Shadows and Lies Read Free

what I did, too. The next day I went down to the rental office of White Pine Village, filled out an application, and I moved all of my things to her house for two weeks till the first of the month rolled around and my promised apartment would be open for rent.
    I sighed as I continued to look up at my apartment on the second floor and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. I had freedom from tears, too, I decided, and from gut clenching uncertainty and anger. I took a deep breath and blinked away new tears. Freedom felt good, but it came with a price. Nancy hadn’t even said goodbye to me the next day after our argument, the day that I had moved out. She had hid in her room all morning as I removed my stuff from the house. Dad wasn’t home at all, even though it was a Saturday; I think he was avoiding the whole situation. I had to knock on their bedroom door to give her my house keys. She stared at a spot somewhere above my head, took the keys, and closed the door in my face. And that was that.
    A few days into my stay at Judy’s house, Vanessa, my second oldest sister, somehow managed to guilt me into apologizing to Nancy. That’s right; I broke down and apologized to my stepmother for moving out of the house, for hurting her feelings and for making her upset. God, I look back and I just want to shake myself and Vanessa. I had done nothing wrong. But I did go and I did apologize, evening getting on my knees, literally, to beg Nancy for forgiveness as she sat in front of her computer and mindlessly played solitaire.
    Without looking at me, Nancy told me that she felt like I’d stabbed her in the back, especially since I was now living with Judy, and that I had taken her love and stomped all over it. After that she refused to speak to me anymore. Luckily, my dad’s shotgun remained locked in the cabinet, but I still left feeling gut-shot. I was a failure in her eyes – and in my own at that moment. I fought tears all the way back to Judy’s house. It felt like I had a rock lodged in my throat, but I refused to cry. Nancy wasn’t worth crying over.
    But that was then. I sniffed and wiped the tears from my eyes before they could fall and I vowed No More. No more would I let Nancy pull my strings and play mind games with me. I had done nothing wrong, I told myself. Nancy simply didn’t like change, and I had thrown a monkey wrench into the works. It wasn’t the first time she’d acted like this, I knew. When Vanessa had brought home her first boyfriend at the age of nineteen, Nancy had gone berserk and browbeat her into breaking up with him. After awhile, when things had settled back into a predictable pattern, Nancy had settled too, and all was supposedly forgotten.
    Vanessa, however, hadn’t been out on another date since.
    Yes, I told myself, turning away from the view of my apartment to face my car that was parked right behind me. After a while, things would settle and Nancy would forgive me, and life would go back to normal, at least until I managed to find myself a boyfriend. I just had to wait her out, but in the mean time, I refused to give in.
    I unlocked the trunk of my car. It was full of boxes of books, my one true weakness, while the inside of my car was filled to bursting with three suitcases of clothes, a sleeping bag, a couple of boxes filled with things like my alarm clock, an umbrella, shoes, knickknacks and other things that generally go in a bedroom, and another box of full of random household items that I had managed to pick up at garage sales over the last two weekends living at Judy’s. I had nothing else, no furniture, no pots or dishes or silverware, no towels and no groceries to cook for my supper that night. I hadn’t taken anything with me from my parent’s house but the things that I had paid for myself, and that hadn’t applied to the rickety old bed my parents had bought for me in high school, or the set of ugly yellow dresser drawers that had passed from both of my sisters to