I roll back over and stare up at the ceiling, following the fan’s rotations with my eyes, letting the memories of the past come rolling back over me.
I remember when I was as constantly happy as Dee, always looking at the world with rose-colored goggles. I wasn’t the most popular girl in school, but I had a good number of close friends. My childhood was so full of laughter and love; my parents were the things dreams are made of. They were always happy, always smiling, and always full of love. Love for me and love for life. For a parent-child relationship, ours wasn’t the most conventional. I could go to them with anything and they never cast judgment or scorn. Not a day went by that I didn’t feel the joy I had brought into their lives.
I was lucky enough to meet the love of my life young. We had a relationship that reminded me of my parents.’ Always happy, always smiling, and always full of love. I had three of the best young and dumb years in my life with that boy.
I thought I was untouchable, and I thought that our love was unbreakable. Together we could overcome anything that life threw at us. By his side, I was complete.
Axel left for boot camp three days after he graduated from high school, and that, unfortunately, meant he was leaving me behind in the process. I understood this. Hell, I had even rallied behind him. I wanted what would make him happy, and I knew he was setting his own path, proving to the world that he was nothing like his parents, who had cared more about their next big fix than their own son. Axel had been living in and out of foster homes for the better part of his eighteen years, and knowing he had nothing to offer me for a solid future, he did the only thing that made sense to him; he enlisted in the Marines.
Together, with my parents by my side, we dropped him off at the bus station with a promise to reunite and live out all of our dreams when I graduated the next year. That day was the first hard day of my life.
I let a bitter laugh escape my lips when I think back to all those stupid dreams. They are funny things, the dreams of an innocent teen. You never know when you’re planning them that you are planning nightmares instead.
I wasn’t too broken by him leaving. Sure, I was upset, but I knew that he would be back; he would return to me. My parents planned a few trips that summer to keep my mind off missing Axel, at least until I could hear from him again. I was so excited for that day, even knowing it might just be a letter. I couldn’t wait to hear about all the changes he was encountering and how he was dealing with them and without me.
But that day never came. Two weeks after I waved goodbye to my love, my parents were killed in a car accident. I was devastated and heartbroken. Looking back now, I can say that was the start of my downward spiral. I didn’t deal with their deaths well, especially without Axel there to ground me. My parents had both been only children, and my father’s parents had been long gone before I was even born. With no other family left to take over my care, I was shipped off to live with my mom’s parents in North Carolina. Even through all my grief, I still held on to the hope that Axel would be back in my arms again and that he would take all that pain away. I loved my grandparents. Don’t get me wrong. But they were older and just didn’t know how to deal with my pain on top of their own.
I had left their address in the care of Axel’s foster mother, June. I knew she hated me, but I had hoped that if I couldn’t contact him, this would be the next best thing.
The fog from my parents’ death had finally left me when I found out I was almost two months pregnant. It had been almost a month since I’d lost them and not a day had gone by that I hadn’t felt the stabbing grief, but this pregnancy gave me something to focus on. Something to look forward to. It was Independence Day when I found out, ironic enough. I remember sitting in the bathroom of my grandparents’ house, thinking I had the next best thing to having Axel with me—a piece of him and our love. I was still scared; what seventeen-year-old wouldn’t be? I was basically alone and pregnant. I loved that baby from the second I saw the positive test strip. I just knew that any baby created with our love would be beautiful.
With a new lease on life, I started to move on and plan for our new future. I couldn’t wait to share the news with him. Every day I wrote to him, sending the letters off to his old foster home. Not knowing where he’d settled, I thought that was the next best thing. It worried me that I hadn’t heard from him, but I knew he would find me. He would always find me.