Chapter Thirty
Excerpt from Autumn’s Fall
‘Valentine Visit’
“August, are they out?”
August was too stunned to speak upon hearing his sister Autumn’s voice for the first time since she shouted ‘I hate you’ at their parents.
“They doing that silly anniversary ritual again?”
“Where are you?” August asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a panic.
“Across the street. Can I come in for a minute?” Autumn asked.
August thought, even if she was across the street, she sounded lost. And she had been, but now she was found. August raced toward the front window, threw open the drapes and saw Autumn standing by a beat-up pick-up truck, without a coat, shivering in the bright star-filled eve. “Of course.” He ran faster to the door, opening it and waving her in, his smile as big as the half-moon. She didn’t wave back.
“One condition. You can’t let them know I was here.”
August paused, pondering which was more important—seeing his sister or obeying his parents. As he watched Autumn cross the street, he knew he’d need to cross a line, too. “I won’t tell them. I promise.” With that, Autumn hung up the phone and started toward the house. August flung open the door so hard it sounded like a gunshot.
Before August could say a word, Autumn hugged him tighter than he could remember, although he thought I’ll always remember this moment, when my sister returned home.
“We were so worried about—” August started.
“I’m just here to get a few things. I’m not moving back home. I don’t want to be here and they don’t want me here.” Autumn broke the hug. Autumn broke her brother’s heart, again.
“I don’t understand.” August stood at the door, but felt like he’d been knocked on the floor. “I’m sure you could work something out with Mom and Dad.”
“Not after…” she started, but stammered. Not after Christmas morning, August thought.
“I want a few things and then we’re leaving.”
“Dwayne?”
Autumn hugged his brother. “I told you. I dropped him after what he did to your dog.”
“Thank you, but I forgave you,” August whispered.
“But Mom and Dad… They won’t forgive me about Grandma’s money. I don’t blame them. But I needed the money to get my career started.” Autumn released the hug.
“Career?” August asked his high-school dropout sister.
“Troy, the guy in the car, knows people in New York who can get me started in modeling, but there are upfront costs—headshots, agent fees, new clothes and jewelry. It costs a lot, but it will be worth it when you go to the store one day and see me on the cover of a magazine.”
“So you’re moving to New York?”
“If you want to be famous, that’s the place to be.”
“Why?” August asked the one-word question that had haunted him for years.
“Why do I want to be famous?” Autumn answered, sounding bemused by the query. She pointed at the big screen TV. “I want to be the one on TV, not looking at it. I want everybody in Fenton that treated me bad—which is just about everybody but you, August—to know they were wrong about me, especially Mom and Dad, always telling me to be realistic, be practical.”
“But what if… What if it doesn’t work out, modeling?” August hated sounding like his father, hated worrying like his mother, but mostly hated that he couldn’t understand Autumn’s life.
“Then I’ll try something else. Then I—” Autumn stopped speaking when her cell phone buzzed. She glanced at it. “It’s Troy. Our flight’s in the morning. I took some of the money to buy us First Class tickets. I want to get used to living life like that.”
“Is there anything I can say that would get you to stay?”
“Unless within the new few seconds you morph into a Hollywood producer, a TV director or a modeling agency owner, then no, August. There’s nothing anyone can say.” She smiled when she said it. It had been a long time since August had seen his sister’s sober smile, even if the words she was saying crushed his hopes of him ever smiling again.
“So, like I said, I’m going to get a few things and then I’m gone.”
“I’m sorry,” August mumbled and started to sniff. “I’m sorry I ratted you out to Mom and Dad, but when you left on Thanksgiving, I was angry at you. I wanted to get back at you.”
“I know I said stupid stuff about your immature shit, but that’s because I’m so angry here all the time. I’m a rat in a cage in Fenton. I want to be a model on a runway in New York.”
It wasn’t a runway, just a flight of steps that Autumn climbed, each small step one step closer to her room than to her dreams, and one giant step farther away from August’s life.