Construction 101, Cassidy Shay [unputdownable books TXT] 📗

/> Ken can also be mean. Not in front of anyone else, of course. But as he and my mom get ready for bed, he tears into her like a wolf on a morning hunt. Never physically, of course. But the verbal abuse can sometimes hurt more. Verbal scars are invisible to the outside world, but they last for a small eternity.

Over the summer, I ruined things. Before, Ken and I got along great. We were pretty much best friends. But I was tired of the way he kept treating my mom. So I stopped talking to him. For a few weeks, I didn’t talk to him at all. Because of how close we’d become, I was surprised at how easy it was for me to shut everything off. I had expected it to be hard not to talk to him, that it would hurt. It didn’t. But after a while, he started to change. He didn’t hurt my mom like he had before. They still argued sometimes, but he wasn’t saying the hurtful things anymore.

But when I tried to go back to the way things were before, it was hard. It was weird. When you destroy something, you don’t ever get to rebuild it exactly the same. You can follow the exact same blueprints, use the same materials. But it will always be different. It can’t be the same.

Ken is a roller coaster. Up for a while, until he crashes to the ground, bringing the rest of us with him. Over the summer, and even this fall, my mom and Ken have been on and off. It’s made me weary, tired, hopeless. I won’t hope that they’ll last, because I’ll just be disappointed.

Ken moved so that he could be closer to Stephanie. We moved too, because we can’t afford the house without Ken’s help. We now live in a tiny apartment, where no one has enough space. He and my mom broke up a little over a month ago. A couple days ago, they got back together. Again. I pray that this will be the last time. The roller coaster gets old pretty fast.

But with Ken, I learned something about trust. And what I learned was that trusting people just gets you hurt.

Although Ken is the most recent man in our lives, there’s still another that I think about all the time, even though I haven’t seen him in over a year. Someone who has made the biggest impact on my life. Someone I love, who is my hero. Someone who taught me what could be the most valuable lesson out of all of them.

Bob was a retired Army Special Forces sergeant. He met my mom online a few months after she met James, and they became very good friends. He wasn’t really her boyfriend (they tried dating and decided that they were better as friends), but they became close. But when we moved to Arizona, we heard of him less and less. And then, one day, he came back into our lives. He came back to deliver the news to my mom.

While he was in the Army, several things happened to him. One is that while they were giving him his anthrax shots, they gave him too high of a dosage. He developed diabetes, and he began to rapidly lose weight, until he almost looked like a drug addict. The second thing that happened was that he was in an explosion, and shrapnel worked it’s way into his brain. Slowly, he was being killed. The doctor gave him six weeks to live.

We all spent the weekend together in Phoenix. We watched movies, went shopping, went swimming, and listened to his stories. We watched as he acted out how he would catch pigs in a greased pig contest, and how his pony would kick the pigs over the fence. We listened as he told us about the day he picked up a bee hive and put it over his brother’s head. We burst into laughter when he came to the pool in a bathing suit and combat boots. And we all tried to pretend that we didn’t know him when he spoke to the man in the elevator.

My mom’s toenail polish was chipped. She was wearing flip-flops, and she looked down at her feet and commented on how bad it looked. Her big toe only had half of the paint still on it. Bob looked down at her toe and said, “It’s a camel toe.” He started discussing it with my mom, who kept saying that no, it wasn’t a camel toe. When an old man got onto the elevator, they stopped. After a couple seconds, Bob looked at the man and said, “She has a camel toe.” As you can imagine, the rest of the ride was pretty awkward.

And then he disappeared again. He didn’t want us to be attached to him, because he didn’t want us to be heart broken when he died. What he didn’t realize was that by staying away, he was hurting us even more.

About a month later, he finally decided to see us again. He didn’t feel like he was going to die in the next two weeks. So he thought it was safe. We spent the weekend in Mesa (a stone’s throw from Apache Junction), and that weekend, we had fun. One of the nights, we went to Applebee’s for dinner. Sitting in the booth across the isle was a boy with long, dark hair, and a hat that looked a lot like Michael Jackson’s hat. Actually, he looked like a teenager version of the adult Michael Jackson (this boy was white). My mom looked at me and said, “Cassie, you should take a napkin and a pen over there and say, “Michael, Michael! I thought you were dead! Can I have your autograph?” I held my hand out, waiting for my mom to hand me her pen, trying to keep a straight face.

Bob, of course, had to ruin it. Only, he somehow made it better. “No, Sherry. Don’t let her do that. Her mom might get mad.” Our entire table burst out laughing. Because… well, it wasn’t a girl. A couple minutes after that, the other family left, so I didn’t have a chance to ask for his autograph.

After that, I saw him once more. He was flying into Phoenix, where my dad lives. Bob called my mom and had her meet him for the breakfast at the hotel where he was staying. She called my dad and told him to bring us to the hotel so that we could see him. We sat with him while he are for about ten minutes, and then drove him back to the airport. And that was it. That day, April 9, 2011, was the last time that I saw him.

I only met him a total of 6 or 7 times, but he’s the one who’s made the biggest impact. He made memories. When he found out that I collect hotel key cards, he saved them for me. He took Jake to Pima for a week, where they rode quads and shot guns all day. He used his K-bar to remove a splinter from Shelsey’s hand. He also had a Corvette. Maroon, and boy was that a nice car. When I was twelve, I got to drive it.

Now, when I’m at a hotel, I think of Bob. When I see a Corvette (no matter what color), I think of Bob. When I see Jake’s K-bar (that Bob gave him), I think of Bob. When I hear about greased-pig contests, I think of Bob. When I hear about or see bee hives, I think of Bob. When I think of the Army, I think of Bob. Pretty much everything reminds me, some way, of Bob. And it hurts.

Because Bob was in the Army for twenty years. In the Army, you’re trained not to show any weakness. And any connection to anyone is a weakness. And that’s why Bob can’t stick around, keep in contact. Because that’s a connection. It’s a weakness that can be used against him, and used against us.

And that’s what Bob has taught me. He’s taught me to fear memories, to break connections. Because memories and connections hurt. When you hurt, you become weak.

I can’t afford to be weak. Not anymore.
A Confession

I have a confession. It won't be in the form of a memoir. This chapter will be my confession, something that I've never admitted to anyone before. I can barely bring myself to admit it to myself. But... I usually work backwards with stuff like this. Instead of bringing it to my attention first, I bring it the attention of the people around me, and let them judge me on it.
And don't say you won't judge. Because that's a lie. Everyone, even (cough especially cough) the pastors and the people who are so (cough seemingly cough) devoted to church and religion and all that. Even your parents, who say they'll love you no matter what. Even your friends, who say that they love you for who you are.
But why, after all that, are we still afraid to really show who we truly are? Because, no matter how much someone tells you that they won't judge you, you know that they will. Maybe not on purpose, but there are some things that can't help but burrow inside people's minds, slowly forming a judgement, an opinion, that was the reason you kept your secrets.
I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way, who keeps secrets but claims to tell the truth. But... now, with this confession, I'll truly be an open book.

You might be wondering why I'm putting this here, where everyone can see. I don't really know. I guess I kind of think of this as my journal. My public journal, but journal none the less. You can skip this chapter if you want. It doesn't have anything to do with what I project to the people around me, so I guess you could say that it didn't have anything to do with who I am today. But at the same time, it has everything to do with who I am. But it's your choice.

So... are you ready? Here's my confession.
I really am a terrible person.

Not in my words, of course. In my words, I'm someone who doesn't always know what to say, but always tries anyway, someone who steals words that belong to others (movie quotes make up 25% of my daily speech), and someone who won't even say a real swear word.
Not in my actions, of course. In my actions, I'm a sweet little girl who takes care of her family and gets good grades and is sometimes loud and obnoxious, but never terrible.


No. I'm a