The Air Out Of [Wattys2018 shortlist]

001 - jess

Side note:

All six perspectives are technically prologues, and are done to give the story a richer build. Remember, since the chapters are built from one to the other, only reading specific character perspectives will be very confusing.  

***

JESS STOOD QUIETLY WAITING TO BE CALLED UP. She was alone now, walking across the stone pavement, decorated only on the borders with faded streaks of blue. A few bouquets of flowers were being leaned on the wall. Over all, the appeal was sordid. She took this time to observe her surroundings, the few seats set up and a small line of people beginning to file in.

Slowly, she ascended up a flight of steps, one that nearly caused her to trip over the rim of her dress to deliver her mother's eulogy, the piece of paper tightly tucked between her fingers seemingly withering as the seconds passed by. It was more than tattered, filled with hundreds of drafts. Her mother was indescribable, even if it wasn't in a good way. Her eyes bore sadness as she stared at the oak-colored coffin. There were tears, but she held them in.

This was nothing like she thought it would feel like. She thought she would survive, move on. Her mother, for the most part, simply got drunk as often as she could and basically neglected her daughter, but this hurt. The sadness had her broken, her mind was being torn into pieces.

It was the alcohol, she thought.

"My mother," she squeaks into the sole microphone latched onto the podium. Her palms are sweaty, and the beads of sweat begin to form around her forehead, but she doesn't mind. The light shines brightly against her face, and for the first time, she notices the audience edging into the dim room, the only source of light being the one very irritatingly aimed at her eyes. "She lost everything. She lost the love of her life, her first born, the trust of her second born, she lost herself." Jess paused, conveying to the few friends her mother actually had, Jess didn't think there were any, but low and behold, a small crowd of people had appeared "She lost her sanity." the tears dared to resurface, "But no one can say that she didn't try to save it all. Leslie was the epitome of perfection until she wasn't. But yet, there will always be a fragment in our hearts that remember how much she tried to fight. Much like others, she'd lost, drowned herself in alcohol, tearing apart her soul. But like them all, who she was, and everything she used to be will be cherished."

Jess shook her head, "I used to miss her, the old her. But then, I realized. Everything changes. She changed, and I respect that. And I think this is what she wants. To be reunited with the antiquity she lost."

"I wish her luck." A small echo of applause begins to erupt the tiny auditorium, Jess squirmed under the clingy décolletté dress that although only accentuated her form, seemed to be squishing her. She felt like the black, satin, flame-retardant, was a little over the top and looked too celebratory for the rather grim evening, but she didn't have many dark dresses in her closet, let alone any that would fit. So she settled for what she had.

Jess' life was from perfect, but she was completely content with how it had turned out. Graduating a year earlier than any of her Covian companions, for the sole reason that besides missing an entire two months of classes, her GPA was still high enough to pass, most of the others had simply repeated the year.

Even she was impressed with where perseverance had gotten her.

She had moved as soon as she could, packed her bag, bid her life goodbye and bought a plane ticket to a different state at random. It was stupid, naive, but worth it. Somewhere fresh, wholesome. Somewhere too good to be true. And the first thought that flashed through her mind was none other than the one, the only, the infamous, Covia, where for sure, she would always remember, but soon, she realized it was time to face the music, live reality. And she did. Throwing away her high school persona like dirty laundry.

Jess had come back just recently to bid her mother a final goodbye and watch her enter the world of better, she had seen this coming, but she didn't expect it so soon. Her career was still being carefully maintained and two years after graduating college, she was back at her hometown under the watchful eye of her peers.

"But I will always miss her."

Truth be told, Jess wasn't okay. In fact, she was the complete opposite. The tears springing in her eyes were uncontrollable, unstoppable. She didn't have a single friend in her hometown, except them. Who she was too embarrassed to invite.

She didn't see their faces either, I mean, Leslie Walker's death by means of simultaneously having a liver failure, seizure, and an overdose, on top of the return of her 'outcast' daughter was practically the talk of the town, you'd have to go through lengths to avoid news spreading in her small town.

They had seen the flaws of one another, but yet, she no longer wanted to appear vulnerable. Jess was a woman, now. A woman of grace, one of class, and one who had to move on. It had been six full years since she last saw him, or any of them, and she wasn't even sure that they would walk to her with open arms of comfort during this vulnerable period of hers.

Still, when she found herself exiting her mother's service after the initial buzz had died down, she fully realized how alone she felt. Home was supposed to be sweet, but yet, this place felt foreign. Eighteen years here had not taught her to love, but to hate, and she was still fixing up the pieces of her broken self in another place.

I'm not okay.

She wasn't necessarily shattered, but events in her high school past had left her confidence torn and tattered, Jess hadn't recovered from losing Brea. From losing Avine, and now, losing her mother. They were gone now. Locked away, to be remembered only in her heart. She would never get to see them again.

Jess never got to say that she loved them, she missed them, or that she wished they were here, standing beside her. She lost that chance completely.

Ongoing passersby would assume that a fully grown woman exiting a cemetery would be crying from losing someone, but they wouldn't know that ripping open one scar, would tear the closure of every other pain she ever endured. There was rejection, sadness, anger, pity, all the emotions she knew she couldn't take alone.

With shaky fingers, a red nose, and a beanie that hardly covered her face, in the middle of what she referred to as nowhere, she picked up her phone and began to dial the four other numbers she couldn't bring herself to forget. The ringing coming from the phone pressed against her ear enclosed Jess in a warm environment during the cold, winter evening.

One night away from everything was all she asked for.

Soon enough, the ringing tone had begun to fade, and she could feel the heavy breathing on the other end of the line, she was terrified, but Jess knew she could trust them like she had done before. A small tapping on the other end interrupted her train of thoughts, as she prepares to speak. "Hey," she whispered, "It's Jess."

But sometimes, you don't get what you want, you get something more.