I'm Still Me: Chapter 1

 

 

Chapter 1: Sunday

The building was pleasant looking on the outside. The windows had beautiful flower boxes and the front patio had rows of rocking chairs and little tables on which a forgotten drink still rested here and there. The pleasant atmosphere jarred with the code-locked double set of doors. Kasey quietly walked up to the doors and punched in the required codes. Her brown hair shone with hints of pink and green as it caught in the afternoon sunlight.

Calmly she walked up to the main desk, where she told the nurse on duty she was there to visit Candace Jackson, signed herself in, and clipped on the required “Visitor“ pass. The walk down the hallway felt different this time. It felt powerful. Kasey wondered at the strange feeling. She had never felt before that a visit to Nainy’s could be so important. As the door loomed before her, Kasey paused in the hallway and reflected back on the events that had brought her to stand here on her own for the first time in her short life.

About two weeks earlier: Saturday

The woman at the counter spoke with the officer in uniform with an air of resignation. “This is the third time we’ve seen her here this year Mrs. Rex. If she comes back again the judge will probably send her to Juvenile Hall and I really don’t want that to happen Mrs. Rex.” She looked at the frazzled woman with a look of pity.

Mrs. Rex ran her fingers through her prematurely graying hair and sighed “I’m sorry Officer O’Clair. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m just one woman.” Her eyes swam with tears.

Officer O’Clair nodded to her sympathetically “It’ll get better Mrs. Rex. Here.” She handed her a business card with the name “Dr. Steven Spitzarsky” on it. “He’s a psychologist. Maybe he’ll be able to get through to her. He’s had some success with some of the other kids we’ve had. At the least he can give you some advice.”

Mrs. Rex took the card with a quiet thank you and put it in her purse then waited while Officer O’Clair went into the back to collect her delinquent daughter.

The car was silent as they drove away from the station. The young 15 year old girl in the passenger seat reeked of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and other illegal drugs. Her pink and green hair was mussed and her makeup smeared and there was an unknown stain going down the right side of her jeans. Kasey Clarie Rex stared defiantly out the car window with her arms folded across her chest as the little Toyota roared down the highway. Mrs. Sarah Rex focused her gaze on the people driving around her, trying her best not to think about her daughter’s most recent trip to jail. But it was no use, soon Sarah turned to Kasey and said “So.”

Kasey did not even spare her mother a glance. Did not recognize her presence at all. Sarah tried again. “So?” she repeated, pressing a world of meaning into the one short syllable. Kasey just shrugged her shoulders and continued to keep her silence. Frustrated, Sarah was quiet a moment, before saying “They’ll send you to Juvey next time Kasey.” Kasey’s only response was a grunt. “Do you want to go to juvy Kasey?” she glanced over at her daughter. No response. “I just don’t understand! Why are you doing this? What’s so interesting about it? You have a criminal record even before you have your driver’s permit!” Sarah’s tightly controlled anger and frustration leaked into her words. “Answer me Kasey! Give me some reason! Anything!” She took the exit off the highway towards their house. Stopping at a red light she looked over at her daughter. “Anything?” she asked.

Kasey just shrugged. “Is that it?” Sarah asked, then imitated her daughters shrug. “Just that?” she did it again. “No explanation, no excuses. Nothing? Just this.” she shrugged again. “what is this?” again the shrug, more sarcastic now. “I don’t understand what this is. I don’t speak this.” the light turned green and she gunned the gas, flying through the turns and curves that led to their house. Pulling into the driveway she locked the doors, just as Kasey had reached to open the door. “Come on Kasey.” She said, less angry and more tired now. “Please? Just give me something. I’m not a mind reader, I can’t know what’s bothering you or causing you to do things like this. You have to talk to me.” Kasey glared at her mother, unlocked the door and mumbled “you wouldn’t understand.” as she got out, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and walking up to the front door.

Sarah quickly followed her up the walk to the patio where Kasey stood sulkily waiting for her mother to unlock the door. Sarah had taken Kasey’s keys to the house away from her two months back when Kasey had used her house as a place to hold a massive party. “Why do you say I wouldn’t understand?” she asked. “You don’t know unless you try.” she unlocked the door and walked inside. Kasey practically walking on her mother’s heels as she followed close behind her. Once inside, Sarah turned to face Kasey again. “Please talk to me about it?” she asked, hoping politeness would get Kasey to open up. But to no avail. Kasey just shook her head and started to walk up the stairs. Sarah sighed again. “So be it. But you’re not going to like what you’ll find.” she warned her daughter’s retreating back. She stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting. Soon there was the sound of the backpack hitting the wall as her daughter screamed her anger and came running back around to the top of the stairs. “Where are my things?!” she demanded of her mother. “Where’s my computer?! My stereo?! My F@#$ing DOOR!”

Sarah calmly looked up at her enraged daughter. “Actions have consequences Kasey. I told you if you ever did this again that I would take away your privileges. You’ll have to earn them back one at a time.” Her daughter screamed her outrage and ran into her now empty room and sprawled herself on one of the only pieces of furniture left. Her big bed with it’s down comforter and the little side table with her lamp and her alarm clock were the only things that remained in her room. Kasey screamed into her pillows as tears of anger leaked from her eyes.

After awhile, Kasey calmed down enough to take another look around her room. Her poster of anarchy and Marilyn Manson were gone from the walls. Her desk was empty of it’s computer and printer. The shelf where her stereo had been, was empty. The only thing left in her room was her lamp, her alarm clock, and her books. Though even some of those were missing. Namely the ones about anarchy and dark rituals. The one absence that hurt her the most though, was the big open space that once held her door. The door was the thing she used to keep herself separated from the outside world. In her room, with the door shut, she could be whoever she wanted to be. Not whoever her ‘friends’ wanted her to be. But now that safety was gone.

Kasey buried her face in her pillow again to shut out the painful sight. She stayed like that for quite some time before another idea trickled into her empty mind. Quickly she sat up and started looking around her empty room. Her journal. She had to find her journal. Where was her journal? Her fear was quickly turning into anger again. What if her mother had taken her journal? What if her mother had read her journal? Kasey was becoming frantic as she opened the drawer of her side table, pulling it completely out. There within the empty drawer, was her journal. Seemingly untouched except for a sticky note attached to the cover that said “Kasey, I know this is going to be hard for you. And I know that you’re probably very angry at me right now. But I want you to know that I would never, NEVER, invade your privacy so totally as to read your journal. I promise you I have not even opened it at all. I love you very much and just want to help. I don’t know what else to do.” it was signed “love, mom.” Kasey tossed the drawer to the foot of her bed and slowly sat down next to it, holding her journal in her hands and reading the note over and over again. Inside, her feelings were mixed. Relief that she had found her journal and that her mother had not opened it. Anger at her mother because she had taken everything from her. Anger at herself for deserving it.

Slowly Kasey looked around her empty room with glassy eyes, her thoughts turned inward. After a moment she set her journal aside and replaced the drawer she had pulled out of the side table, righted the books she moved about, then sat cross-legged at the head of her bed, journal and pen in hand. She spent the rest of the time until dinner writing down the past days events.

Dear Journal,

Well. As you know, I left after school yesterday to go to Jerry’s party. It was cool for awhile. Lots of people, pizza and booze. But someone’s dick parents called the cops on us. Lucky me, I was in the bathroom when the call went out to scatter and I didn’t get the memo. Like usual. Anyway, I got caught and brought in. Again. Had another lovely chat with Officer O’Clair. Those are always pleasant…not. So of course she called my mom in to pick me up and she tried to bond. She tried to understand. Ugh! She just doesn’t understand. She can’t. then she pulled a total bitch move and cleared everything out of my room. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! My posters, my music, my stereo, my computer, EVERYTHING! All I have are the books I got as a kid, my lamp, my alarm clock and my journal. You know, she put this stupid sticky note on my journal saying stuff like ‘I don’t want to invade your privacy’ and ‘I just want to help’. She’s so CLUELESS!! UGH! I just wish that she would leave me alone. I don’t need her help, I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to be left alone. Ugh, she’s calling me to dinner. I’ll be back.

~Kasey

Kasey scowled as her mother’s voice echoed up the stairs again “Kasey! Dinner!”

Kasey yelled back “I know! I’ll be there in a sec!” she carefully put her journal and her pen into the drawer of the side table, then unfolded her legs and stood up. With another glare around the empty room she walked out the door, her hand automatically trying to grasp the door handle that was no longer there. Feeling very off balance, Kasey headed downstairs into the kitchen.

Her mother sat at the table, Chinese take-out taking up the middle of the table waiting to be spooned onto the plates that sat in their usual places. Kasey’s gaze tried to avoid the eyesore of the chair that used to be her father’s place at the table, but it was like a magnet. Every time she saw the empty chair, Kasey felt a tearing in her heart. Quietly she took her place at the table.

Sarah took a deep breath and smiled weakly at her daughter. Inside her emotions were a boil. She kept expecting Kasey to explode and yell and cuss at her. Instead Kasey just sat staring into her plate. It made Sarah uneasy, so she quickly started the meal with their traditional family phrase “Life is sweet, dig in and eat!” She tried to smile at Kasey again as she said it. Remembering when little six year old Kasey had said the phrase for the first time when she was impatiently waiting for her parents to serve the food. Ever since then the family had started every dinner meal with it. Sarah had done her best to keep up the tradition during and after the divorce. Hoping that it would lend some stability to Sarah’s environment. But the phrase had taken on a tinny and empty sound recently. Without her father’s baritone voice joining in with the family prayer, Kasey just couldn’t keep it up. So now Sarah said it every dinnertime by herself.

Even if Sarah did say it by herself, it was still the cue for dinner to start and with it’s utterance, both started to spoon their favorite Chinese foods onto their plates in complete silence. Both Sarah and Kasey picked at their food awkwardly, trying not to look at each other. Finally the silence became to much for Sarah to bear so she took a deep breath and said “Tomorrow’s Sunday so don’t forget we’re going to go see Grandma Nainy tomorrow.”

Kasey rolled her eyes and kept chasing her food around her plate with her fork.

Sarah tried again “you might want to take a shower tonight, just in case.”

Kasey scowled, shrugged her shoulders and nodded vaguely, then finally ate the abused piece of broccoli that had run a marathon around her plate. Sarah sighed and finished eating what she could.

When they were done, Sarah got up and started to put away the food. Out of habit, Kasey started to take the dishes to the sink. Half way there with the dirty dishes in her hands Kasey paused and glanced down at the dishes, then over at her mother’s back as she put the food into the refrigerator. Inside Kasey fought a war with herself. Her habits as a good daughter told her she should put the dishes in the sink and wash them, since her mother had gotten the food ready. The newly established rebel told her she should smash the plates, just because she had almost washed them. The force of the inner debate caused her to sway slightly in the middle of their small kitchen. The rebel was on the rise when suddenly Kasey remembered the sticky note on her journal and the respect and love that was in the action. With a deep breath, Kasey preceded on to the kitchen sink, rinsed the dishes, and put them into the dishwasher. When she turned to go back to her room, she was surprised to see her mother standing by the counter watching her with a strange expression in her eyes. Kasey blushed to the roots of her hair and rushed out of the kitchen and up to her room. Leaving her mother standing in the kitchen with hope that her daughter could be saved burning in her chest.

Back in her room, Kasey again tried to close the phantom door, stumbling because the expected resistance wasn’t there. She recovered and stood glaring at the empty space where her door used to be. Giving in to her childish urge, she stuck her tongue out at the offending space, then turned and walked back over to her bed. Sitting down on it, she was again struck by the emptiness of the room. But this time the feeling of emptiness was accompanied by another feeling. Silence. With her stereo and computer confiscated, Kasey found herself sitting in almost absolute silence. The only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of her mother moving around downstairs as she started the dishwasher and retreated to her study to do some work. It was unusual, unnatural. It was never quiet in their house. Kasey leaned against the wall, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. It was never quiet in the Rex household. Kasey closed her eyes and remembered the sound of her father’s voice as he sang along to the radio downstairs or as he puttered around in the garage. The sound of their dog Ty barking at passersby. Ty would have laid his big head on her lap and looked up at her with his big brown eyes asking ‘what’s wrong?’ and doing his best to fix it with a wagging tale and big kisses. But Ty wasn’t around anymore. Not long after the divorce he had gotten out of the yard, run off, and never came back. Kasey supposed he was probably dead by now. She sighed, the sound loud in the quiet, and tried to think of something to do to entertain herself. After a moment she caught the smell of old smoke and alcohol coming off of her clothes and her skin suddenly crawled with the feeling of being disgusting. So she got up and picked out new clothes and decided to take a shower.

A little later Kasey wandered back into her room with her towel wrapped around her pink and green hair and wearing her clean clothes. Standing in the middle of the room she toweled her hair dry, then hung up the towel on the door of her closet. Realizing that her closet still had a door, Kasey laughed ironically. She picked her brush up off her desk and quickly ran it through her hair before she curled back up on her bed and pulled out her journal again and picked up where she’d left off.

Dear Journal (again)

Where was I? Oh ya. Mom. Kasey sighed again as she thought about her mother. I don’t understand Mom. Why does she always try to get in my business? She’s always asking ‘why’ this and ‘why’ that. All she wants to know is why why why why! How can I possibly tell her why if I don’t even know why myself? Everything was so much better before Dad left. Everyone was happy. Everything was good. Then he left and it all fell to shit. I don’t know whether to blame him or her or both! Why couldn’t they have just worked it out? Didn’t they even think about what I want? They never even asked me about it! They just told me one day. No ands ifs or buts. Just gone. …Damn. I’ve put myself in a bad mood again. And I probably couldn’t get out of the house if I tried. Oh well. I guess I’ll just try to sleep. Maybe I’ll be able to shut out the world for a little while. It’s just me and you, journal. Just us against the world.

~Kasey

Kasey put her journal and her pen back in the drawer of her side table. Then got up to turn off the lights in her room. In the dark silence she curled up under her covers, holding closely to the stuffed dog she had had since she was a kid, and stared at the light grey space where her door used to be until she fell asleep.