The Illusion of Annabella (5 page)

I search for an out while Luca stares at me, his eyes roving all over my body, unsubtly checking me out. I loathe that he’s noticing me and I despise how much I like the attention.

“Are your parents around? I’d love to meet them.” Tammy looks at my two-story home that resembles every other house on the street

There goes my theory of her already knowing my family’s history.

My lips part to tell her my parents are dead, to just throw it out there and watch her squirm. But the words get lodged in my throat along with a thousand emotions I refuse to let out.

I limp away without saying a word. Someone else can tell her.

I feel their eyes on me as I hobble down the sidewalk. At the end of the street, I veer to the right toward the bus stop. By the time I make it to the bench, my knee is sore and my phone has rang at least ten times.

I wait for the bus, letting the phone ring about ten more times before answering it.

“Where the hell are you?” Loki fumes before I can even get out a hello.

“Going to physical therapy like I’m supposed to,” I lie, slumping back on the bench.

“And how the hell are you getting there?” he seethes. “You can’t drive. Not with that leg. You know that.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m taking the bus.”

“You’re not supposed to be walking around like that. You’re going to fuck up your knee even more.”

“I just thought I’d take the bus since you’re going to be late opening the store.”

He fires off a sequence of curses. “Dammit, I forgot about the store.”

Loki forgets about the store a lot. Between taking online college classes, paying the bills, and keeping an eye on the four of us, he’s losing his mind, and is completely unlike the Loki before the accident. We’ve all changed. Me, the rainbow turned raincloud. Alexis, the thunder grumbling at everyone. Zhara, the sunshine refusing to fade despite all the rain. Nikoli, the lightning shouting out at everyone. Jessamine, the distant wind. And Loki, the rain struggling to wash all our pain away.

“Why don’t you just sell it, then?” I ungracefully stagger to my feet as the bus rolls up to the curb.

“You’re joking, right?” he asks. “Please, please tell me you’re joking.”

“Why would I joke about that?” The bus doors swing open, and I struggle to get up the stairs. “It’s just a store, and it’s stressing you out.” It’s not just a store, though. It’s my father’s store that reminds me of the last time I saw him, looked him in the eyes, and lied to his face.

Swiping my bus card more violently than necessary, I limp down the aisle to the back, noting everyone’s stares.

Who are they’re staring at, though? The girl with purple hair wearing too much makeup? Or the girl with a limp? Which one is it? Who do they see? Because I have no idea anymore.

“Will I ever dance again?” I ask the doctor with false hope in his eyes.

He looks at me with pity. “Let’s just worry about getting you walking properly again, okay?”

“It’s
Dad’s
store.” Loki’s stressed voice shatters apart the memory of the day my dancing dream was lost. “And he left it to me.”

“He also left us to you, which seems like more of a burden than anything.” I sink into the backseat and pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Don’t say that.” His voice cracks like glass. “You guys aren’t a burden.”

He’s lying. Having four teenagers, one fourteen-year-old, two sixteen year-olds, and one seventeen-year-old would be a burden to most people.

I’m not exactly sure why my parents left guardianship to Loki, other than maybe they weren’t expecting to die so soon. We don’t have any living family other than my mom’s sister, who lives in California and smokes a lot of pot. They both had friends, though, that were more equipped to raising four teenagers.

After the funeral, Loki said something about a note with the will that stated the reasons why my parents wanted him to raise us. He wouldn’t let anyone read it. Not even Jessamine, who he used to be close to before the accident. Said it was solely for him.

“I think you should come home now. I can take you to therapy and then go to the store. I don’t like you walking around more than you have to. Plus, you’re on probation.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t matter.”

“You can’t seriously believe it doesn’t matter?” He leaves the statement hanging in the air, but I don’t utter a damn word—can’t—since I have no idea what I believe anymore. “Anna, you’ve been arrested twice in the last four months. And the police have brought you home two other times on top of that. You sneak out of the house, go to parties, steal, and those friends you hang out with are bringing you down. You skip out on school, and you’re barely passing your classes. You won’t go to your therapy sessions, and your leg’s never going to get better if you keep it up . . . Don’t you want to dance again?”

Dance? I’ll never dance again. “I’ll never dance again. You know that.”

Silence stretches between us, and it’s painful, aching, just like the scars on my leg and the hole in my heart put there the day my parents died—the day my life changed.

I’m just about to hang up when he says, “I really think we should start looking for a therapist, someone you can talk to since you won’t talk to me.”

“I don’t need your help, or anyone else’s.” My knee literally twitches as the scars burn from underneath my pant leg. “I just need to be left alone.”

“They’re going to take you away from me if you keep it up,” he says in a desperate attempt to get me to clean up my act. “You know they can do that, right?”

I smash my lips together, battling back the guilt and tears that cram their way up my throat. “Maybe it’d be better if they did.”

“You don’t mean that,” he whispers. “I know you don’t. You care about this family too much. You’re just going through some stuff . . . because of the accident.”

Maybe my brother and sisters don’t deserve that, but I do—deserve worse for lying to my dad, the man who was always there for me, who read me books, who took me on fishing trips, who was at every recital.

“I already got on the bus so you can’t drive me to my appointment,” I say, steadying my voice. “I’ll call you when I get out of it, though.”

“Don’t hang up on me. I’m not done talking yet.” He aims to sound firm, but he’s only four years older than me, and I have a hard time taking him seriously. “I don’t want you going off anywhere by yourself. We had a deal that you were going to stay away from your friends for a little while. Especially Miller.”

Miller’s the guy dads warn their daughters about, and even though Loki isn’t my dad, he tries to take on the role.  He hates Miller. Probably because he’s been arrested many times, mostly for breaking and entering and drug possession. Or maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a job, likes to party, and has numerous tattoos and piercings.

Which are all the reasons why I like spending time with him.

“I’m not going to see my friends.” Technically not a lie since I haven’t decided where I’m going yet. I usually just wander around until I end up somewhere, because I can’t figure out where to go or what to do with myself.

“You know, Cece came into the store the other day to pick up some books. She asked about you. Said she misses spending time with you. Your dance instructor even stopped by and said you could go hang out at the studio anytime you want. There’s a ton of other stuff for you to do, Anna, other than get into trouble.”

“I don’t want to talk to Cece and the last thing I ever want to do is hang out at that studio.” Just thinking about it makes my eyes water up. I suck in a deep breath.
I won’t cry. I can’t. Once I do, I won’t be able to stop.
“You keep saying all these things to me, trying to get me to want stuff again. But all that stuff . . . Cece . . . dancing . . . that’s not who I am anymore.”

“It’s okay to miss things, Anna.” His voice softens. “And I get that you’re not the same person, but you can still be happy—”

Alexis suddenly yells something in the background.

“What the hell was that!?” Loki shouts at her.

I hear Alexis blame Zhara for eating all her favorite cereal. Since the two of them could go on forever, and Loki always gets sucked into their fights, I hang up without saying goodbye. I sit back in the seat and stretch out my legs as the bus bumps down the road. My phone rings again, but not wanting another lecture from Loki, I don’t answer. Everything he insists on telling me about myself, I already know, and hearing it isn’t going to change my life. At the end of the day, I’ll still be crippled with absolutely no idea what to do with my life. Or if I even want to do anything with my life. Maybe I’ll just lay down next to my father’s grave and stay there until my body gives up on me.

When my phone finally stops ringing, I decide I’ve been on the bus for too long and get off at the next stop. I should’ve paid more attention to where I was getting off, though, because I end up near the town cemetery.

It’s not like I haven’t visited my parents’ graves since the funeral—Loki makes us go every other Sunday to take flowers—but without my brothers and sisters around, the silence in the area is maddening.

Their graves are side-by-side out by the farthest oak tree, and their headstones are engraved with “everlasting love.” Every time I visit, it feels like I’m visiting a lie, where I thought my parents where happy, that my mother wasn’t a liar—that I wasn’t a liar. But that life that was nothing more than an illusion, just like Alexis when she used to be a nice person. Or like Zhara, the now turned human robot, who used to feel something other than overly fake happiness and positivity. Or like Loki, the philosopher turned parent. And Nikoli who barely talks anymore. Which parts of them were real and which parts were hiding under a mask?

After the bus drives away, I cross the street as quickly as my leg will allow me to, and run away from the iron gates. I head north in the direction of the Victorian house. I don’t know why, but I sometimes stand at the end of the dirt road that leads to the antique store. Rain, sunshine, cold, warmth, I’ll stay there for hours, just staring at the door. Occasionally, I deliberate whether or not I should march up to his door and knock, demand he tell me why my mom was there that day. But I can’t march, can barely walk, and I’m honestly not sure I actually want to hear the truth I covered up for my mom that day.

Today, I grow tired fast. Five blocks later, I’m out of breath and exhausted. Making it to the Victorian house is impossible, so I take a break, leaning against the side of an apartment building. Minutes later, the cloudy sky fulfills its promise and starts to rain down on the world. The past crashes down on my shoulders—of dancing, birthdays, rainstorms, car crashes, and secrets. I don’t want to feel any of it. The water. The pain. The loneliness. The confusion of my place in life and how nothing makes sense anymore.

I turn head the opposite direction of the Victorian house and toward Miller’s apartment. By the time I make it to the rundown two-story brick complex, my clothes are soaked, my hair is drenched, and my leg is so unsteady I can barely keep my foot underneath me.

I knock on his door a few times before walking in. Music is blasting and the stench of cigarette smoke and alcohol hits my nostrils. Crumpled beer cans are piled on the cracked coffee table along with an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and a mirror dusted with fragments of white powder. When I first met Miller, he wasn’t into the heavier drugs, but about a month ago, he started dipping into other stuff besides pot.

“Hey.” Miller grins at me from small, dank living room.

He’s playing video games with one of his friends, who everyone calls Big Jay, and leans over the armrest to turn town the volume of the stereo. The singer, who had been screaming lyrics, silences. Part of me wishes Miller would turn it back up, let the screaming drown out my thoughts for a while.

Instead, he puts out his cigarette in the ashtray with his brows furrowed. “Why are you wet?”

I hitch a finger over my shoulder at the door. “It’s raining outside.”

His eyes sweep across my body, and his attention makes me feel numbly calm. ”It’s a good look for you,” he says with a smirk as he sets the controller down on the frayed armrest. “You should sport it all the time.”

“You think?” I pretend to be bored, pretend I fit in here.

“Definitely.” His grin broadens as he gets to his feet.