Chapter 9 – A Place to Belong – Holly Hayfield

My mother passed out at the front door. Her forehead was burning hot and she was sweating as if it were a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The only way I could get her into her bedroom was by carrying her on my back. It wasn’t easy as she was slightly taller and heavier than I was. We fell to the floor twice before making it to her bedroom.

Once we arrived I plopped her down onto the bed and helped her out of her stuffy office clothes. The pajamas I put her in were the lightest clothing I could find. Even still she was sweating beads. With a wet towel I wiped the sweat from her forehead. There was no need for me to stay in the room with her. She needed her rest. Once she was comfortably sleeping I left the room to get dinner started.

My mother came around just in time for dinner. She woke up in a sluggish haze and stared around the room vacantly. She looked down at her pajamas.

“Holly…? Hey there darling… Did you help me get to bed…?”

Even her voice sounded hoarse and labored. She was in a terrible condition and yet managed to stay at work all day.

“Why didn’t you stay home?” I asked.

“Taking a day off isn’t something I can do right now. We’ve got to stay afloat while I finish paying for the car repair bills. The damn mechanic is a robber-baron.”

“Well now that you’re home you should at least try to relax. I just finished making dinner.”

“What are we having?”

“It’s soup and crackers. I wasn’t sure if you’d have an appetite so I made something light. Sit up, I’ll help you eat.”

I started to hand her the bowl of soup. She reached over, as if to grab it, as I leaned in closer to her. She raised her hand past the bowl, and touched my face with her warm fingertips.

“Darling… What happened to your face?”

I put one hand over the bandage covering my bruise.

“This…? This is nothing. I made a stupid mistake in the hallway earlier today and ended up running into someone. The girl was taller than me so my nose went right into her shoulder at full speed.”

“Oh…? Make sure you are careful next time. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

“I know. I’ll try to watch where I’m going.”

She finally sat up and took the bowl of soup and crackers. I sat down on the edge of the bed to watch her eat. She ate slowly, tiredly. She was shaking slightly. Her aim was off and some of the soup was wasting onto the pajamas I had just changed her into. She looked almost too exhausted to be performing just this basic necessity.

My mom was relatively young and yet it was like watching an elderly person in a nursing home struggle at feeding themselves. She was breathing heavily as she ate without saying a word. She reached out for the remote on the opposite side of the bed but couldn’t even commit the energy needed to grab it. I went around the bed to get it and then returned to my seat on the edge of the bed. I offered her the remote.

“Let me help you eat. You can just watch TV if you want. Here’s the remote.”

We traded the bowl and the remote. She put on the weather channel and lowered the volume. She let the remote fall out of her weak grasp and leaned her head back against the bed headboard. For a moment it looked like she was falling back to sleep. She peeked her eyes open just enough to let me know otherwise.

The soup was hot in my hands but I didn’t let the discomfort stop me from feeding her. Spoonful by spoonful she managed to finish it off. She was quiet the entire time. There were several times she began to doze off. The only reason I woke her up to finish eating was because I wanted her to regain her strength. I felt incredibly guilty seeing her in this state.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened and it wouldn’t be the last. My mother had tremendous work ethic and put work ahead of her own needs. For her sake I tried to be the good daughter that she deserved, but I had been failing at that lately. My parole sentencing and expulsion from the public school system irreversibly changed the outlook for my future. Before I had no doubts about my future, now nothing was guaranteed.

Even after all that, my mother was still making regular contributions to my college fund as though nothing had happened. Even after she was in a minor car wreck a month ago she continued setting aside money for my future. I felt like the fact that she was so sick so often was because of me. She couldn’t afford to take a day off because of the fact that most of her savings had been expended when we needed to move. She was sacrificing everything for me.

My father was out of the picture for as long as I could remember. I wouldn’t be able to recognize him even if he were right in front of me. This fact only made me revere my mother that much more. She didn’t want to compromise on the future I could have despite the fact she was a single parent. She began working overtime when I was young, for my sake more than her own.

That was why I did the chores, made her meals, and cared for her to the best of my ability. She had sacrificed so much of her life for mine that I felt at odds about how to repay her. My goal of repaying her by being a picture perfect daughter had failed. Now more than ever she was worried about me. It was probably this stress that was wreaking havoc on her body now. It was hard to keep from hating myself.

When she finished eating she closed her eyes again and began to drift off. I stood up to take the empty bowl back into the kitchen. My mother grabbed me by the hem of my skirt.

“Wait…” She whispered.

Her eyes were still closed shut and her head facing the other direction. Her body was so motionless that it looked like she was half-asleep.

“What is it? Can I get you something before you go to sleep?”

“It’s not that…”

“What’s wrong? Is it too hot in here?”

She turned towards me and looked at me. She motioned for me to sit back down on the bed by tapping the space right next to her. I obliged.

“We haven’t talked much lately. I’m always busy with work. You’re always busy with school and the house chores.”

“I’m sorry.”

She let out a hearty laugh that turned into a sickly cough.

“What are you apologizing for? It isn’t your fault.”

“Yes it is.”

“Let’s say it’s an even fifty-fifty split.”

I didn’t respond to that. Agreeing to that would’ve been a lie. It was my fault and she was too kind to say it, or at least that was the way I felt.

“I wanted to ask you how your day went. Have you met anyone you like at school?”

This question was so out of the blue that I shuddered at the sound of it. Luckily she didn’t notice my distraught reaction. It was fairly dark in the room with the exception of the light coming from the TV. My mind raced to find a suitable answer. The answer I came up with wouldn’t exactly be a lie. The vagueness of her question didn’t require a specific answer.

“I met a girl named Lilith that I think is interesting. She introduced me to a book about the school’s founder. I’m going to talk to her again tomorrow.”

“Oh? Lilith is a cute name. I’d like to meet her sometime. You used to bring your friends over almost every weekend.”

“Maybe I’ll invite her over sometime? I’d like to get to know her better first.”

“Good idea. Do you have anything else going on in school? What are your other friends like? You girls do anything fun?”

My mother was getting investigative out of nowhere. Prior to changing schools I shared everything with her so it was only natural that she’d be curious. There wasn’t much about my current school life I could talk to her about. It would break her heart to tell her about the troubles that I went through on a daily basis. It was better to let her go on thinking all was well.

One of those troubles was the trouble of keeping everything hidden. I was careful with the things that I said. I was careful about how I presented myself to my mother. She already had enough to worry about. I couldn’t put any more on her plate. I’d bear my burdens in silence if it meant keeping her happy.

“There was one thing interesting that happened today. There’s this girl named Valentina, Val for short. We met back on the first day of school. At first we had our differences but now things are changing. She’s invited me to be her student council vice president. We’ll be running together for student council once we find more members.”

“That’s wonderful! I’m proud of you. I was worried about you since you lost your athletic outlet when you switched schools. It’ll be nice for you to have a new extracurricular activity.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’ll let you know how it goes as things continue. Why don’t I let you get some rest? You’ll need your sleep to recover.”

“You’re right. We’ll talk again later. Thanks for dinner by the way. It was good.”

“You’re welcome. If there’s anything you need let me know. I’ll be in the other room eating dinner.”

“Okay, good night.”

“Good night.”

Truthfully I didn’t have much of an appetite. Staying in that room was difficult after lying to her face. What should I have said? The real truth was undesirable. What sort of mother wouldn’t panic after hearing their child had been bullied savagely since the first day of school?

I couldn’t do that to my mother, not after everything that happened. Everything from having to move across town, to the fact that she was working while sick was my fault. If I had never been expelled from public school in the first place then none of this would be happening now. When I thought about it deeply it was impossible to work up an appetite. All I felt now was anger.

In order to cool down I tried to relax in the shower. It was impossible to relax, even there, my usual place of peace. The silence kept me alone with my thoughts. I hated that silence. I turned both the hot and cold water faucets to their maximum output to drown my thoughts out with the sound of rushing water. The water pressure was so high that each droplet of water struck me like a micro-sized bullet.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think. The moment I closed my eyes I saw my two best friends from my last school. I saw them turning their backs on me just as we met for the last time never to speak again in person. I opened my eyes again and turned off the water. It was easier to face my current reality than my past demons.

Thoughts from the past protruded into my mind like a thunderstorm disrupting a peaceful valley. As I stepped out of the shower the ankle monitor on my leg felt like an anchor. The fact that it was there was impossible to hide in the bathroom. It was as much as part of my naked body these days as any of my appendages. I couldn’t ignore it and the sight of it reminded me of everything I went through.

I didn’t take the time to dry off. Instead, I simply threw on my pajamas and prepared for bed. Being naked in the bathroom like that meant I’d have to face myself in a way I wasn’t ready to. Looking into the mirror with all those thoughts of the past racing through my head was almost like looking at someone else. I couldn’t face that mirror image.

In my bedroom I turned on the TV and raised the volume until I couldn’t hear myself think anymore. It was so loud that I risked waking my mother in the other room. The channel that my TV was on was airing a cheesy old horror movie. The movie itself wasn’t all that great, but I remembered it. I remembered watching it with my closest friends not long before switching schools.

I remembered teasing my closest friend Ellie during the middle of the movie when she was scared. It was storming loudly out that night. She freaked out at every sound of thunder. I remembered the feeling of her embracing me, I remembered the smell of her shampoo, and I remembered the jealous look my friend Opal gave me. Opal… She always wanted me out of the picture. In the end she got what she wanted and now she was Ellie’s closest friend.

My heart was being torn apart from the inside. I felt an extreme urge to throw my TV remote at the wall and scream. As I picked up the TV remote my hand shook as I tried to suppress the anger inside me. Instead of tossing the remote at the wall I ended up throwing it back down to the bed. I got up off the bed and went to manually turn off the TV. Now I was back to the sound of silence.

The images from my movie night with Ellie and Opal played in my head unwantedly. So vividly I could recall our conversations from that night. So vivid was my memory of everything we did then. Why? Why couldn’t I let go of those stupid memories? So little happened that night and yet that night was amongst my fondest of memories with them. Those once fond memories soured when I thought of my expulsion. The image of Ellie laughing with me was painful when I remembered the last look she gave me.

I collapsed to the floor and put my hands on my head as if I could silence the thoughts by suffocating my head into my arms. The silence was unbearable. I needed something, anything to take my mind away. That’s when I noticed my book bag. I opened it up and dumped its contents out on my bed.

There was that book from the library that Lilith had given me. My phone landed right beside it. It gave me an idea to break the silence. More accurately, it gave me an excuse to use my phone and make a call. The person that I called wasn’t one I ever planned on calling but I was willing to do anything to break this silence. The phone rang for an annoyingly long time before someone answered.

“Hello…? Who is this?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.

There was a lot of city noise going on in the background. I could hear multiple girls talking in the distance and it was windy. It sounded like they were walking outside somewhere. There was the brief sound of a car honking as it went by. I glanced at the alarm clock on my nightstand that was past nine o’clock at night.

“Hi, this is Holly Hayfield. I was looking for…”

“Hey boss! It’s that girl you were talking about earlier!” The girl shouted above the wind.

I could hear the frantic sounds of footsteps approaching and the phone noisily changing hands.

“Holly! I didn’t actually expect you to call me! This is great!” Naomi said.

“Well… I just wanted someone to talk to. Your number was the only one that came to mind. I guess you must be busy with your friends, huh? I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No! No! No! I’m not busy at all. Actually, I was just heading home! My girlfriend needed to use my phone to call her dad to come pick her up. What’s on your mind? Have you finally decided to become my new girlfriend?”

“This isn’t about that. Instead, I wanted to ask you about the Killing Cat. Have you heard of the legend?”

“I have! My girlfriends and I found a black and white tabby lurking the old science wing that we call Tofu. Tofu disappears from time to time but is always lurking around the school. Come to think of it I haven’t seen her in a few days now. Who knows what that cat is up to?”

“I hear the Killing Cat, Nyx, is supposed to be all black.”

“That’s true, but we haven’t seen a cat like that around the school. My girls and I have looked around for it. We were really into it for a while. Everytime someone said they’d seen a ghost cat or something we went to investigate. Instead we just ended up with Tofu.”

I laughed. As silly as this cat myth was, it lifted up my spirits. This was enough to take my mind off of what had been driving me mad before. For now I could finally relax and focus on something other than my troubles. I lied down on the bed with my phone pressed to my face. Now that I was comfortable I opened up the book on the life and death of Judith Meredith. Flipping through the pages of the books, I landed on an image of Nyx herself.

“Hey Naomi, do you think the school is haunted?” I asked.

“Sometimes it feels that way. What do you think?”

“I want to find out. Will you join me tomorrow?”