Chapter 1, Part 3

           “I just do, okay?” Jackie said, getting defensive.  She turned to Liz, who had stood by, watching this exchange with wide eyes.  “Help me take my stuff upstairs?”

            Liz nodded and grabbed one of Jackie’s bags, following her up to the attic that the two of them shared.  As soon as she’d dropped the bag on her older sister’s bed, she perched on it as well.

            “So…you’ve changed,” Liz said once Jackie was bustling around the bedroom, putting her clothes away.

            Jackie rolled her eyes.  “Oh, god, Elizabeth, not you too.”

            Liz raised an eyebrow.  The only person who called her Elizabeth was their parents, and that was only when she’d done something to royally piss them off.  “Not me too?”

            “Dad was unbearable the whole drive home.  I tried to explain to him about this church I joined and then he got all—”

Chapter 1, Part 2

         For the third time in the last half hour, Liz looked up from her journal at the sound of an approaching car.  She held her breath, hoping that she would hear it come to a stop in front of the house, but just like every other time the car continued on down the street.  She sighed and looked back down at her journal, trying to get her mind off of her sister’s return.

December 11

            Jackie comes home from college today.  I can’t wait.  She’s the one piece of sanity in this family.

            I can’t wait until I’m out of here.  Graduation is only six months away and it can’t possibly come soon enough.  I want to be done with high school, and off to college, and start new without being shoved into the background of my own family.  It’s just because I’m not as loud as the younger five.  If I was as obnoxious as Greg or Tommy, or as mouthy as Eva, then maybe I wouldn’t always get so lost.  Even Andi and Dani don’t fall into the background as much as I do.  Jackie’s the only one who ever seems to notice me.

            Which brings me back to…I can’t wait until Jackie gets home for her Christmas break.

            Liz sighed and looked up at her clock.  Her dad and Jackie should be getting home from Drighton University, where Jackie was a freshman, any minute now.  She stretched and stood up from her desk, where her homework had gone forgotten in favor of writing in her journal.  Someone started screaming downstairs, and Liz rolled her eyes.  If Eva and Greg weren’t fighting about something, she was fairly certain the world would come to an end.

Chapter 1, Part 1 (The Present)

            The well-worn leather journal rests on her lap as the frighteningly familiar scenery flashes by.  It doesn’t matter that this is the place where Liz grew up.  It doesn’t matter that, until her senior year of high school, she was perfectly happy here.  Liz still refuses to open her eyes.

            “Car sickness,” she said by way of excuse, to defuse suspicions or worried glances from her fiancé.  Boyfriend.  Life partner.  She isn’t honestly sure what to call Eric, because she’ll never get married.

            Not again.

            The truth is Liz would rather be anywhere else in the world right now.  Ten years of avoidance down the drain.

            Liz’s sole comfort is the journal in her lap.  She clutches it like a lifeline as the car drives toward her childhood home.  A family reunion.  All seven kids back together for an anniversary party.

            Whose crazy idea was this?

            She had been all for a party.  She had not been okay with the reunion.  She had not condoned returning to Columbus, suburbs or otherwise.  Jackie had been on her side.  The younger five used the argument that this would be good for the healing process.

            If ten years of being not here haven’t healed things yet, a family reunion definitely isn’t going to help either.

            No.  A whole week of concerned stares and questions and forcing repressed memories is not going to help.  Liz is positive of that.

            “We’re here,” Eric announces, folding the directions and reaching into the backseat to nudge awake their young daughter, Sara, who fell asleep only fifteen minutes ago.

            Liz finally opens her eyes and stares at the house.  It hasn’t changed in all these years.  Perhaps a new layer of paint, but it looks the same as it did when Liz was seventeen.

            Seventeen.  The year Liz doesn’t want to remember.

            She closes the journal, her one constant comfort.  A journal much like it got her through that year…

            Liz pushes the thought out of her mind, takes a deep breath, and opens the car door, taking the first step toward memories she knows she’ll have to relive but that she’d rather just forget.  Forever.