Soulmates (4 page)

“This isn’t going to work,” he chuckled arrogantly.

“That’s right. This isn’t going to work and it hasn’t been working. I guess the only way this would work is if I were okay with you having other girlfriends,” she said calmly as tears fell from her face. Tyler looked at Presley with a half smile, but didn’t speak. “You would just love that wouldn’t you, Tyler? The bottom line is that you are not the person I wanted you to be, and you never were. And you have been cheating on me all along. Just tell me this Tyler, if you wanted to date other girls, then why didn’t you just break up with me?”

“Presley, I think you are a little too overbearing in this relationship. If you want to call it cheating then -okay. I have dated a few girls while I was seeing you,” he said nonchalantly.

“Tyler! That’s called cheating! Let me get this straight. For months I’ve been asking you about various rumors, all of which you’ve denied. How many of your friends knew? I feel like such a fool. You have led me to believe that I had a problem, that I was crazy! What did you just say? Oh, yes, that I had ‘abandonment issues.’ You are so egotistical. Just get out of my house,” she said with disgust. Presley went back to the laundry room and took Tyler’s damp shirt out of the dryer and threw it at him. “Leave now,” she said louder and more assertive this time.

“Pres, just listen— hear me out,” he begged.

“Why?” Presley said angrily. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie!” As she yelled at him he walked backward toward the door.

“Presley, I know that you’re mad right now. But I would like the chance to explain,” he said.

“You just said it was over, that this wasn’t going to work, and now you want to ‘explain’ yourself. And I am the one who’s crazy? Anyone would go crazy trying to figure you out. I want off of this rollercoaster. Tell Mary that she can have you. Get out!” she screamed.

Tyler stood still, waiting for Presley to change her mind like she had in all their other fights. She didn’t budge this time. At least not yet anyway. Tyler walked outside and Presley shut the door. She watched out of the front bay window, through the downpour of rain, as Tyler stood on the side of the gravel road for a few minutes.

She saw him talking on his cell phone and figured he had called for a ride. A few minutes later, Ryan pulled into the gravel driveway. Tyler got in the truck and they sped down the road. After realizing that Samantha stayed with them, Presley felt very alone. She sat down on the couch and cried into a lavender throw pillow. Tyler had always confused her and she never felt they made a good couple. She had wanted them to be, but there was something missing, a feeling that she desired but he never filled. She didn’t want to break up with Tyler, but she couldn’t understand why he lied and cheated on her. In her mind she tried desperately to figure out a way to make the situation okay. She wished he had never cheated on her. She wished that he never admitted it. She wished she never knew.

She took her song book and guitar and went upstairs to her bedroom. She lay restlessly on her bed, listening as the rain hit the window pane, making a soft, almost sad, rhythmic sound. She rolled over countless times while thoughts of Tyler’s affairs ran rapidly through her tired mind. Frustrated, she rolled out of bed, and went over to her window. She stared at the moon and softly whispered as she reminded herself, “There’s more to life than this small town and these small people.”

She opened her song book and finished the song she had started earlier that night. Tears flowed freely from her eyes. She cried herself to sleep.

≈≈≈≈≈

The next morning Presley woke up and instantly her thoughts went to the night before. Thoughts of despair raced through her weary head.
How could I be so stupid? There were so many red flags and I should have seen through him. He was always so secretive about where he was and what he was doing. His cell phone never left his side and he was constantly texting and checking his messages. Anytime I’d ask him who he was talking to he’d ignore me. And I foolishly allowed myself to fall in love with him. I have to get my mind off of this. I need to clear my head.

Presley got up out of bed, still dressed in the same clothes she wore the night before. Although she could have stayed in bed all day feeling sorry for herself, she decided to go to the kitchen for a glass of juice. She heard the front door open. She peeked around the corner, and saw her mother, Lisa, stumbling toward her. She grabbed Presley’s juice from her hand.

“I’m going to bed,” Lisa slurred. She gulped down the juice, and handed the emptied glass back to Presley.

“Yeah, Mom, you really ought to go to bed since it is nine in the morning and I haven’t seen you in two days,” Presley rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you get smart with me,” her mother garbled. As Lisa went to her room she tripped up the stairs and landed on her side. Presley quickly helped her mother to her feet as she had so many times before. She guided her mother up to her room, and pulled down the sheets to her mother’s bed. She closed the drapes, and gave her mom two aspirin and glass of water from the bathroom. Lisa was a horrible alcoholic. She was clean for six months about two years earlier, but a fight with a boyfriend caused her to fall off the wagon and return to the bottle.

“Do you need anything else?” Presley asked. Lisa didn’t respond, already passed out and drooling on her dirty pillow. Presley sat on the edge of her mother’s bed and watched her for a few minutes.

Presley whispered, “I wish you were a wonderful mom. I wish that you weren’t so selfish and I wish you weren’t a drunk," she said feeling alone. She gently rose off of the bed and walked into her bedroom and picked up her guitar. She went downstairs, opened the front door, and looked around.

The ground was soggy from the rain the night before, which made her think about the barn and the story of Paulette. She decided to take a walk. With her guitar slung around her neck and her song book in the back pocket of her jeans, she took off down the gravel road.

As she passed the old grain bin and windmill, a crow cackled loudly in a nearby tree, startling her. She glanced up as she momentarily recalled her strange dreams. Her thoughts returned to Tyler, and she wondered if he’d try to call her. She checked to make sure her phone was on. She knew their relationship had to be over now, even though she still wanted to be with him.

She walked by the old dirt road that once had been used as a driveway for the Shepard family. An uneasy feeling overcame Presley as she grew increasingly more curious to see what their house had looked like. Presley had never seen the Shepards’ house in all of the years she had been on her grandparent’s farm. The Shepards’ house had been abandoned years earlier and Paulette’s parents had moved into a nursing home in town.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Presley mumbled as she walked down the Shepards’ driveway. As Presley walked closer to the run down old house, she noticed the delicate yellow daffodils and the beautiful purple and white irises surrounding the front porch.

“First flowers of spring,” Presley said as she inhaled the fresh Midwest air. The hostas were newly unfolded, and the lily of the valley gave off the most amazing aroma.

In a nostalgic moment Presley began to speak to herself, “Maybe these flowers were planted by Paulette and her mother. Even after the Shepards’ loss these flowers still remain alive and strong all of these years later.”

Presley was an artist and she could find beauty in any setting, even the old run down house. She could almost feel the agony and sadness seeping from its every crevice. The house was white in color. Attached to the front window was the left over remnants of an old homemade window box, once used to display flowers. Now ratty and tattered, with one slight nudge it would fall apart. To her surprise, with only a little help from the slightest touch of her hand, the door seemed to open by itself. Presley was a little stunned at the creepy noise the door made, and now a slight fear came over her. She wanted to enter the house, but questioned what would happen to her if she got caught.

“Would it be trespassing, breaking and entering, maybe jail?” she debated her punishment to herself. Finally, curiosity trumped her fears and she entered the old decrepit house.

The living room was tiny, and empty except for a broken lamp lying on the soiled carpet. It appeared that many rodents had made this house their haven. There was a bird’s nest in the windowsill and mouse droppings throughout the room.

Although, disgusted, Presley was also intrigued by the history of this old residence, and before she knew it she had wandered into the kitchen. There was still an old plate in the sink, as if whoever cleaned out the house for the last time had eaten something, and in the haste of moving had forgotten to pack up the plate.

The worn, cracked, white cabinets were empty and there was an old fridge on the east wall. Presley walked over to it. She had never seen one of this model first hand, only in old movies. It was smaller than the refrigerator she was accustomed to and it had a little metal handle.

As Presley pulled the door open she found an old glass milk jug on the top shelf. There was a small freezer inside, which lent enough room for perhaps a carton of ice cream. As Presley closed the refrigerator door a strange sensation came over her.

The Shepard family used to eat in here
, she thought, as she searched the entire kitchen with her eyes. Presley imagined Paulette’s mother finishing dinner as the kids teased and poked fun at each other, instead of setting the table. She envisioned Paulette opening the refrigerator to grab the jug of milk. As her father entered the room, the kids would have grown silent as they all sat down at the table. Except for Paulette’s mother, who was still at the stove thickening the gravy.

Presley had always wanted a family like her vision. She often entertained the idea of having a sibling and a father. How different her life would be. Suddenly, Presley got startled by one of the house guests. A little mouse scurried across the kitchen floor and ran directly between Presley’s feet. Presley screamed and ran into one of the bedrooms, quickly shutting the door behind her.

Presley looked around the bedroom. The room was plain white and there was a big window on the opposite wall. There was a small closet with a few wire hangers left inside. Presley reached up on the closet shelf and felt something. She picked it up and saw that it was a small brown barrette. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she must be standing in Paulette’s bedroom. Presley had a very strange feeling, and began to panic a bit.

“This girl that I never knew, she’s
dead
, and I’m standing in her bedroom, holding her barrette." And with that thought she opened the door, ran back into the living room, and out the front door tripping over her guitar. She hastily picked it up from the porch and ran down the dirt road, the crow following behind her. She saw the clothesline, the one that Paulette’s mother must have been using so many years ago. Presley was walking the same road that Paulette walked that sunny May day, the day she had disappeared. The road hadn’t changed much. Just a dirt road. Now more like a mud road from the rain. If Presley stayed on the dirt path it would eventually merge into the gravel road that would take her back to her house. That is where Presley intended to go, back to her house, until she noticed a path to the right of the dirt road that she hadn’t noticed on her way to the Shepards’ house. Pausing to catch her breath, she examined the pathway more closely. This path intrigued her and she wondered where it led. She stood at the path, deliberating whether or not she should go down it or head back to her house. She reached into her pocket and felt the barrette.

What happened to you, Paulette?
Presley wondered. She took a right and started down the dirt path, possibly the same path Paulette had taken on her last day.

Chapter Three

Presley wandered down the path until she came upon a wide creek. The creek rushed with overflowing water from the recent rain. She sat down near the creek on a rock and leaned her guitar against a nearby tree and her song book beside it. Presley shut her eyes and for a moment the world was quiet and peaceful. She dreaded the thought of returning to her perplexing life. She felt as confused and unsure as she had the night before. She wondered why she still had feelings for Tyler when he was admittedly unfaithful. She wondered why her life was such a mess. She felt as if she had never truly been loved by anyone. She wanted to be loved and she wanted Tyler to be the one who loved her.