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Trashed and Scattered

Chapter Six: Tend Your Light

After another week had passed since the initial mother bomb had dropped and it was time to go. Between rescheduling— full-out cancelling appointments—and juggling a needy father, Peyton had had absolutely no time to herself. She’d worked overtime trying to accommodate her clients and to put Hannah’s mind at ease. She’d spent every waking hour at the shop, tattoo gun in hand, working on that arthritis. At that rate, it was bound to sink in by her early forties. By time she finally arrived at the airport with her bags in hand, she was exhausted.
Her father had flown out the week before to go and have the legalities of the property worked out. Her mother, as promised, had signed over ownership to the deed just before being whisked away to prison. She’d asked about Peyton and how her life had panned out, but Dan hadn’t given up any information. That was the only thing Peyton had ever asked of him; not to disclose details of her life to her addict of a mother.
He knew that Peyton wasn’t thrilled with what was happening, but he was thankful she’d been willing to go along with it anyway. She was handy enough that he knew she could handle the repairs, though the house had been left in a deplorable state of disrepair. He’d spent two days cleaning, sleeping on an air mattress he’d purchased in lieu of the beds that occupied two of the three bedrooms.
“It’s mostly clean,” Dan explained to Peyton as she scanned the details of her boarding pass. “I did as much as I could.”
“I can handle it,” she assured him passively, not overly eager to get into the details in such a public place.
“Okay,” he sighed to himself, admiring the way his daughter was always ready at the helm.
He’d spent years of his life working through the immense guilt that had plagued him for most of his adult life. Maybe it had started sooner than that, at some point it had all melded together like some tragic oil painting.
He had lost his first love to mental illness, gaining a warped version of her over the years that had made the decision to lean on alcohol and drugs, rather than on him. Things had only gotten worse after she gave birth to their daughter; and she’d been neglectful from the start. He’d encouraged his wife to form a bond with their child, and had subsequently turned a blind eye when she tried. Her effort usually took a gruesome turn, using their daughter as some sort of physical release of anger.
As much as he’d yearned to protect his daughter, he had failed. He’d turned his back to the screams and the bruises. He’d defended his sick wife to anyone who had questioned his home life…not that many did.
The final straw came when his daughter had come to him with a broken arm. Apparently her mother had twisted it with utmost intent and had fractured it…It was then that he truly understood the gravity of what he’d allowed to continue. Although he took her far away from the grips of her mother’s love, he never quite shook the guilt. Every single time he glanced at his daughter and caught sight of that thin scar that stretched across the top of her left brow, he knew that he had failed as a parent. He was no better than his wife, no matter how hard he’d tried to deny it.
“Thank you,” he said to his only child, sinking back into his rue.
She brushed him off, as she always did. He couldn’t blame her for being distant from him in all her life, not that she’d ever explicitly went off about the reasons. She’d kept that part of their life shackled up tight, hidden from the world, and hidden from her mind. Dan knew that by asking her to go back, no matter the circumstances, he was sacrificing her all over again. He just had to trust that she wouldn’t take on anything she couldn’t handle.
“Did your clients understand?” he asked, trying desperately to gauge her resentment toward him in the moment.
Her face fell a smidgen, as if entirely uncaring to get into the details of her work life with him, “It’s fine, Dad. They were fine.”
It wasn’t that she was trying to be purposefully vague or uncaring, but she was eager to get moving on this ridiculous trip back through memory lane. She figured if she moved quickly enough, maybe she could evade the demons and ghouls that were inevitably lingering around every corner.
“Okay,” he sighed, admitting defeat when he saw it. “Call me when you land. You have the address?”
She shook her blackened phone at him as a reminder of the copious amounts of detailed texts he’d sent off in the past several weeks. She had more information than she could ever hope to do anything with.
“I love ya, Pey,” he tried hopefully.
She smiled, “I love you, too.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve her forgiveness, if that’s really what it was, but he never wasted a second he had with her.
She brushed the boarding pass against her knuckles, glance fluttering around the crowded airport, “I should go.”
“Okay,” he nodded, sad to see her leave but unable to ask her to stay.
They didn’t spend a substantial amount of time together. Peyton worked most weekends, and the commute between their homes was nearly two hours without traffic. Given that she didn’t drive, not that she couldn’t. There simply wasn’t a need for a car in New York; she’d always opted, instead, to take cabs and subways. Without a proper mode of transportation to make the distance, the onus fell to Dan to get to New York. He rarely did.
But when they would finally get together, it was as if no time had been lost. They had a standing Monday night phone call that neither ever missed.
As she tightened her grip on the sketchbook pressed tightly beneath her tattooed forearm, she hugged her father loosely with the other. He held onto her tightly, which he knew would make her uncomfortable. She wasn’t exactly touchy…It made sense, given everything that had happened…but he always found himself wishing she’d find a way to crawl out of her introverted nature and join the land of the affectionate.
That too, he knew, was his fault.
“I’ll call you when I land,” she reiterated coolly as she pulled her body from his grasp.
She didn’t look back as she passed through security and headed for her gate. Leaving had never been an issue for her; she’d moved around more times than she could count. The apartment she’d rented out with her only long-time friend was the longest she’d stayed anywhere. And she’d only lived there just shy of fourteen months.
Nothing in Peyton’s life was constant; except her love for art. It was something she’d conjured up at a young age, and it was one of the few things that hadn’t been ripped from her.
She took up a plastic seat near a window, half-watching the planes land, and half-burying herself into her work. Maybe she wasn’t tattooing, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t drafting. She tossed her headphones over her head and hit play on her iPod. She’d spent an arm and a leg to get it, and now she brought it everywhere. It had grown to be an extra limb.
Thankfully, sketching was well-known to pass the time, and soon enough they were calling for boarding.
She’d managed to score a seat to herself, which seemed strange given their destination. She’d anticipated New York to Los Angeles would be a particularly popular flight, crammed full of people. Like sweaty sardines in a poorly ventilated can.
She took the extra space to spread her legs out, watching as the world grew further and further from her feet.
The anxiety began to set in.
She hadn’t given California a single thought in many, many years. It took a lot of work on her end to burn that bridge and erase the damage from her mind; but she’d finally gotten to a place where she was comfortable. She’d labored endlessly to build stability for herself, even if that stability meant constant change.
She wondered if the house would still look like she remembered. If her bedroom door was still splintered and cracked…Would everything feel the same?
A tinge of fear surged through her like a drug. Swallowing down her ridiculousness, she scolded herself. She was not a child anymore; and that monster wasn’t hiding out under her bed. It’s funny the way that things stay with you, despite how far you’ve run from them.
She brushed her hair from her face, tucking it neatly behind her ears. As the earth flashed by, unrecognizable from such heights, she tried to ready herself. While she may not have known what to expect, she knew herself well enough to anticipate that it would be heavy.
With three hours to train her muscles, she got to work. She ran her third eye over the grey roof, following the walls down to the grass. She counted the windows on the front of the house and then stepped around the corner to the side. Peering up at the her bedroom window, tucked neatly behind the roof of the kitchen, she could almost see the beige curtains flowing in the wind. She watched as a tiny girl climbed from within the treachery of the house, on all fours like a dog. The young girl ran for the largest oak Peyton had ever seen. As she wrapped her arms around the trunk and shimmied across, she stepped onto the roof of a neighboring house.
Deranged cries boomed from the walls just beyond Peyton’s reach. She closed her eyes and forced herself back onto the plane.
With a wrenching in her chest, she breathed out the memory. Over the years, she’d gotten remarkably skilled in the art of forgetting. She’d banished most of her childhood to the curb and had left it there in bags. Now she had to consciously push herself to remember. Some things stayed, but those, too, Peyton told herself would fade in time.
A familiar restlessness sounded out between her ears. It was faint, like a dull ache, but it was rapidly growing stronger. With a pencil as her weapon, she carved into the pages in her lap, willing away the monsters that she’d accidentally released. It was cheaper than therapy, and seemed to do the trick without fail. But she could only starve off reality for so long.
As she gave this demon a long, whippy tail that curved up into a venomous peak, she forced her wandering mind to heal to its chain. Without flinching, she held her focus on her lines; falling into an introverted silence, she moved the world away.
She’d have to face her past, she knew this. She’d have to cross that threshold into the home that had haunted her for most of her life. She’d have to climb those stairs and step foot inside the rooms she once hid within. Somehow she’d have to evade the shadows lurking in every corner as she brandished the light. The walls would twist on cave on her if only they were given the chance.
She knew that the house wasn’t the problem…
But nevertheless, if she had her way, she’d burn that fucking house down.

Notes

xx

Comments

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RamonaFoREVer RamonaFoREVer
6/18/19

@fyction
It is one of my favourite things. I melt every time!!

kiss my sas kiss my sas
6/11/19

@kiss my sas
I know! Isn’t it sweet?! Guh. Pellivan <3

fyction fyction
6/11/19

@fyction
BUT PELLIVAN IS TRUE LOVE!!!
I still get giddy when Peyton says 'I love you' to Jimmy... urgh! Such a long time coming!

kiss my sas kiss my sas
6/11/19

@kiss my sas
I mean.... Breyton could be revived... never say never ;)

fyction fyction
6/11/19