The Market

Max was the first to wake up Saturday morning. All three of them had fallen asleep after hours of researching Siobhan Wild. Chris and Anna had passed out on the couch, seemingly satisfied with the questions and facts laid out on her laptop, but Max knew better. She knew Anna, the hard-working perfectionist, was not yet convinced.

She jumped at the creak of Chris's door, realizing Anna wasn't on the couch with him.

Anna looked at the clock on the kitchen table through squinted eyes, undoubtedly wondering why Max, who loudly expressed her hatred for mornings, was up at 7 a.m.

"Hey!" Anna whispered quietly as she stumbled while slowly tiptoeing toward Max. "What are you doing up so early?"

Anna was smiling as always, but Max was a bit agitated that Anna had woken up before she could sneak out.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry for waking you."

Anna shook her head. "You didn't, my own never-ending thoughts did," she laughed softly.

Max tried to play it cool when she saw Anna eyeing her ripped black Chucks and her black cardigan with a curious face.

"Where are you going so early, girly?"

Max was about to take a breath and clumsily come up with a lie when Anna gave her a strange look. "Did you . . . brush your hair?"

Max looked down, annoyed that Anna noticed that she'd tried to look halfway decent.

"Cannot believe you've been letting me stay here and hiding a brush from me, where is it? I'm grossly in need."

Max let out her breath and reentered her room. She rummaged through her pile of clothes and grabbed the red brush Chris had let her borrow months ago.

"Don't tell Chris. He thinks I lost it."

She tried to put a smile on her face, but she knew she looked uncharacteristically jittery.

"Thank you, babe! So! Where are you off to?" Anna began brushing through her newly acquired hair knots and after a few long seconds, she raised her eyebrows waiting for an answer as Max stood silent.

"Max? Are you awake or is this a dream? A beautiful dream where we have hair brushes . . ."

"No, no," Max interrupted. "I just have a few errands to run. I'll be back in a few hours."

Anna squinted her eyes and hesitantly replied, "Okay . . . make it quick, lady, we have an interview to nail."

Max smiled and let out a nervous sigh as she headed toward the door. "You got it."

Max left their happy home and minutes later walked onto a train that led to another, and another, until she found herself on a dirty, uncomfortable bus headed toward a place she had no desire to visit. But here she was, bored on a bus, full of fear and anxiety, waiting for those doors to open to the place where her childhood had turned into a seven-year nightmare. She sat staring out the window, wanting so badly to curl up and cry, maybe even jump out and run at full speed back to her comfortable ignorance, but instead she focused on breathing slowly and keeping her mind empty. She was traveling for one reason, and one reason only. No one had to know, and she reminded herself that no one could possibly recognize her. The bus came to a halt and its old, creaky doors screeched open.

"First stop!" The driver shouted, clearly unenthused and in a hurry.

Max took a huge gulp and stood up slowly, digging her nails into her palms. Her mind was racing as she made her way to the front of the aisle.

"Sweetie, get on or off," the driver said sternly.

Max was startled by the words and shook her head a few times.

"Oh, yeah . . . sorry." She stepped slowly down the three steps, her legs feeling so weak, leading to the ground she knew so well. The very same part of earth where she'd lost her happiness and her chance at a real life. As she finally made her way off of the bus, the doors snapped shut and it was gone in seconds.

Max looked around, remembering so well the bus station that she'd frequented with her mother and father to go on trips. They'd always said they wanted to show her the world. She saw the world and honestly she thought it sucked, but the memories were still nice. The dreams she had were nice, the love she had, the freedom.

A car horn blared and she jolted back into her sad reality, knowing that those days had been over for quite some time.

Max walked down the street for what seemed like days, looking around at this place that hadn't changed at all. Everything was exactly the same and it felt like a knife to her heart. Her home had stayed the way she loved it, but this time she didn't love herself. This time she was jaded, scarred, hurt — and she was completely different. The trees were blowing in the wind, green and full of life, while she walked, pale and full of anger. The beauty was a sad reminder of how depressing her life had become.

Max found herself standing rigidly near the parking lot of a giant building with a large sign that said, "Weekend Flea Market!"

She knew he was in there and all she had to do was continue walking forward and the worst would be over. Getting her body, overcome with fear, through those doors would give her some relief. But she was frozen, staring at the front of the building, her mind leaping back and forth as she told herself to move, but she couldn't. Her eyes shut painfully tight and her palms were bleeding once again.

Her debilitating nerves took her mind back to a hotel in Ohio. They had been driving for hours and hours, her tears hitting the car floor. She'd screamed, "Let me go! Please!" But she heard no response from the stranger driving casually down a long stretch of highway.

The man didn't even look at her until they arrived at a beaten down motel next to a filthy Waffle House.

He turned around after he parked the car and said calmly, "If you don't stop screaming we are going to turn right around and I am going to murder your entire family."

Her eyes widened as she hiccupped and stopped making noise, but her tears continued falling to the floor of the car.

"I'm going to untie you, Violet. I trust you and I'm going to need you to trust me."

The flashbacks were bombarding Max's mind, her concentration fading. She remembered a girl and her mother, blonde and smiling, walking down the street, obviously heading toward their room at the motel. He stopped to look up at them and followed their every movement until they unlocked their door, room 101. She could still see his face, ravenous and wild. Max's next memory was a body in a bed and a body in the bathroom. She was frozen, her eyes felt like black holes, staring at the blood covering nearly every inch of the room. The woman's throat was slit so badly her head looked like it was hardly attached, blood still pouring onto the green and yellow carpet. The little girl was in the bathroom, lifeless, surrounded by a pool of blood. One thing was consistent in every single one of Max's memories: she was frozen, wanting so badly to move. She always seemed to find herself frozen and trying to move, even now so many years after the horrific events took place.

A car sped by, honking, causing Max to jump, realizing she had nearly backed into the busy street. She fell forward as her knees buckled and her hands broke the fall. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't let herself. The last seven years had brought her to this moment that she dreamt of every day. Her father was inside that building and for some reason, she wasn't happy. She wasn't happy at all, strangely; she only felt petrified. None of this mattered. She reminded herself over and over that all she was here to do was see for herself that Anna was exaggerating and her father really was fine. After all of these years, he must've gained some sense of closure?

Max slowly looked up, her body shaking, and thought to herself, Enough.

She stood up straight and marched toward the doors. Her hand was suddenly on the door handle and she opened it with determination. She stepped confidently into the building and just as quickly terror washed over her.

Her eyes darted around, wondering if she'd made too much of a scene. Was he there in the front? How in the hell was she going to find him if he wasn't?

Max assessed the room and took a breath before starting to walk. She was certain no one had noticed her jolt of confidence making her blast through the front doors.

She passed every stand imaginable: jewelry, clothes, artwork, tools, none of which she was looking for obviously, which only gave her extra amounts of anxiety from her growing impatience.

Max briefly considered asking someone, but didn't know how to even start. "Hey! Is there a man selling useless crap from his house around here?"

She quickly canned that idea, and turned the next corner.

Max stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes glued forward as everyone and everything around her disappeared into smoke.

There he was. After seven years of agony — countless nights, countless days — she had come almost face-to-face with the person she missed most in the world, the person she needed every single minute she was gone. Her father, Jeremy Redding.

A large lady bumped into her. "Oh my dear! I'm so sorry!" she said, laughing as she walked away.

Max fell off her balance momentarily before she looked back up quickly.

He looked the same, but so tired.

His face was still kind, but empty.

A once clean-shaven man, his face was now covered by an unkempt beard.

He looked thin and weak, so much so that she hardly recognized him.

She couldn't see his eyes because his head hung low, but she could imagine they didn't have the same light as they once had so many years ago.

Much like Max's, she was certain that his shine had disappeared.

She felt slightly less hesitant knowing no one had noticed her so far even though she'd tiptoed past a few familiar faces, so she moved toward his booth. As she slowly got closer she began seeing knick-knacks, handmade bracelets: things she remembered from her past, all of which made her stomach feel sick.

He didn't look up as she arrived at his booth, and she was grateful that he didn't, unsure whether or not she could handle his broken gaze. She scanned what she could see of him, feeling nothing but butterflies bouncing inside her like knives. A necklace caught her eye and she let out a breath she had been holding in since she'd approached her father. She smiled as she reached out to scoot it closer to her. Max picked it up, holding the pendant in the palm of her hand, right next to her lightly bleeding cuts. The necklace had belonged to her. The pendant was a small sparkling bumble bee on a tiny silver chain.

She almost teared up when a soft, familiar voice gave out a weak laugh. "I was hoping no one would want to buy that one."

She looked up and he didn't. His voice was the same — it gave her a warm feeling she hadn't felt in a very long time, it made her feel something she hadn't felt in seven years. Calm.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she squeaked out. "It's very pretty."

His head was still hanging, but she could tell he was smiling.

"It belonged to my daughter," he laughed quietly. "She loved it so much."

Jeremy's barely visible smile faded at the mention of his daughter that was standing right in front of him.

Max looked at the top of his head; it was about all she could see. "What happened to her?"

He stopped moving and shook his head, still staring down at his booth. "They say she's gone."

He sniffled, but Max wasn't sure whether or not he was crying. She continued to question her father. "What do you say?"

He hesitantly answered, "I'm honestly not sure anymore."

The conversation seemed to end when he said in a stone cold voice, "Three dollars."

Max's face softened as she pushed the necklace toward him. "You give it back to her yourself."

With her hand still on the pendant he raised his head and their eyes met. She was expecting a kind, "Thank you," but he reacted much differently.

His green eyes connected with her green eyes and he didn't look away. Jeremy furrowed his eyebrows as his eyes widened. She had never been stared at so hard in her life.

There is no way, she thought to herself. Her face fell as her eyes got bigger and bigger. She jumped back away from the booth and stuttered, "I have to go—"

"You . . ."

"Have a good day."

He stepped out of his booth as Max walked away quickly. "Violet?" He said under his breath. "Violet?!" He shouted at her.

She broke into a run with tears streaming down her face. She kept going until she was within an acceptable distance from the market and fell to her knees.

The sobbing exploded out of her with so many thoughts racing. How did he recognize me? Why did I come here? What purpose did it serve?

She couldn't stop crying. It had been seven years — everything about her was different. He hadn't even looked at her, just her eyes, it was just her eyes. She shouldn't have come. Now her father would come looking for her and it felt like she just reset the useless battle of finding 'Violet.'

She reached the bus station, barely able to breathe as she waited for another undoubtedly rude bus driver to open the doors. Her leg was shaking, her hands bleeding, and she was trying to hold tears back as the bus rounded the corner.

She jolted up and as soon as the doors opened she swiftly walked up the stairs and sat down in a seat as far back as she could find. She laid her pounding head against the window and tried to force herself to breathe slowly. She shut her damp eyes and did her best to drift off. She knew her dreams wouldn't be any better than what just happened, but at least they weren't real anymore.

It took her a bit less than five hours to arrive at the dirty wasteland she lived in, and she sprinted toward her home desperately. All she wanted was to lie down and go to sleep.

Doug watched her jet past him as he was drooling, a needle stuck in his arm. He coughed as he managed to mumble, "What are you running from, sweetie?"

His eyes rolled back as he fell into a drug-induced sleep.

Everything, she thought to herself, running from everything.

Max finally made it to her home and she flung the door open. Without acknowledging her roommates, she bolted to her room and locked her door shut.

"Max?" Anna asked, "Max, what's wrong?"