"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." - Robert Frost

Memory Lane: Chapter One

Time moves much slower when you're begging it to move faster.

It's been eight long months since the last time I rode in the passenger seat. In those eight months, the scars I endured have only seemed to settle in comfortably on my skin rather than fade away.

After I was released from the hospital, going home was no longer an option. I was in recovery for so long that my house had been cleaned out and put on the market by the time I was able to leave the hospital. So, I stayed with my grandmother in Albany at her retirement home. Her memory has been fleeting for the last few years and in the time I lived with her it was only getting worse, but I didn't mind. It was fine just the two of us. Living with someone who can't remember her own family half the time meant that I didn't have to talk about my parents. I've been able to avoid the past altogether.

Unfortunately, in the past few weeks my grandmother's memory has gotten so bad that she could hardly take care of herself, much less me. So, I've had to pack up my things to move away from New York and back to Vermont.

As my Aunt June's car starts and we begin our drive, my hands grip the steering wheel tightly and I don't dare take my eyes off of the road. The car ride starts off silent, there's not even a whisper of music from the radio. The trees we drive past on the highway have started changing colors since the calendar switched to September, but I refuse to let myself look.

"I appreciate you offering, but I could have driven," Aunt June finally says, her voice loud and high-pitched compared to my grandmother's soft, slow speech. Something about it is comforting, though.

Without looking away from the road I offer her a reassuring smile.

"I don't mind, I actually prefer driving."

She nods, watching the views around us as she tries to find something else to say.

"Allen is excited to have you come live with us, we all are."

Images of my cousin flash in my head. Before the funeral, it must have been four years since I last saw him or Aunt June. I know that I must have seen him there, but I can't quite picture what he looks like now. The day of the funeral is all a blur to me and I've spent the last seven and a half months trying to block it from my mind. All it is now is a blurry memory of countless people shaking my hand and mumbling their condolences.

"It will be nice to see him. Aside from the funeral, it's been years."

Without meaning to, I turned our small interaction into something of discomfort by mentioning the funeral. That's the thing about death: no one knows how to discuss it. I've learned that it's better to avoid talking about it altogether. So, I try to quickly move past it.

"Thanks for coming to get me, I know it's a long trip both ways."

Aunt June smiles at me, her cheeks forming small dimples that brighten her face.

"It's no trouble at all, it's only about two hours round trip and you offered to drive. Uncle Tim wanted to come too, but I told him to stay back and finish preparing your room for you! Is your favorite color still pink?"

My favorite color hasn't been pink since I was six years old. But, I fake a smile almost too easily and nod.

Eight months ago, I would have enjoyed this drive from the passenger seat. I would have raved to my parents about how beautiful the changing colors of the leaves are in early September and how my favorite colors were the maroons and oranges that fall brings. Instead, I remain quiet and listen to Aunt June rave about the unnatural color pink.

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When we arrive in town, familiarity washes over me as I drive down Main Street. Aunt June and my mom grew up here in Bennington; a neighborhood town of colonial-era homes and white picket fences with perfectly manicured front lawns. I see the appeal for someone who wants to live the American dream, "nuclear family" lifestyle.

Growing up, we used to visit my Uncle Tim, Aunt June, and cousin Allen in Bennington nearly every weekend. It's only about forty five minutes from where I lived and their house was like a second home to me. Once I became a preteen, we stopped visiting as often.

Others may find comfort in the familiarity of these roads, but for me they are only reminding me of unwanted memories that I know I'll never get back. That's why I avoided coming to live with them when they first offered to take me in after the accident. Now, however, I really don't have a choice but to move in with the Stallard's.

"Oh! And I'm sure you remember the old Walloomsac Inn! We used to tell you kids scary stories about that place on Halloween," Aunt June rambles on as I turn onto Monument Avenue.

The old, eerie Inn looms over the road and is just as creepy as it was when I was 5 years old. The rotten, deteriorating wood threatens to break and have the whole structure collapse. I don't understand why the town doesn't bulldoze the place. I shift my eyes quickly back to the lane, wandering the roads through memory alone since Aunt June is hellbent on giving me a history lesson of all the historic sites we pass rather than directions.

Bennington is a historic town in Vermont, and being historic means it has century old-houses surrounded by an enormous amount of trees. Driving down the road, there isn't a single house vacant of tall, magnificent trees with their leaves slowly changing from green to orange. Aunt June put her window down halfway through the drive, and the sound of leaves crunching beneath our tires fills my ears.

Moments later, I pull the car into the Stallard's driveway where my Uncle Tim and cousin Allen are waiting for us.

Their house hasn't changed at all. It's almost exactly the type of house a child would draw. A symmetrical box with four windows on either side of the front door, two on the second floor and two on the first with a triangular roof. A kid, however, would color the house red or yellow. Instead of looking like the inside of a crayon box, their house has blinding white siding with black contrasting shutters and a beautifully kept, small front lawn with the neighborhood sidewalk going through it. There's a flowerbed that wraps around the front of the house, filled with different varieties of green plants and a few flowers here and there.

"Aunt June?"

Her grip on the door handle loosens instantly and she places her attention on me with a questioning smile. She has kind eyes. Blue. Just like my mom.

"Thank you," I say, pausing for a moment, "For letting me stay here."

"You don't have to thank us, honey," she says with a gentle smile. "That's what family is for."

Family. Living with the Stallard's will be a nice reminder that despite the loss of my parents, I do still have a family.

"Come on, let's get you moved in!" Aunt June says, reaching across the middle console to enthusiastically pat my knee before she opens her door and steps out of her car.

I follow her lead and push open my door, bracing myself to have to lift up and out of the car. My legs are burning under my jeans, the fabric rubbing uncomfortably against my scars and making them flare up. I reach down and adjust my pant legs to a more comfortable position, grimacing when a loose stitch in the fabric digs into my skin.

"You- uh, you okay Laura?"

I lift my head up at the sound of my Uncle Tim's soft voice and see him awkwardly standing a few feet away.

Uncle Tim is a big man. He stands a few inches taller than my dad and weighs probably twice as much. His short brown hair has started to slowly fade to gray, but his mustache has remained a deep brown color. He's had that thing since I was a baby despite most people suggesting he shaves it off, I don't think I'd recognize him if he did.

Despite his big size, Uncle Tim is as quiet as a mouse. He's shy, a little awkward, and one of the kindest people I know. My mom used to refer to him as Ferdinand The Bull, one of the many children's books she used to read to me before bedtime when I was a kid.

"Oh, I'm fine!" I reassure him, quickly stepping forward to give him a hug. "It's good to see you."

He hugs me back gently, as if afraid I'll break. I don't even know if I could classify it as a hug.

I hear the beep of the trunk opening and shift my attention there to find Allen hauling my suitcases out of the car. Like his dad, Allen is incredibly tall. When we were kids, he was always the awkward, lanky pre-teen that was significantly taller than his peers. It's nice to see that he grew into his height.

I do a bit of a double take when I notice the naturally darker tones to his hair. When we were kids, he had wispy blonde hair that made his blue eyes shine, he looked just like his mom. Now, his hair is dirty blonde at best. But his eyes are the same; gentle and always matched with a smile.

"Little Laurier! You look all grown up. What happened to my short-haired, brace-faced baby cousin?" He teases as he sets my last suitcase down on the pavement.

"Baby cousin?" I echo with a smile, "You're only five days older than me."

"Which makes me the elder cousin," he states, squinting at my smile. "Well, I'm glad to see the braces did their trick. No more snaggletooth Laura."

"You know, you saw me earlier this year," I say as I grab a suitcase from the ground, lifting the handle to pull it down the driveway and to their front door. "But I guess I do look different now. You know, no wheelchair and all."

The wheels of my suitcase drag loudly along the cracked pavement, but there's no response for the sound to drown out. Our banter took a quick turn as soon as I even vaguely mentioned the accident or funeral, and the mood shifted completely.

"Right, sorry," Allen says, scratching the back of his head as he looks anywhere but me. "Uh..."

He looks to his parents for help, unsure of what to say next. The three of them share a glance that they think I don't see and I'm reminded once again that death is something no one wants or knows how to talk about. Especially not me.

I push open the creaky storm door, having it slam back into my hip as I prop it open to pull my suitcase into the house.

"So, which room is mine?" I ask with a smile, trying once again to change the subject quickly as I hold the door open for them.

Thankful for the diversion, Allen quickly turns the attention to his mom who shows me to my room. They put me in the spare room at the very end of the hallway on the second floor, complete with my own bathroom right outside my bedroom door. Aunt June wasn't kidding when she said that the room was pink. Atop the queen-sized bed is a blush pink, fluffy comforter with matching pillows, and covering up a large portion of the beautiful hardwood floors is a hot pink shag area rug. Even the curtains have pink on them.

Despite the almost suffocating color, the room itself still feels huge. There's enough space for a dresser and a desk, and Uncle Tim even built me a homemade window nook with white built-in bookshelves on either side. I had a window nook in my room back at home, too, but it didn't have bookshelves.

"Did you decorate all of this for me?" I ask as I set my suitcase down at the foot of the bed.

"I did! Your Uncle Tim about had a heart attack when I told him my plans for this room and that we needed it done in a week, but I'm so happy with how it turned out," Aunt June says, glancing around with pride shimmering in her eyes.

So, I give her a grateful smile. "Thank you, I love it. Especially this," I say as I sit on the window seat.

"I remembered your old room having one. Tim and I wanted to try and give you a piece of home," she says softly, carefully. "I was thinking I could take you shopping for some books to fill the shelves."

I wince slightly when she uses the word "old," because it reminds me that the room I grew up in for my whole life no longer exists to me. Nothing from before the accident does.

"That would be great," I say with a smile instead of dwelling on the pain in my heart.

"I'll leave you to unpack, dinner will be ready around five if you're hungry," Aunt June says, stepping out of the room and gently shutting the door behind her.

With a grunt, I haul my three suitcases up onto the bed, covering up the blush pink comforter. These three suitcases hold all of my belongings while my parent's stuff is all stored away in some unit in my hometown, waiting until we can figure out what to do with it all.

While I was in the hospital, Aunt June asked me if there was anything of my parents that I wanted to have with me before they packed everything up. Only two things really came to mind: my dad's college crewneck that he wore every Saturday during college football season and my mom's poetry journal. Anything more than that was too painful to keep.

The discomfort on my legs returns and I quickly sort through my suitcases to find a pair of sweatpants to throw on to provide some relief to my skin. Gently but urgently, I peel my jeans off and toss them onto the bed. In the corner of the room, there's an elegant arch wood mirror and I catch sight of my reflection: showing the red, blotchy skin that covers my legs.

The fire from the crash completely destroyed both of my legs, from the end of my toes up to my pelvic bone. I'm told I was lucky to retain mobility; seems the paramedics got there just in time to pull me away before my legs were beyond saving. I suffered from life-threatening third degree burns, but fortunately they were able to do a skin graft, taking it away from the only healthy skin on my body after the crash: my back. Complications with that procedure left scars that will never fully heal there, too.

The doctors warned me that it could take over a year before the skin on my legs regains a somewhat normal color, and that's only if I go to my check-ins and perform the routine recovery tasks they gave me. Even so, I know they'll never look normal again.

At least I have scars, though. Scars prove that I survived.

My mind travels back to the looks Aunt June, Uncle Tim, and Allen shared downstairs when I mentioned the funeral and alluded to my own injuries. It was more than just discomfort. There's a lingering sadness in their eyes when they look at me, as if I'm broken.

I stare back at the reflection in the mirror. I would look at myself as broken too if I was met with those sorry eyes.

Other than not having many other choices, I came to live here because I felt like moving to Bennington was a good chance for me to start over. The last thing I want is for people to start walking on eggshells around me, feeling like they can't speak candidly because they fear they're going to mention something that will set me off.

That may be one of the worst parts about tragedy: the way people forget to act around you. It makes feeling normal again nearly impossible.

I know that in order to have others act comfortably around me, I can't parade around talking about what happened. I can't sit here feeling sorry for myself, all that does is make me out to be some sort of victim. I have to at least try and make things normal again. I want to be Laura Laurier, not some girl who lost her parents and let that define her. No, the accident won't define who I am.

I close my eyes for a moment, picturing myself eight months ago and the smile I always had. I can be that girl again. I can prove to others that I'm not broken.

So, when I open my eyes and see a smiling girl staring back at me in the mirror, a bubble of hope fills my chest. She looks convincing. She looks almost normal. Maybe, if I keep this smile on long enough, I can even convince myself that I'm okay.

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