Unmaking Hunter Kennedy (34 page)

“Shit,” he muttered, as a wave of goose bumps covered his arms and moved down his spine. “Mom must have felt so alone. Terrified.”

Nan sighed. “She was left all alone with a little boy who thought she could handle things. After, she couldn’t bear to be parted from you. Another deciding factor in allowing your career. Your job kept the two of you together every minute.”

“But later on...she shouldn’t have left it up to me to make all the money. I totally felt that pressure as a kid—still feel it.”

“Maybe. But there was no way your mom could have predicted you would make the kind of money you made so easily by hamming it up in front of a camera. Not without putting you into full time school or getting you a nanny. None of us were prepared for your fame though—or what it has done to you.”

He kicked his feet into the carpet. “Fame hasn’t done anything to me. It’s been great. It’s all her. She won’t even let me apologize.”

“Again. She’s trying to protect you.” Nan shook her head. “It’s not my place to discuss any of this. Not without her here to defend herself. To explain the whole story.”

“But of course.” He snorted with disgust. “That woman is never here. Don’t you get the pattern? Never here to explain and never here for me, that’s for damn sure. You’re totally wrong about her.”

He got up and paced over to the desk to scoop up his glasses and retainer and pocketed them. A surge of anger, frustration, and unexplainable desolation shot through him. As soon as Vere showed, he was bolting. If she showed...

Please. Please. Please.

His lungs had grown tight from lack of air. He’d almost forgotten this feeling. He glanced again out the window. To his disappointment the white VW was nowhere in sight to rescue him.

He let his anger surface. “Mom uses the money from my career so she can live like the freaking,
checked-out-on-life
, ice queen. She makes friends, lets them love her, and then dumps everyone she’s ever met.”

He turned away from the window and shot Nan a challenging look that dared her to disagree. “Now that I’ve grown to be quite the crazy nuisance, she’s dumped me, too.”

“She’s afraid you think that. I can only vow it’s not her intent.”

“Oh really, the woman has an
intent
. Regarding me? Let me guess. Ruin my life?
No?
Then she must intend to take away the only thing left that I love. My music. I’m so mad at her. How can she make me stay here, grounded in Colorado like this? It sucks. Don’t you get what it’s like for me? I don’t even know who in the hell I am anymore.”

Nan grimaced. “Is it so bad,
you
being Dustin?”

He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “No. Sadly, it’s awesome. Everyone treats ‘the new me’ like a person instead of some fragile, money-generating freak. Who wouldn’t like that? As for living here,” he paused and looked around the comfortable room and back at his gentle, loving aunt. “It’s nice, perfect, and so are you. Okay?”

She smiled. She continued in that soft,
full of love
voice she’d used every day with him. “It’s pretty obvious to me there’s a man caught up inside you and he’s struggling to breathe. Let me give you some advice. Grown-up men, they talk. Not as much as women, but they talk. Opens up the lungs.”

“Fine. Can I tell you what happened that night then?” He was afraid to meet her gaze. “What I did? All of it?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.

“It’s gruesome details. I can’t have you bawling on me.”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

**

He stood, pulled the chair over next to his aunt and sat on it backwards for support. He sucked in a painful breath. “When I wrecked the car into the front door,” he paused, “Mom was upstairs ignoring me as usual. After we fight she can hardly wait to take her next antidepressant. Did you know that she’s on those? Does that stuff come up when she calls you? Or do you just talk about the weather?”

“No. I knew about it. She gets really sad when you two fight. The antidepressants, as you know, are something your mom has needed to function ever since your father died.”

“Yeah. I know. We’ve talked about them. The medication really helps her. I’m glad she’s taking them. The alternative might be me, with zero parents, I think.”

“You could be right. Sadly, depression runs in our family.”

Dustin rested his chin on his arm and shot a surprised glance at his aunt. “I didn’t know that. On both sides?”

Nan nodded. “Your mom's sorry about shipping you off to Colorado, but that fact is the main reason she got so scared. She felt she had no other choice. Someday you’ll have to believe her.”

“Someday she’ll have to tell me that
exactly
, or I won’t be able to.” He met Aunt Nan’s calm, quiet gaze.

She nodded as though to agree. “Tell me what happened.”

He pulled in another breath. “I don’t know why I did what I did. To this day, I still don’t have an answer for why. All I know is I’d started feeling low. Really low. And I felt like I had no one to talk to about it. Hell, it’s not like I wanted to admit I was having a problem to anyone. I was embarrassed about it.”

“Many people are.”

“That’s how I came up with the brilliant plan to handle things myself. I snuck a few of mom’s antidepressants that week. Thinking they would help me feel better. Like Advil does when I have a headache. The bottle said one a day. So I took two.”

“Hunter. I’m not going to lecture you about taking other people’s medications. Obviously you know you were wrong to do that. And that it was dangerous.”

He shot his aunt a chagrined look. “Ya think! Sadly, that week, it made perfect sense to me. I felt so desperate. I’d taken two a day, for like six days straight. Instead of making me feel better, they’d made me feel like I was flat—as in cardboard flat—two dimensional, inside and out. I thought maybe I just needed more. To jump start it, or something. That night—when it all went down, I’d taken a whole bunch, and all at once. Again, my bad. But I’ve paid for it.”

He didn’t meet her gaze this time. “Shit. I’m still so ashamed...”

“Don’t be,” she said. “Go on if you can.”

“I can. It actually feels nice telling you all this.” He sighed. “So, I waited, like a whole hour for something to feel
different
inside me after I took the last pills. But when nothing happened, I decided to think of something else to pep me up. That’s where the Porsche came into play. Mom and I had just had a fight. Don’t even remember about what. She’d said I couldn’t leave the property. So I’d started driving the Porsche around and around the gated parking area—around that big fountain in our portico? Do you know it?”

“I’ve seen pictures. It’s lovely.”

“Was lovely.” He shook his head. “Huge. The upper part was actually some sort of fake poly-marble. Thank God, or it might have killed me when it fell through the roof of the car.”

He shot another embarrassed glance at his Aunt to see if she was judging him or scornful.

She wasn’t. Not at all. Only sad.

He went on, “The fountain was fun to corner. And that’s what I was doing. Cornering it, at like thirty-five, forty miles per hour. Tight, fast turns made my adrenaline pump. Around and around until I hit the stupid thing. I was so surprised when Mom didn’t come outside to see what the noise was, I snapped. That’s when I drove the whole damn Porsche up the steps and lodged it in the front door.”

“You were really depressed.”

“I think at that moment, I was angry. But yes, depressed too. I’d reached this state where nothing mattered any more. And nothing seemed shocking—like driving my car through the front door—that idea had seemed totally legit. Worse, nothing made me laugh anymore. Or cry. The closest thing I can describe to the feeling I had that night is that everything, and I mean everything, all of a sudden, seemed to bore the hell out of me.”

Dustin took in another deep breath and glanced again at Aunt Nan. She was just listening. Her face still held no judgment. She sat there, simply waiting for him to go on. And loving him, no matter what. He could tell that for sure.

He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll say it again. I was depressed. I wanted to stop feeling the ‘nothingness’ that I couldn’t shake.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I was so lost.”

She frowned. “Sounds like you were so alone.”

“Yeah. But stubborn, too. I should have tried to talk to my mom. Tell her how I was feeling. Admit I’d screwed up and taken a bunch of her medications. But instead, I drank all that wine. I just wanted to sleep. That’s how mom handles life when it freaks her out, so I thought I’d give it a shot. But of course I couldn’t sleep. And, somehow, I ended up cutting myself.”

Nan frowned. “I can’t believe you went so far. Your scars are so huge.”

He wiped at his eyes. “I know. But not deep. Scratches mostly." He gasped, and paused. "
Shit.
I was worried unloading all this would make me cry. I hate crying.” He sniffed back some tears.

Aunt Nan put her arm around him. “I was so happy when I found out the wounds you’d inflicted weren’t serious, that you had stopped.”

“
Yes
I stopped. Barry, all of you, see what I did as this suicide attempt. But I didn’t want to die. I only wanted my mom to hear me. To come find me. To see that I was sad. To help me, I guess. But I just didn’t have it in me to tell her what I needed. And fine, I get now that she couldn’t read my mind.” He wiped his eyes again. “But I didn’t get it then. I’m so mad at myself. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t just tell her? That I didn’t have the capacity to ask her for anything.”

“No one likes to ask for help. You aren’t alone in that.”

He shout her a grateful smile. “I’ve learned the hard way that it’s important,
hell
, even if you have to beg.”

She went on, “You need to forgive yourself. Admit the life you were living was not normal. You were so isolated. Sounds like you didn’t have any other friends to call. Or anyone around you that would take the time to notice how sad you were. I can only imagine the insensitive response your agent would have given if you’d told him.” She snorted, rolling her eyes.

Hunter blinked. “You know Martin?”

“Your mom tells me about him.” She looked away.

“Martin would have thought I was whining, you're right. But it’s hard not to blame myself. I know after living here, I was beyond lonely back at home. That’s for sure. I sat in that kitchen so long, all by myself. I just stared at my own blood all drunk and stupid knowing the whole time I’d made yet another epic mistake. But I’d made so many. Instead of dealing with it like I should have, I wrapped up my arms in kitchen towels, and then I cried until the wine took over. I fell asleep there like that.” Dustin pulled in a shaky breath, his heart feeling heavy but lighter than it had in a long time.

“Oh.” Aunt Nan swallowed, smoothing the bed cover under her hands. “I think this is going to make
me
cry again right now.”

He moved out of his chair and sat next to her on the bed to give her a quick hug. “Don’t you dare. Please. I won’t be able to take you through the rest of this story. And I want to. I need to finish.”

She nodded and took in a deep breath, obviously trying to keep it together.

He kept his voice light, hoping she wouldn’t blow. He rushed to finish, wanting to make her understand he, things, were different now. “Do you get what I’m saying about all of it? I didn’t mean it. Dying is the last thing on my mind. But—I have to come to terms with the fact that for one night—I danced with the idea of killing myself. And way too closely.”

“Yes. You did.” She sniffed. “You scared us all so much.”

His heart twisted, and tears threatened to drown him in a waterfall.

“Aunt Nan, please believe me. I can tell you I will never go that route again. It scared the hell out of me too.”

She let out a deep breath that sounded relieved. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

“I’ve at least learned that I have the power to control my own energy. You know, turn it back around when it gets too dark?”

She nodded. “I don't understand.”

“Before, I didn’t know I could be this strong. I kept waiting for others to ‘make’ me happy. Waiting for things I bought to bring happiness. Although, I swear my Porsche did make me happy for awhile.” He shot Nan a sheepish grin. “Sort of...”

“So happy you decided to wreck it?”

“Hell yeah. Because on that day, I felt betrayed by my own car. Like...how
dare
that awesome vehicle not be ABLE to make me happy! At least, now I understand I was simply a victim of marketing. Only
I
can make myself happy.”

Aunt Nan grimaced. “I’m supposed to be extra-dancing-around right now, according to the fresh-smelling laundry soap I use. But so far, these feet haven’t even started tapping.”

He smiled, happy she seemed to get what he was saying. “I had no clue how much I was trying to pull my happiness off all the wrong sources. For me, when I’m sad it’s usually because I’m off focus. I’m letting others have my power. Now, I think about doing the best I can. Does this make any sense? I can’t control others, but I can control myself and what I produce--what I allow inside.”

He tapped his head. “When I go home, no one is going to boss me around anymore, either. Not unless I want to be bossed. I’m going to live life on my terms. Only do, wear, sing, and
be
what makes me proud. Only hang out with people who are there truly for me. I definitely wasn’t doing that. I was Mom and Martin’s puppet. I know that was part of why I got so sad. I’m done with saying ‘yes’ all the time.”

She nodded. “Well good.”

“Since I’ve been Dustin, I’ve learned if I want to stay up—
happy
—it's on me. It’s not always easy to do—especially when I'm stuck living life as a mega-dork. Falconer tried to teach me that, but living here has showed me it’s completely true. I feel bad about what I did, but despite the oceans of crap I still need to clean up and deal with, I’m happy with myself now. I'm ready to move on and make things right.”

She stood along with him and hugged him tight. “I'm glad you told me all this. I like knowing you're okay.”

He hugged her back and stepped away. “I am. Would you please tell my mom this information? I’m ready to get back to work. I’m lost here doing crazy things instead of doing what I love. Things that mean nothing! Things that are wasting my time!”

“Are you sure about that? You seem to be enjoying a lot here.”