She Was Ready
A short story about leaving everything behind.
One
“So do you think you’re ready this time?” She said to me on our 18 hour road trip to swamp city Florida from the ass crack of Illinois. Last year, after I graduated High School we both agreed that moving to Illinois with her was probably my best option on what most like to call a “fresh start.” Except, I got cold feet and never went. I regretted it for a full year after the first month of staying behind. Most people want to move to Florida, I was absolutely feral to get out. Retiring there is one thing, surviving your childhood there is another.
Living in Florida, I had always felt different, that I didn’t belong. I never felt “at home” while being in my own childhood house. Growing up with two alcoholics and addicts who were never ready to be parents, really solidified the whole “never feeling at home” sentiment. There were times where they tried their best, but at the end of the day they’re human with their own internal demons. Most days, those demons were never at bay. They fought like rabid animals when they would be intoxicated. I tried my damndest to shelter my younger brother from the quarrels of my parents. I’d like to think I did an okay-ish job on that front. However, the second I felt that my brother would be okay without me, I’d be gone like the wind. When I got cold feet last year I felt that he wasn’t quite yet ready to be without me, and personally as much as I wanted to get out, my heart wasn’t quite ready yet either.
Two
“I think I’m ready this time, I know I call wolf often” I took another deep breath and sighed “but I think it’s time” I said to her finally. My grandmother, Jules was a god-sent. She’s the reason I made it out my mothers womb, not that I’m entirely pleased to be here. Anyway, back in 1993 when my parents found out that my mother was pregnant with me, my father wanted to “take care of it” and dip as fast as he came (no pun intended). Jules wasn’t having any of that nonsense. So within months of meeting — They met in AA by the way — they were married with a baby on the way. Fast forward to September of 1994, and I made my sparkling debut into this fucked up world. Jules was positively over the god damn moon, her first grandbaby was here and she thought the world of that child.
Jules wasn’t the perfect mother by any means, she also had her inner demons and her children suffered the consequences — shit apples don’t fall far from the shit tree I guess — my mother and her two sisters were in and out of foster care. I never really knew fully why or how, I never really got a clear answer from anyone. So I never really knew, maybe that’s for the best. Like I said, Jules had her own inner demons and I never got to know them nor, did I really have any interest in getting to know them. I loved the soft side of my grandmother, that’s how I’ll always remember her. I knew her as the woman who would give her last dollar to a homeless person or the shirt off her back if someone was in need of one. She could walk into any room like she owned the place. People loved her. For a while, she was the glue that kept us all together. Man would she be disappointed to see how things are now.
Three
“You’re not going to get cold feet this time” she said. It was a statement, not a question. “I wont” I mumbled under my breath. I really did mean it this time, I wasn’t going to get cold feet, it was time. I needed to leave, I had to leave if I wanted to stay alive. See, the year after my feet got cold, I spiraled. Hard. My boyfriend at the time, our relationship was starting to sour — had been for a while — we were doing far to many pills together, and shit was starting to go south. I was slowly turning into my parents, something I strived so fucking hard not to become — like I said shit apples don’t fucking fall far — so something needed to change. I never really spoke up about my drug addiction at that time, it was something I was very much not proud of. I think we all know that if you’ve ever felt true numbness, you will do anything to seize that feeling over and over again. I think at that point in time, I was starting to understand my parents a little bit better. I think that was where I found my empathy.
He who will not be named (my ex) — let’s call him — Snake, because he just always felt like a snake in the grass to me. He wanted to manipulate and control and disguised it with ‘love.’ He was never physical — except for that one time but we were high out of our minds, no excuse I know — but man was he putting those mental gymnastics on me to work. Yet, I didn’t want to leave. As much as I was just ready to get out, I wanted to stay where it seemed most comfortable. Florida had been my home since I was 6 years old, now here, I was at freshly 20 and ready to jump a ship I never left. The thought of leaving and never coming back, terrified me. The idea of being so far from my parents, my brother, my friends, it all settled heavy in my bones. My father told me that there would always be a place here for me to fall back on. Snake said he would meet me up there once I was settled into an apartment of my own. The very last thing I wanted was for Snake to follow me. He can slither on back to where he came from and fucking stay there.
Four
As our trek continued to swamp country, we decided to make a stop along the way. Yes we are reverting back to more happier times for the moment. We stopped in a bucket list city of my grandmothers, she had been dying to go here. Where was ‘here?’ Savannah Georgia, and boy did that city not disappoint. It’s a trip that is still ingrained into my memory. We ate like queens, did a few tours and just soaked in the city for the short time we were there. It was a 24 hour stop, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to kill before we made our way south for the rest of winter like a couple of snow birds.
We finally made it back to South Florida, my grandmother needed a co-pilot on her trip down so, I was happy to oblige. Only that trip did come with a really thick string attached, and that thick string led all the way back to Illinois. It wasn’t going anywhere this time, I knew of it.
We parted ways for the short time that we were back. She stayed with my mom and her boyfriend at the time, and I went back to the trap house my boyfriend and I were living in. We were planning on staying just shy of a month. That means I had weeks to pack up almost 20 years of my life, tell my friends and family I was leaving, and do my best to hold strong through it all. I didn’t break up with Snake yet. I was dense and thought that if I led him to believe that he would be up there at some point, it would be easier to leave. It did help in the long run. Messy of me….I know.
Get Dom Heepke’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Telling my friends and family — especially my best friend, Stormy — that I was leaving, still breaks my heart to this day. Ironically, Stormy is the only person I still talk to. Having someone who remembers you before the world changed you, is priceless. My plan was to come back after college. Oh yeah, I guess there was a few other strings attached to my move, that being I had to go to college or seek some sort of higher education. Spoiler alert, I graduated and never went back ‘home.’ I’ll get into why at some point maybe. But just know returning to Florida once I was out, was no where to be found on my radar.
Five
I had plans, St. Louis is the gateway to the west after all, and my new home was very close. Maybe I’d go west, or maybe more north like Chicago. Or meet a nice man, settle down and start my own little family. In the end, I’m grateful for the latter. We’re going to skip ahead to my arrival in Illinois. The trip out of Florida is something my mind has worked hard to bury, and not something I care to revisit. But for all the reasons I hated Florida, a painful piece of my heart still belongs there. Always will. The ache of leaving felt like pulling my own heart from my chest and carrying on as if I hadn’t bled for it.
My first month felt like one endless roadblock after another. Honestly, the first two years felt like being trapped in a fucking roundabout, circling the same dead end over and over again. I settled into my grandma’s house for about three months. At first I felt a bit trapped. I had no car, no job, and was living in the middle of fucking east Jesus nowhere. I couldn’t smoke weed at my grandmas, so I needed to secure my own place ASAP. Thankfully I found a job, found two roommates — a couple I lived with, they were cool as fuck — I got my very first car, (a 2003 Ford Mustang. Fuck, I loved that car) and I adopted a cat all within about 3 months. The cat came before moving — once again — into our tiny apartment. She was hidden in my walk-in closet for about two months before leaving my grandma’s. Yes, the cat (Louise) had been found while I was at work by Jules. She was not happy at first but after a few days, I think that woman loved Louise more than I did. The cat and I were settled into our new and final home for a while.
I don’t want to go into too much detail but I had bounced back and forth between my grandmother’s house and my own. I had spent 5th and parts of 7th grade in Illinois, that’s why my move this time didn’t really come to me as a surprise. So I had made a few friends but only one had stuck around for the long haul, she’s still one of my very best friends now. Adrienne, she practically lived with me without paying rent but her time and friendship were and are priceless. We spent many late nights smoking and laughing til we cried. Yes we also dabbled in a few other drugs together but none of those stuck around, they were just for funsies. Those days are some of which I’d give anything to go back to. Again, to have a friend who has seen you through so many seasons of life but loves you endlessly. It’s a treasured gift. But in those moments, we never really paid any mind to how fucking fleeting they were. How simple everything was, even at 20/21 and living on my own. It had felt like all the pieces were perfectly in place. Things were actually really good for the first time in what seemed my whole life. At least for a while. Until it wasn’t.
Six
After my first winter in the early weeks of spring, my entire world simply shattered. Jules got very sick, it had happened so fast I think only she really saw it coming. She held on for as long and fought as hard as she could. Ultimately she and her body were just done, she needed a lung transplant. She was 62 and a former smoker, she’d be on that list for years before anything came of it. She passed peacefully on April 13th, 2016 at around 3 in the morning at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Talk about grief, that pain was fucking unmatched to well, anything. That pain, was only just the beginning. 2016 was by far the worst year of my life. I thought moving here the year prior was the best decision. That Jules and I would have tons more time together. I thought moving here would give us that time. I was sorrily mistaken. I felt that all the decisions that I had made up to that point was a catastrophic error. I would later realize that the universe had much much bigger plans for me, however in that moment, in that time, I just quite frankly felt like a dumb ass.
Not only did I feel clueless, I was broken my best friend of my whole life had left me. I heard a quote once from the movie “Dumplin” (great film) the protagonist had said at one point “she taught me everything I know, the one thing she didn’t teach me was how to live in a world without her.” Those words have stuck to my brain since the second I had first heard them. She truly did teach me damn near everything I knew, especially how to embrace my femininity and grow into becoming a woman. She taught me how to love fiercely and with everything you’ve got. One thing she did teach me that I had to learn to let go over the years since she had passed, was that blood ties don’t always mean loyalty. She drilled into me that family — no matter how shitty — deserved a seat at her table. Me? I think otherwise. I always knew that sometimes, home is where the first wound is cut and the ones holding the blade often claimed to “love you.” As the years went by, every so often I’d be painfully reminded of that.
Seven
If you thought it might get better, well buckle up buttercup because it’s about to sink further into a shit show. Just two months after Jules left us too soon I made the obtuse decision to move back into ‘the big house’ where my grandparents had lived. I didn’t want my grandfather to be lonely. He wasn’t biologically my grandfather but he was around and that’s all that matters to me. (My actual grandfather is still kicking and we still don’t talk.) Boy would I soon find out that was a fucking mistake from hell.
There are many parts of this story I like to keep behind closed doors but my grandfather couldn’t when just nine weeks after Jules departed our world. Fuck, just even typing this is giving me the ick. Well you see this little bit is important, I had gotten arrested, we’re about to cross that bridge but before we get there, after my arrest and I posted bail. My car, my precious sweet baby Mustang was taken from me. Yes, the motherfucker took my car because I was smoking weed in it and I’ll be honest, the deal was that I had to pay them back for that car and I hadn’t really given them more than I think $500 at the time. So I can understand but at the same time, he literally crashed my grandma’s Toyota Solara from driving drunk on this same night that I’m about to get in to. So don’t act like your shit doesn’t stink when right now, you’re the smelliest one in the damn room. Okay back to where I was, just weeks after Jules got her wings, I had no car so I was getting rides to and from work. Well, it was early evening, I had just gotten into the driveway from work and I noticed a car in the drive I did not recognize. It was some frilly powder blue jeep that clearly belonged to a woman. My heart sunk, I immediately went to extremely vile thoughts. Turns out, I was right. I can spare you the very very dirty details but fuck she hasn’t been gone for over two months… I will say, they had the goddamn door open (hint the whole “behind closed doors” bit) and I heard fucking everything. Hearing two 60 year olds bone in the other room is something I hopefully never have to relive. At least until I’m 60, damn. I dipped out the walk-out basement and didn’t return for about two or three days.
Eight
Okay remember how I said I was arrested and that was the snowball effect into more bullshit. Well, let’s go ahead and unpack that now. I went on a hike with a friend at the time. I had never been to this location so I wasn’t aware to be on the look out for cops on the trail. As I was driving from a look out point to another trail, I was pulled over. Long story short, I had a couple grams of weed on me and some paraphernalia so off to jail for the day we go. My car was sadly being impounded, and I had begged and pleaded with the cop to let me hide the key under a tire or something and someone would come get it. Nope, Sargent Asshat Mcgee wasn’t having any of that. So good ole gramps had to not only bail my happy ass out, but also get my damn car back too. All together including court fines, that was a shiny $3,000 later. Fun fact, I paid gramps back and paid my own fines. Still didn’t get my damn car back. Our relationship really soured after that, and when I reached out to other family members in the area… They all pretty much told me to “figure it out” and that there was no local help to be offered. All because I smoke weed and see the world a little differently than them. Like I said, Jules would be very disappointed to see how much we’ve all fallen out. Gramps has also since passed, he went on a few years ago. I’d like to think he was happy in the end, but I also know he was done with this world too.
Nine
*Queue the Fresh Prince of Bel-air theme song* So yeah that’s the short version of how my life completely flipped for a while there. Obviously, I never moved back to Florida. I still try to visit whenever I can, though leaving each time seems to hurt a little more than the last. But since I left, I’ve seen more of this world than I ever thought I would. I’ve traveled across different parts of my country and beyond it, tasted new foods, lived through new experiences, and slowly let those things shape me into someone new. For all the pain it took to get here, I’m proud of the woman I became. And I carry the comfort of knowing Jules would be proud too.
If you’ve made it to the end, thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me share this space with you. This is my very first short story I’ve ever written, well, at least since college. This one was based on a true story with some details withheld. It’s based off my very early 20’s and making a huge life changing decision that to be completely honest, it was the smartest investment in my own future and to this day probably one of the best choices I had ever made. Next story I’m shooting for will be fictional and not about myself. If you have any questions, feel that there is something missing, or even some friendly feedback I am all eyes (ya know because I’ll be reading your comments, haha I’m lame I know)
Thank you again for reading!
