Trashed and Scattered

Pulling her bags from the carousel and headed for the exit, Peyton didn’t slow down in her stride. She’d just stepped through the door, her suitcase rumbling and rattling as it dragged behind her, when she was directed onto a shuttle. This was the part about travel that Peyton hated the most, but she’d flown enough to know what to expect. Getting from point A to point B was always a hassle.
Nevertheless, she took a seat at the back of the shuttle, making herself comfortable in the hard plastic. As several more people climbed aboard, she turned the volume radiating into her ear drums way up. Sweat began to bead above her exhausted brow as the California sun beat down onto her New York skin. Even in the fall, she’d forgotten just how warm the west coast was. She caught herself enjoying it and promptly forced herself to stop.
The bus pulled away from the curb after roasting in the sun for a few minutes longer. By that point, Peyton was hot and sweaty and sore. It was safe to assume she’d developed a tumor of attitude.
She adjusted her body to shimmy out of the direct sunlight. Her shoulder had begun to burn, she could feel the layers of her skin melting away. She tried to remember a time when the California sun had been just another day—when it didn’t feel like the seventh circle of hell was casting itself high into the sky, designed specifically to take her out. It felt like someone else’s memory and she just couldn’t quite wrap her fingers around the concept.
When she finally arrived at the car rental, there was no line and she moved briskly through the process. It was probably best for everyone around because Peyton was in a fighting mood. She threw her bag into the trunk of the Hyundai with more force than was necessary. Throwing caution to the wind, she sped off. Her foot did not relent on the gas until she was headed south on the interstate, inching herself closer and closer to the life she’d left behind.
It wasn’t necessarily fair to say that she’d left it. She’d been taken from it, purposefully or not. Peyton had had absolutely no say in the matter as her father packed their few bags into his car and rolled it silently out of the driveway, hesitating to start the engine until they were already backed onto the road.
She’d never forget the way the street looked; a light rain hazing itself over the streetlights as they lit the sky with orange. As the car rolled backward, she could see her friend in the window. His curtains were pulled back and he was leaned all the way through the frame. Though she couldn’t make out his face through the distance, she was sure it looked about the same as hers. With tears in her eyes, she waved—though she knew he couldn’t see.
Peyton pulled herself back, weaving through slower traffic so that she could make better time. It wasn’t clear to her why she was rushing, just that she was. Something was possessing her to get her moving faster—there was a lot to do. The quicker she powered through it, the sooner she could fly back home…and put this all behind her.
The trip from Los Angeles to Huntington was a short one. It was less than an hour without the slowing effect of traffic. She’d turned the radio up high and rolled the windows down low to help pass the time.
An arm slipped out the driver’s side window, flowing freely in the wind as she drove. It had been too long since she’d last driven a car, and while she knew it should feel foreign and strange, it felt somehow like revival. There was a certain freedom that came with moving a car—and it was one she hadn’t realized she’d missed.
Her inked arm reflected the sun in little beaded droplets. She paid no mind to the crisping of her tattooed skin or the way Maleficent’s face contorted as Peyton twisted her arm upward into the current.
As she took the last exit onto the Pacific Coast Highway, she was annoyed to find herself disappointed. For the first time in weeks, she’d enjoyed her own company. It was the first time she’d found herself relaxing into the grooves of her own mind, rather than twisting and tormenting them into something lesser. She was just existing…and it had felt pretty good.
Driving along the ocean was surreal. While she knew, and understood, that her whole life had basically revolved around that ocean as a child, it felt surreal to see it as an adult. She rolled to a stop, waiting in the appropriate lane to make a left turn onto Main Street. Surfers strolled across the road to the pier in their wet-suits, carrying their boards on their shoulders. What a wild world this was, Orange County. A place where people could surf year round. Peyton found herself trying not to smile from behind her big sunglasses.
The light turned green and she stomped on the gas, rounding the corner with ease as the sun slowly began to fall in the sky. Sunset was only a few hours from then and she considered returning to the beach to watch it. She could have a romantic evening by her lonesome.
It unnerved her to find that she was frantically trying to sight see as she drove. She hadn’t anticipated the
return…home. It had been so long since she’d stepped foot on California soil that she had been imagining it differently. She’d forgotten how very homey Orange County could be.
She followed the GPS but quickly lost track of where she was. Maintaining her speed, her eyes glued themselves to a set of houses on the left. It hit her like a brick wall—that was her childhood home.
And the home of her savior.
Panicking from missing her target, she took the night right and went around the block. The change in direction turned out to work in her benefit as it allowed her to park on the street just outside her house. Granted, it was street parking and apparently everyone was home. She strolled down a few house lengths before pulling into a vacancy and lulling the car to sleep.
Glancing over her shoulder and out the back window, her heart began to race. To see the house of horrors up close…In person…She righted herself, muttering a quick pseudo-pep talk before climbing from the car and digging her belongings from the trunk. Before braving the storm, she decided she’d better be prepared. She dug the keys her father had given her from the bottom of her purse and wrapped her fingers tightly around them.
With a breath of fresh, Southern Californian air and a nod to herself, she stepped up onto the curb and dragged her bags onto the sidewalk. She tried not to stare as she casually strolled passed the massive white house that she’d practically grown up in. Her mind began to boil over with memories; nearly enough to tear her reality limb from limb and leave her naked and panting and breathless.
So, she forced her gaze downward and didn’t look up until she’d made it to the covered front door of her former home. She swallowed her feelings down with a choking gulp. Sliding the key into the lock and turning it to the left, it clicked with admittance.
She imagined all of the skeletons and ghosts on the other side. They had probably scattered at the sound of an intruder. But soon enough they’d realize who it was and they’d be out to play. She ran her hands over the heavy door, as if she could soften it with her will alone. She desperately wanted this house to be something different than it was…She wanted to feel as if she was coming home. But it eluded her to no end.
With one final glance around at the empty street, she turned the handle and pushed the heavy door open wide.
Her footsteps echoed inside the nearly emptied house. It was dark, just as she remembered. She abandoned her bags in the doorway, closing the door behind her with serious reluctance.
“Now what?” she asked herself, the loudness of her voice startling her.
She couldn’t help but laugh at herself, shaking her head as the inescapable trauma of her youth showed itself once more. In an impulse, she stepped into the living room. The sight of the windows taped off with newspaper was enough to have her reeling. How could someone live this way? Her chest sank into her guts.
Like a maniac, she marched to each window and ripped at the paper until it was confetti in her hands. She scratched at the tape and pulled hard on the curtains until they fell with their metal rods onto the floor. They were the same curtains she’d hid behind more times than she could count. It wasn’t the look of them that struck her as familiar, but the feel of the fabric against her skin.
Thirteen years and she hadn’t changed her curtains…Peyton was endlessly disgusted by her mother.
But the sunlight poured through the windows as Peyton slid them open, breathing fresh air through the room. Marveling in her small act of defiance, she grinned to herself. It was a light that she knew no form of wickedness could snuff out.
It looked the same, even without the shadows. The walls were lined in the same faded the paper and the floors still creaked in a familiar tune. The furnishings had changed, but it was still entirely similar enough to give Peyton shivers through her spine. There was no hiding now; she was there and she was vulnerable.
She traced her childhood footsteps, taking her time as she meandered through the main floor. As she flicked the switch and cast brilliance into the kitchen, she could still hear echos of screams and accusations. Her breathing shifted uncomfortably as she let her past consume her for only a second. Fear rattled her bones together in an orchestra of collective abandonment.
Decidedly unwilling to hide, though her instincts told her to, she removed herself from the poorly laid tile and waltzed slowly back the way she'd come. Her hand trailed along the dark banister as she steadily climbed the stairs. The wood creaked beneath her weight, one step still stained from the blood that pumped through Peyton's veins still. She let her gaze fall to the mass for only a second before pushing passed it, refusing to linger too long.
The hallway seemed somehow bigger through adult eyes. It had sprawled itself out and become almost inviting. You'd never have guessed it had been trashed in angst and terror. It was shorter than she remembered, the rooms pushed together like bees in a swarm. Somehow still firmly tied to the policing of her mother's bedroom, she strolled steadily past it.
As she came face to face with the splintered wood that marked her childhood bedroom, she let her hand relax against the knob. Her eyes instinctively pushed themselves tightly closed, listening for hurried steps coming up from behind her. She eased her tensed muscles as the house maintained it's silence. Sure that she was still safe and free to take her time, exploring the house that had dominated her nightmares for years, she turned her wrist and let the door creak loudly into the setting sun.
It felt like any other room, much to her relief. The pain-soaked paint had dried and was chipping in the corners. Her bed was just the same, the off-coloured sheets tucked neatly into the equally off-putting comforter. It was as if no one had slept in it in all the time she'd been gone. It looked just as she remembered leaving it.
The window was covered up, as the living room windows had been. She wasted little time ripping at the sides until the walls gleamed with sunlight. Daring to indulge in the newfound power she'd stumbled upon, she stepped into the frame of the window and cast her gaze out to the world.
Her trust oak stood proudly from its roots, stretching out further than it ever had before. She could almost see her tiny hands reaching out for its limbs in a hasty attempt to escape the wretchedness that was her upbringing.
And then her eyes found the white framed window across the bark from where she stood.
A flicker of remorse flooded behind her light eyes. She narrowed her focus, tempting herself to conjure up the ghost of what once had been. When nothing came, no shadows or figures, she was somehow disappointed. There were no curtains hung like she'd remembered there being. It was foreign to her now, the view obstructed by time.
How was it possible that so much had changed while simultaneously staying the same?
She'd tired of casually searching for what she'd lost. In one smooth motion, she fled from her binds and straight out the door. As she pulled away from the house and sped off down the street, she wasn't sure where she was going. She didn't know where anything was. But she needed time. She needed to breathe clean air and recharge her ability to stand straight.
When she found herself circling a grocery store, she took the opportunity to stock up. She took her time perusing the aisles; anything to keep from going back to the solitude, populated only by horrors.
As she tossed a box of her favourite sugar disguised as cereal into her cart, she caught a quick glimpse of something rushing passed her. She tensed and froze, half-expecting the figure to lunge at her. When it had passed entirely, she dared to look up. It was familiar. Something about his very being had her immediately trying to place him.
She came up short as she rounded the corner, seemingly paying no mind to her at all. She decided she was, once again, looking for things where they couldn't be found.
She pushed it out of her mind, replacing it with a running list of things she could do to distract herself from where she needed to be. Naturally, that meant the city beach. With her groceries piled together in the trunk of her rental, she abandoned her car in the paid lot and walked along the paved trail. The beach rolled out far past where she stood, which almost overwhelmed her with choice.
Opting to avoid the population, she nestled into the sand that stretched out to the ocean. A condominium building lay dormant to her back, seemingly nonliving as each unit remained perfectly still. As the sun faded itself into watercolor reds and yellows, she let her body stretch itself out. She lay on her hands, burying her fingertips beneath the grains of freedom.
It was the most beautiful sky she'd ever seen. The ocean reflected it's brilliance back up into the colors, masking the coast in unmatched wonder. She let herself relax, taking the time to let the fading day sooth her traveled soul.
Maybe it was the warm weather or maybe it was the warm glow of the setting sun, but something inside of her shifted.
Something told her that everything was going to be okay. A revelation she hadn't felt...maybe ever.
Sinking into the feeling as the sun sank into the sea, she let her troubles wash away.

Notes

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