and they’d help me. It’s just a lot. To feel so…tethered? Surveilled? In college, I started keeping a journal again for the first time in years because before, I’d always known one of my sisters could find it and read it.”
She’d stopped when she moved back to Owl Island, though. Even living by herself, she didn’t feel comfortable having a journal around. Her family came over so often, and everyone had a key, that she didn’t trust it.
“Gah, please make me stop talking.” Greta buried her face in the pillow for a moment, then sat up.
“I can’t even imagine.”
“What? Your family’s not codependent and nosy?” Greta tried to laugh it off.
Carys spoke through a mouth of smoke. “Nope. It’s me and my mom, mostly. Her parents live about an hour away, but I don’t see them that much.”
When Greta was little, one of the secret fantasies she indulged in was being an only child. Having time with just her mom or just her dad, with no interruptions.
“Do you and your mom hang out a lot?”
“No. I don’t fuck with her if I can help it. Do you mind?” Carys stood and gestured at her clothes. “It’s bra off o’clock.”
“’S fine.”
Greta tried to appear as though her whole attention was on the lighter she held, but she couldn’t help glance up as Carys stripped off her bra by pulling it through her sleeve. Her breasts fell heavy and soft, and Greta imagined pillowing her head between them as Carys stroked her hair.
“My mom had me when she was sixteen,” Carys went on. “We lived with my grandparents till I was five, then moved out. My mother is…” Greta could practically see her entertaining and then discarding words. “She’s very difficult for me to be around, so I try not to be.”
Greta passed the pipe back to Carys when she sat on the bed again. Carys lay on her back, took a drag, and held it so long, Greta wondered if she’d swallowed it. When Carys finally exhaled, she closed her eyes.
“Nothing is ever my mom’s fault. She doesn’t have the life she wanted because people are unfair to her, because they’re out to get her, because she had me and missed her opportunities. She’s always embroiled in some friend group or romantic drama where she’s the victim. She’s always the victim. It’s…” Carys waved the smoke away from her face like she could wave her mother away. “It fucked me up for a long time. Before I realized she’s the one who’s fucked up. Now I try to stay away from her as much as I can.”
“Fucked you up how?” Greta asked, putting a careful hand on Carys’ ankle.
“It was just us for a long time. So if something was messed up and it was never her fault, then—”