Read Online A Broken Kind of Life by Jamie Mayfield - Free Book Online

He drove a little faster than he normally did in an effort to outrun the images in his head, to leave them at the college.
    Spencer gave a silent prayer of thanks to see his father’s BMW in the garage when he pulled in. After grabbing the bag from the bookstore out of his back seat, he ran to the back door. It slammed behind him, getting the attention of his father, who stood in the kitchen with one hand on his head and the other around a tall glass of something. Damn it, he’d started already.
    With one look at his father’s bloodshot eyes and hunched shoulders, Spencer walked right past and up to his room. He wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to lose himself in the fog of alcohol like his father. Would it help get the boy’s ruined face out of his head?

Five

     
    T WO more days of freedom were left to Aaron before he started classes on Monday, and he had an idea for how he wanted to spend one of them. He just hoped his mother agreed. It was important for him to do this, no matter what the cost to his own psyche.
    “Mom,” Aaron said, and his mother stopped in the doorway, turning to look at her son curiously. He rarely, if ever, initiated a conversation with her, so she looked fairly surprised. “Would you mind taking me to visit… Juliette tomorrow?” It took her a minute to respond. Aaron had never visited Juliette’s grave, not once in almost two years. He had still been in the hospital when her parents held her funeral. Michelle stood in the doorway while she appeared to consider it. The silence between them hung heavy in the air while she no doubt thought about the damage that visit could do to her son, or maybe the way it might help his recovery. After several long and tense moments, she spoke.
    “Sure, honey. We can stop by the florist on the way.”
    The next morning, after making pancakes and sausage for all her boys, Michelle tapped into the strength that seemed to remain somewhere inside her and asked Aaron if he still wanted to visit Juliette. He said he did and went upstairs to change.
    Neither of them spoke as they made their way to the commercial area of town. When they arrived at the small brick building with the displays of flowers exploding with late summer color, Aaron stayed in the car. His mother would pick out the flowers she thought were best. What did he know about buying gravesite flowers? It was all he could do to focus on something other than why the flowers were necessary in the first place.
    “I decided to go with a mixed bouquet of pink roses, lilies, and daisies,” his mother said when she returned to the car with a subtly colored mix of flowers, which she handed to Aaron. Holding them on his lap, his expression was hard and cold as he wrapped his arms around himself, almost as if he were trying to hold himself together, or as if he wanted to curl up into a ball so tight and so small that he would just disappear into it. Aaron saw his mother glance periodically at him as they headed for East Park Cemetery.
    She pulled off the side of the road near where Juliette’s grave must be. Aaron knew his mother had been here a few times since Juliette’s funeral. Each time he’d stayed home and his father tried in vain to distract him. After turning off the ignition, Michelle sat waiting for Aaron to speak or to move. He did neither.
    “Aaron, honey, do you want me to go with you?” his mother prompted, but he shook his head. Aaron needed to do this alone, especially since he was unsure how he would respond to actually seeing Juliette’s grave, knowing she was buried there. However he reacted, his mother didn’t need to see it. She saw enough. After taking one last long moment to look over the small rolling hills of green, he opened the car door. The smell of freshly mown grass flooded over him, and he climbed out of the car. It didn’t take him long to find the small monument signaling the entrance to Juliette’s part of the cemetery. His mother had