Santa Monica

I woke up from the same nightmare that I've been having for the past three weeks she's not going as she. But she is it's all in my head is tonight at the pier party we're all on the dock having drinks dancing doing drugs all the lights the sounds the music I can still feel the sand beneath my toes. I can still feel the wind in my hair and the ocean smell. When I'm in this dreamlike state it feels so real it feels as if she's still here with me it feels as if she's still calling my name for those last minutes that she was still around. And then suddenly, I awake with a Thunder roar in my chest. My therapist between these white walls calls it anxiety. Ever since that night at the pier party my father got me into a mental hospital for drugs it's been about a year in these walls. They let me keep up on my social medias let me stay in touch with my friends my friends think I'm away overseas just studying abroad. As far as anyone thinks in the town no one thinks that we were the ones who gave her the drug that made her overdose. Everyone just thinks she's missing nobody no one's able to put her to rest. As I think about that for a couple seconds it makes me wonder if anyone will ever go into those Woods that we all buried her in that night. And as I think about this my mind wanders into mysterious places if her body would ever be found if she would ever be put to rest. Today is my last day here it's going into the spring of the next year so almost a year to the date. Maybe that's why it's so much on my mind as far as my therapist knows she just thinks I missed the missing girl. The family's doing at memorial in putting her to rest because she's been gone for a year it's the perfect time for me to go back my therapist says. It's the perfect time for me to face my fears and realize what's going on in my life. My therapist says that I can always come and see her after I leave. I don't know if it was detoxing from the drugs or if it was me wanting to go back to the drugs that made me want to leave so much. As I sit here on my bed the last morning that this will be my bed, I wonder about all these things I wonder about the night in the Woods with everyone. I wonder if everyone will be friends when I come back or if we will just make awkward stares back and forth from each other. I wonder if my time here spent was well worth it. Was my time here spent more for my own gain or was it more for other people's gains for me to be quiet about what happened in those Woods. I wouldn't want to rat out any of my friends I wouldn't want to make it seem like life was better before those Woods. Life was still the same life was never ending gain in drugs and partying. But as we all realized that night, we all took it a little too far we all went a little too far. My therapist comes in this morning and smiles at me I wonder if she's wondering if I'm ready to go back. I wonder if she thinks I'd be better locked away from the chaos of my town right now in the Remembrance of my friend that I lost. But she wasn't really a friend was she was more like a nuisance. She kept us on our toes that's the most I remember about her. I am ready to go back as much as I don't want to go back, I'm ready to go back and see my daughter I'm ready to go back and face the life that I left so many months ago. And from what I know my dad has custody of my daughter, so we didn't leave it with her family. And as you paste that together yes, the girl in the Woods had my daughter two years prior. I didn't love her then either though I feel like the past years were just something so that she could hold something over us. She never had anything to hold over me though she never had anything to gain from me. And I feel like that is why she wanted to have a daughter with me that is why she wanted to gain something from me. It was a well-known fact that my family had money and maybe she wanted to gain that money. It isn't like I could ask those questions now. And as I look up words my therapist with her holding my discharge papers, she is the curious look on her face something that doesn't fit right with me. I nod my head and stand up starting to sign my papers. This wasn't my first stint in the hospital my father had been putting me in and out of the hospital since I was about 13 years old due to my drug use. This time was just a longer stay due to my father wanting to make sure that I would stay sober when I got out. He told me I had a lot to come home too I wonder if I had anything to come home to. I didn't think much about signing the papers and looking at my discharge plan then waiting out in the hallway with my bag up for my father. He had tokened my car home the month that he dropped me off so I figured he would be picking me up. Make it look like I was staying overseas, and he was taking me back into town. The hospital where I stay is a few towns over, so no one really wondered where I was staying if I was in the states. I feel my shoes on my feet for the first time in months I look at the door and I see the sunlight I feel the papers in my hand take a deep breath wondering where he is why he was running late where he was. As I see his old Mustang pull to the front of the building, I walked out the front doors wondering if this would be my last time here. I opened the passenger door end slide into the passenger door seat. I glanced over to him he looked like he had a rough night he mostly did a lot of writing for his living. Even know my family-owned shares in one of the major liquor companies due to my Gran father being the founder of it my father took a different approach in life and became a writer. My father expected me to get a lucrative job after graduating college. But I had different plans in mind I wanted to become an artist. I glance into the back seat and see some of my twin brother’s paperwork’s back there he was more of the brain of the family who is the shy nerdy guy. Are my father drives away without a word or without a hello I wonder if this is how life was going to be this time? I had told my father about what happened in the Woods before I had left for rehab this time, he didn't really want to discuss it then I don't know if he's going to want to discuss it now. He probably didn't want to believe that his son could be such a monster. Maybe he doesn't even remember what I told him in a drugged-out phase maybe he thought it was just the drug out phase. As we pull up to my house that my father got me when I was 18 years old, I step out of the vehicle grabbing my bag from the back waving him goodbye. I walked towards the front door on unlock it for the first time in months walking inside sing things were left the same sing that everything was in the places that I left it months ago was very surprising. Everything looked like it was untouched nothing was moved I wondered if my father ever even came here to look at anything. As I walk upstairs and place my bag in my bedroom, I noticed last painting that I was working on the painting that described how I was in love with my best friend during last year. I was also surprised that she hadn't been here seeing that she had a key and that her house could be a little hectic at times. I walked to the girl’s bathroom and looked around seeing if anything had been taken it looked like it had been cleared out. I wonder what the girls were doing. I wonder what was going on inside their minds. I wonder if they thought I was going to rat them out. As I make my way downstairs and towards the kitchen are you look for my phone that I left here I know I left it in one of the drawers, but I don't remember which drawer I left it in. Once I find it, I send a text message to Astro wondering if she can come over and then send a message to Juliana wondering if she can come over. I figured the girls would be together if not then things have been going more wrong than I figured. Once I get the OK from that they would be there in 15 minutes I going to start making myself something to eat. I make it outside towards the pole sitting down on one of the loungers. As the girls show up, they make their way outside I smiled tours them in put my plate down. They all seem happy and cheery. Like nothing about last year phased them I cross my laying over the other one more in a wondering position than anything glancing towards them how did they pull out of this so happy? Astro comes over to me and gives me a hug I hug her back she glanced down towards me raised her shoulder “so how you doing Jasper? How did overseas treat you?” and suddenly it hit me they believed that I was overseas in that I should be happy. I raise my shoulder towards Astro. “It was a lot of art it was beautiful you should have seen it. I'm doing pretty good a lot clearer headed then when I left.” Juliana came and sat down next to us with a smile upon her lips. She runs her fingers through her long black hair. “It must be amazing during this time of year; I always visit during the winter I always wondered what it would be like during the summer. But in the little Villa that you were in it sounds amazing from what you were telling me about it.” I wonder how long I can pull this off for if they're going to wonder too much about it. I not my head rolling my shoulders back. Then they try to get off the topic I bring up “yeah but I figured I should come back at least for the memorial it was amazing though. It's just everyone's gathering for the memorial in the burial of the casket I figured we should be there. We were the closest thing she had to friends other than spike who was her on and off boyfriend. And with her family being all around her we should be there too.” my eyes go up to the girls they nod their head as if they've already thought about that. Astro then says “things have been different with her gone; she's not putting the fear of God into anyone anymore things have been a lot calmer. Mostly people have forgotten about the mean girl that she was growing up.” That was the thing that I haven't mentioned we had all been friends since basically the 6th grade, we all gathered and became friends because of her. Maybe it was because we weren't scared of her maybe it was because we all saw something better in her. She was the mean girl in the school she was the Queen bee she always put the fear of God into people as if she was holding secrets of people that no one knew of. For some reason I always tended to believe that she always knew things that she shouldn't have known. Somehow, I made the town fear her. Somehow it made us become a family though all of us. It was a bigger group than the three of us there is several of us we're just spread out now. I mostly thought it was because of college though we all got spread out maybe it was because people stopped trying to keep up with her. Stop trying to listen to her stopped believing in the things that she had against them. But everyone will be there when we put her well put the casket into the ground. Somehow in this moment Astro snaps me out of it “I hear that everyone's gathering for the memorial everyone in the friend group even if we split up throughout the years after high school. we are all coming together for the memorial. Casper is society to throw something at his house after the funeral. I already told him that we all three would be there.” look up at her with big eyes wondering if I would be able to handle being at Casper and being sober or even clean at this point. I already knew that neither of them was clean they found nothing wrong with that. It was going to have a weird feeling going back to college at the beginning of the week. The memorial was this weekend I just had to get through the weekend. I walk inside the house not wanting to think about this anymore now I need to think about Casper’s or the memorial or the burial. I go and grab something to drink from my liquor selection it's old but it's there or something to keep my mind off things. Before I realized that Juliana was right behind me, she glanced towards me with a mysterious look in her eyes then suddenly, I was in 6th grade again I was walking home from school I was trying to walk myself because my father forgot to pick me up. For what I didn't know is he told my mother to pick me up on my way home I saw my mother's car parked in the neighbor’s driveway and I walked towards it seeing my mother kissing our neighbor in the back seat. I remember walking away from her car and walking back towards the sidewalk and then suddenly Arabella showed up with a mysterious look in her eyes. “What did you see? Was it something you weren't supposed to see?” I remember Arabella asking me. “If you're not going to tell me I'm just going to go look myself!” I don't remember saying anything I just remember keeping my pace and walking towards my house. I remember telling my father and my father telling me my mother and father were going to get a divorce they just don't know how to tell me, yet they had nothing to do with me. It had nothing to do with any of the kids they just fell out of love a long time ago. I remember the following year is when my baby sister was born. My mother and father already divorce my father was married to a new woman my mother had fled across the country to see the world she said was the last thing she said to me face to face at that young age. My baby sister was from my father and my stepmother is marriage. I remember Arabella asking me the day that she was born or mostly just making the statement “I hope your father's marriage doesn't turn out like his last one, you boys have the worst luck in women.” as if she already knew that my family all us boys had bad luck with women. Suddenly Juliana snapped her finger in what felt like a lifetime worth of experiences only happened within 5 seconds. “Are you doing, OK? You seem out of it. I understand being back here can be stressful. And I understand why you want away but I want to make sure that you're doing OK?” Juliana said after snapping her fingers I make a pleading face at her as if don't tell anyone else I don't need this on the record right now. She nodded her head somehow me and Juliana were always tide with the same emotional damage, but Juliana did a better way of hiding it. After I finish pouring myself something to drink, I sit down at the table & not wanting to think still not wanting to think about everything I run my fingers through my long curly hair and take a deep breath in. It shouldn't be this hard I tell myself on the inside. But when you lose someone who's been in your life for most of your life who tortured you cruelly most your life something inside you breaks something inside you tells you that you're missing a part of your life still. Juliana sat down next to me and poured her own drink life is such a cruel joke. Before I left me and Astro, we're trying to work out our feelings with each other know I don't even know if there are any feelings. Juliana and spike got together after our left I don't even know if they're together anymore. Everything seemed to be in its place, but everything also seemed to be falling apart in the same exact place. The pictures on the wall that I painted just seem to be faded shadows of the past that I don't want to remember. Everything seemed to be faded shadows of a past that I don't want to remember, I think This is why I understand why people leave this town and never look back. Somewhere in the middle of me thinking and overthinking Astro head come inside and was running her fingertips through the top of my head. Something seemed so perfect in this moment the silence everyone on the same thought but everyone not knowing together the gathered answered. “So, we show up together and we leave together. That's a way to make sure that everyone thinks that we're still on the same page about everything.” I said glancing around at the girls they nod their head as if in the same moment they had the same thought. If I could just get a moment alone with Astro, I could understand what she was thinking but I couldn't ask her to stay. I couldn't ask her to stay here with me. Astro chimes in and says “my brother came back to town when you were away. He's staying in town although it's nice to have him around I don't know how to think about him and my best friend from my childhood being together.” then suddenly I realized life was moving on. Life wasn't living on around us.