Bring Me Back Read online

  Bring Me Back

  By: Taryn Plendl

  Text copyright© 2012 Taryn C Plendl

  All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  ~Ally

  People always say the truth shall set you free. I think I’ve spent too many years running from the truth to know for sure. Somehow, I don’t feel like I’ll ever be free. Free from the memories, free from the nightmares…..Free from the truth.

  ***

  It has been three years since my parents died. The circumstances are public knowledge, minus the details you would only have when you are the one who was there, yet it remains something people aren’t willing to talk about. I’m not sure I want to talk about it, but not having the choice, due to everyone’s own insecurities just made it worse. I crave a normal conversation.

  One without pity or sadness, and one without someone who writes every detail down on a pad of paper. I have seen so many therapists. “Give it time Ally, there is a grieving process.” It’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. “What you’re feeling is normal.” If that is the case, never in my life have I wanted to be less normal.

  ***

  I never went back to that house. I spent six months at an inpatient facility, recovering from my injuries, and much to my extended family’s disappointment, I bought my own place in just outside of Durango, Colorado. I find it is completely ironic that the money I have now came from such a dark moment in my life, and it now enables me to isolate myself from the world. Agoraphobia—that is my newest label, however, it is one that I can live with.

  I spend most of my days sleeping, and my nights exercising, working on my hobby of mosaic art, and running. Night time is the only time I feel comfortable leaving my house. Maybe it is the fact that I am able to run away, to feel some sort of control. I couldn’t run the night my parents died, so I run now. The only thing I can’t do at night is sleep. I won’t allow myself to relive that moment, and I do, every time I close my eyes at night. I know I’m messed up—I don’t need a therapist to tell me that.

  Chapter 2

  ~Ian

  The realtor assured me this home would be private. I was hoping for a place far from any other houses, but this will have to do. My new house sits at the foothills of the mountains just outside of Durango, CO. The only house around mine is less than a quarter of a mile away. Nothing else for miles and miles. I asked about my neighbor, concerned that I would have to deal with someone meddling in my business. “She is a young woman who is very private, Ian. I assure you that you won’t even know she is there.” This came from my realtor, who just so happened to sell the house to my neighbor two years before.

  I needed space to deal with my new life, the one without Laney. I loved Laney from the moment I saw her. She was carefree and full of life, so much so that I craved her almost like a drug. She made me feel better than any drug ever could. We met our freshman year in college, and dated the entire time. We were going to be married after graduation, but a senior ski trip changed everything.

  ***

  Laney and I had an amazing weekend skiing at Wolf Creek and enjoying the hot springs. We cuddled at night next to the fireplace in the condo we rented and sipped wine. I could talk to Laney about anything or nothing at all. We had a natural comfort with each other. Laney and I did almost everything together—we ate, studied, ran, and slept—everything.

  There were very few times that I could remember, since meeting her, in which we had been apart for any length at time. Recently we had stopped running when Laney started to complain about pain in her legs. Having had shin splints and stress fractures in the past—I was on the track team in high school, I could understand. We found other ways of exercising, and recently had started swimming.

  She had felt pretty good the first day on the slopes, but by the end of the second day, I spent most of the night rubbing Laney’s right leg. The pain was pretty severe, and we had assumed that she hurt it somehow skiing. When it didn’t subside after two days, she decided to go get it checked out.

  I expected some sort of muscle injury, ligament injury, hell, even a broken bone, but what I never expected was Ewing’s Sarcoma. The next few weeks flew by at an almost surreal speed. Laney spent several days in the hospital getting x-rays, CT scans, MRI’s and finally a biopsy for staging. The cancer had started in her femur and had metastasized into her chest and lungs. She started aggressive chemotherapy and maintained it for close to six months before she lost her fight. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much you want something, or how much you want to believe, sometimes you just have to watch helplessly as it all slips away. It never occurred to us that she wouldn’t beat this.

  I never left Laney’s side, right up until her last breath. I was heating up some dinner for the both of us, and went to check on her. She was so frail in the hospital bed that now took up the center of her parent’s living room. I kissed her forehead and she opened her eyes, smiling. She never stopped smiling, even through all of the pain. She was the strongest women I have ever known. She patted the bed next to her and asked me to lay with her for awhile. I climbed in and held her, caressed her hair, kissed her and told her how much I loved her. When I woke up after dozing off, she was gone. Watching somebody you love suffer is far worse than suffering yourself.

  I lost a part of myself that day. A part I don’t think I will ever get back. Somehow, I managed to make it through my last semester of college, and decided I just couldn’t stay in Colorado Springs. I was able to secure a job as an Editor with a small publishing firm in Durango that would allow me to work from home, and decided to find a place where I could deal with my suffocating grief, alone.

  Chapter 3

  ~Ally

  It was close to 3:00 p.m., I was expecting Ronnie with my groceries soon. Ronnie was a seventeen year old boy who worked at the local grocery store. When I moved here two years ago, I had worked out a delivery service with the grocery store, and Ronnie had been delivering my groceries ever since. It worked out well. I would email my list to Bob, the owner, and the groceries were brought the next day. Nobody ever asked why. Sometimes I wish they would. Somehow I felt that if I could say it out loud that it would help me realize that it was an issue. I lived in a world where I had set rules for myself, and those rules could not be broken. It was self-preservation, healthy or not, it is what kept me going. People had long since stopped trying to change me, help me “deal” with reality. In fact, I can’t remember when th
e last time I had a phone call was.

  The doorbell rang and I opened it to let Ronnie, the delivery boy, in. “Hi Ally,” Ronnie said as he went through our normal routine of setting things out on the counter. He handed me the receipt and I wrote a check. “Ally, Mr. Roberts asked me to give you this,” He handed me an envelope. “He wants to know if you will have any other pieces soon.” I had been selling my mosaic designs at a local art boutique in town. It brought in a few extra dollars, but mostly I just put it back into my next design. “Please let him know I will have several finished next week.” I said as I walked Ronnie to the door. “See you next week Ally.” He said, as he walked back to his car.

  The one thing I liked about Ronnie, is that he didn’t linger. He also didn’t know enough about me to pity me. He was the only other person who had been in my house besides myself, and Ronnie never went passed the kitchen. It had taken quite a long time before I let him passed the front door. The anxiety of it almost overwhelmed me for a time, but eventually I realized that Ronnie didn’t look at me like everyone else. He was very much in his own teenage world with the typical teenage issues. I’m sure he only saw me as a very private and eccentric artist, not a shell of a broken human being. He didn’t have time to over-analyze me and therefore I didn’t have to hide.

  ***

  I put away the groceries and made myself a sandwich for dinner. I carried the plate to my back room that was used as my studio to work on my projects. I was working on a mosaic table from colored glass. I had mapped it out several times, but still wasn’t completely happy with the way it looked. I figured I would fiddle with it until it was time for me to go for a run.

  It was mid October, and the leaves had already begun changing. Fall and winter came earlier here in the mountains, and I loved it. I always found summer suffocating, like I couldn’t breathe, and that was something I didn’t handle well. Winter gave me comfort. Being able to feel the bitter cold makes things feel real for me. When you’re as messed up as I am, knowing the difference between what is real and what is not is essential.

  I finished the most recent layout of the table somewhere around 10:30 p.m. I still wasn’t happy with it, but I knew it was time to step away and come back later. If I continued to work over it I would become obsessed. I needed to clear my head. Time for my run.

  Chapter 4

  ~Ian

  I had been in my new home for over two weeks and had not seen any movement from the neighbor’s house, other than a young man delivering groceries. I was extremely relieved. I didn’t wasn’t to know my neighbor, I didn’t want to have to make small talk with someone, answering questions like “What brings you to this area?” I had skirted around this question while shopping in town. Somehow I didn’t think the young women batting their eyelashes at me would appreciate the truth, “Well, I just watched my one and only true love suffer and die, so I thought I needed a break.”

  I had been able to keep myself fairly occupied with work during the day. Evenings were the hardest for me. The time span between finishing up with work and going to bed seemed to drag on forever. This was the time that hurt the most. I never stopped thinking about Laney, and it scared me that I had trouble remembering her as the vibrant, healthy young woman that she once was, and could only seem to picture her at the end—frail, sunken cheeks, sparse hair and in pain. It was like a nightmare that I lived over and over each day. One that I was sure I could never wake up from.

  ***

  I pulled away from everyone and everything I had known, including both my family and Laney’s family. It was too painful to see them, and the pity they had in their expressions. My parents had been almost smothering for a time, but since I had moved, they have settled for a brief email exchange each week. It was all I had to give, and I think they finally understood that. I know it was hard on my mom. She wanted to fix things, and it drove her crazy that she couldn’t fix this, fix me. I was broken beyond repair.

  I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes it was dark. I hadn’t turned on any lights before, and the only light I could see now was from my own front porch light and across the shared gravel drive shining off of my neighbor’s house. I stood up and grabbed my watch that I had set on the end table. I rubbed my eyes and realized it was almost 1:00 a.m.

  Walking across the room, I decided to step out and clear my head with some fresh air. The air was crisp and felt great. I closed my eyes, allowing the breeze to wash over me, bathing me in cool mountain air. After several minutes I opened my eyes, feeling better and ready to head back inside. Without warning, something jumped out from the trees right in front of my porch. I stumbled back and almost completely fell before righting myself and grabbing the rail. It took me a moment to realize it was a small woman. She stopped and looked at me, frozen with a look of such fear on her face, that I almost felt guilty for being there. Without a word or another glance, she ran to her porch and disappeared inside the house next door. Welcome to the neighborhood, I thought as I walked inside, what kind of woman goes running at midnight through the woods?

  Chapter 5

  ~Ally

  I had created a trail where one had never been. My runs had become the closest thing to therapy that I could tolerate. It didn’t make sense, but even the darkest of nights didn’t scare me, not while I was running. I could stare at the darkness, feel the darkness and I could run this path almost completely out of habit at this point. The only time the darkness was dangerous, was when I closed my eyes. I haven’t had a nightmare in a couple of weeks. I have managed to get just enough rest during the day that I have been able to make it through the night without falling asleep. This was essential.

  Tonight the air felt amazing! I felt free, running with the wind, melding myself into one with it. I could hear the nocturnal animals that I had become so accustomed to. There had been times when I ran close to sunrise where my path had crossed that of a deer or two. One time I stood just feet from one, staring for minutes without either of us looking or moving away. It seemed like we were looking in a mirror. Two scared beings, not willing to turn our back on each other. Knowing that turning your back on something or someone often leaves you more vulnerable. I prefer to know what is coming at me. If I am in danger, I want it to hit me straight on, not in the back of my head, on my knees where I couldn’t to a damn thing.

  I continued to run, picturing patterns and designs in my head. I had gotten some of the clearest design ideas on my runs, and I was hoping to get just enough vision to complete this table that had been a source of frustration for me the last week. Mr. Roberts had expressed a personal interest in the table I was working on, sight unseen of course, but he valued my work and was ready to buy it for his personal sunroom when I was done. I was beginning to wonder if that was ever going to happen.

  I had circled around, heading back. I passed by the large stump that had become a landmark to me, reminding me that just around the bend I would need to turn to the right and break out of the trees to make it back to my house. Pat-pat-pat-pat….The sound of my feet hitting the ground had me almost mesmerized, like the sound of a metronome as I broke through the trees.

  ***

  It took me only moments to realize I wasn’t alone. My heart literally felt like it stopped as I watched the tall blonde man stumble backwards on the porch of the neighboring house down the drive from mine. Again with the deer analogy, that is all I could compare myself to, a deer in the headlights. He grabbed onto the rail and steadied himself, looking at me with a look of shock, like he hadn’t ever seen another person before. I stood un-moving, frozen for moments. Fear so intense, had taken over me as I stared at the stranger who obviously belonged where he was when I so obviously did not. The nausea and light-headedness began to creep in. I could hear my own blood pumping in my ears. Gathering all my strength, I ran. Running up my porch and into my house, I collapsed against my door, shaking so profusely that I wasn’t sure it would ever stop.

  I sat there trembling, slowly rocking myse
lf hearing the song my mom sang that night, the night she died.

  Goodnight, my angel

  Now it's time to dream

  And dream how wonderful your life will be

  Someday your child may cry

  And if you sing this lullabye

  Then in your heart

  There will always be a part of me

  Someday we'll all be gone

  But lullabyes go on and on...

  They never die

  That's how you

  And I

  Will be

  I never hear these lyrics until I’m so far gone that I can’t cope. One of my therapists told me to try to think of something else when these lyrics pop into my head, that they are a trigger. She was a moron, and I told her that. That was the end of that one.

  Now I rock, my eyes are closed so tight that sometimes my eyelids inadvertently flip inside out and I have to run my fingers over them to right them, to keep them from drying out, because I don’t cry. I haven’t cried since that night, when the pleading and tears fell on deaf ears. The night my mom and dad died….The night I was supposed to die too. The lyrics play over and over in my mind, bringing me down, slowly back to the moment. The moment that I will realize once again just how screwed up I really am.

  Chapter 6

  ~Ian

  When I moved into this house I asked the realtor about my neighbor, she assured me she wouldn’t be an issue, and she wasn’t, in fact, I had basically forgotten there was even a neighbor. Up until this night I had never even seen her. I had come and gone freely over the past two weeks. Other than the young man with the groceries, no one came or left that house. Normally I wouldn’t be giving this a second thought, except the look of fear I had seen in her eyes had startled me, who the hell am I kidding, it had rocked me to the core. I watched as she ran, tripping up her porch stairs and almost falling through her door. Who runs at night? I thought again. I tried to shake off the unorthodox behavior of my petite neighbor. I needed to get some rest.