#if I don’t respond in 24hrs I fear bay has tracked me down to make me pay for this

[phoebeyates-archive]

location: providence peak + boulder, colorado

date: 25th august - 11th september 2023

(tw: mentions of anxiety, depression, panic attacks, violence/temper, destruction of property, toxic family dynamics)

It started with a cryptic text.

Call you Friday, coming from the woman who had been evading her daughter’s attempts at communication from the last few months. Phoebe didn’t think to believe it, though it made her head hurt slightly. But she kept her head down, focused on work, seeing her friends, ignoring the unhealthy amount of Nerds Rope wrappers in the trash. Stress eating was normal, she wasn’t going to feel guilty for that.

Then Friday came. And the phone rang. And her mom was on the other side, sounding rested and healthy and, to the ire of Phoebe who had spent a good chunk of her summer worrying, happy.

“Where have you been?!” Phoebe had demanded over her mother’s laissez faire “Guess where I am?!”

“Boulder!” She cheered, as the irritated brunette snapped “where?”, her heart immediately plummetting at the reveal.

“Oh,” All the bite in her voice suddenly ceded, and she sounded all but 12 again. “When did you, uh, get back?”

“About a week, hon,” Lisa said, either uncaring or unaware of her daughter’s deflation in mood. “I was going to get in touch sooner but we had details to sort.” It always irked Phoebe how her mom used faux-European pronunciation on words that didn’t need it.

“We? Details?” She asked, ignoring the tears in her eyes at the knowledge that her mom had been in fucking Colorado for over a week and only now got in touch.

“Oh, sweetie, it feels so wrong giving you this news on the phone but, Ian and I are getting married next Saturday. You’ll come right?”

“Ian? Who’s…in Boulder?” Phoebe was glad she had been lounging on her bed when the phone call came. If she had been stood, she probably would have collapsed by now. The room was already feeling a lot warmer, her chest beginning to heave as it seemingly struggled for air.

“Yes.” Lisa dragged the word out, breaking it into two syllables, and Phoebe could picture her there laid out on a sun lounger somewhere, clinging onto the sorority girl cheerleader persona ruined by her accidental not-quite teen pregnancy. “Phoebe, it’d mean so much if you come. You don’t even need to get a flight, it’s just Boulder.”

Phoebe felt like reminding her mom she had never left the city limits of Providence Peak but thought better of it, out of fear she’d be accused of being difficult. So instead she asked all the right questions; the address, how long she had to be there. Wedding theme. What Ian was like.

It would be cancelled anyway.

Except it wasn’t, and after getting time off approved by Asli, Phoebe packed a suitcase and prayed to a God she didn’t fully believe in that Earl would make it to Boulder without incident, wishing she checked the brake pads beforehand. The drive to Boulder was daunting, and she wished she told someone where she was going, what she was doing. How this town had been the furthest she had ever been from home.

It escalated with a sledgehammer to the wall.

Boulder had been a nice place, many similarities to Providence Peak whilst also having its unique identity. Ian seemed nice enough, but all of her mother’s boyfriends did at the beginning. But it was alarming to her how this man; pushing 60, widowed, no kids, was trying to speed up the process of the nuptials.

They had met in Germany, after Lisa ended things with her last boyfriend, Carl. He had been at the airport bar the day she was supposed to board the plane. He was the reason Phoebe looked foolish at 4am in the airport arrivals, with no one to collect. They had bonded over being Colorado natives unlucky in love, though Phoebe bit her tongue knowing full well Lisa had moved to Colorado for college, originally hailing from Utah.

What Phoebe didn’t bite her tongue about was her mother’s indifference to the hell Phoebe had been put through when it came to the house. How taking out a bigger mortgage to fund her lifestyle had Phoebe struggling to pay the bills, on top of trying to control the heaps of debt the house was in. How the bank has given her a grace period to come up with the money or sell it herself, but she didn’t have the former, or the time or money for the latter.

The argument escalated, and Phoebe may have called Lisa a bad mother. And Lisa may have called Phoebe a deranged selfish brat who constantly made everything negative and ruined her life. And then Phoebe drove back to Providence Peak, sardonically wishing Ian the best and definitely telling her mother to royally fuck herself.

She couldn’t remember getting back to the house, she couldn’t remember drinking a full bottle of wine, and several shots of Scotch from a bottle tucked into the back corner of the otherwise empty pantry. She couldn’t remember grabbing the sledgehammer from the toolbox and swinging it wildly, screaming until her lungs gave out and she collapsed in a pile, sobbing uncontrollably, voice hoarse and throat raw.

When she came to, when she saw the damage that had been done, she felt the guilt and shame wash over her for what felt like a full day. She knew she couldn’t stay here, for a myriad of reasons. And she debated calling someone. Aslihan, Sage, Nadia. But she didn’t want them to see this, to show them the real her: violent, out of control. Deranged. Pathetic.

So instead, she stepped through the mess in a haze, grabbing the unpacked suitcase that stood abandoned by the door. And left it behind.

Phoebe debated getting a hotel in town, changing her mind on the off chance she’d bump into someone she’d know. Opting for a motel just outside city limits, she decided to camp out there for the remainder of her paid vacation, to just think of what to do with the mess she had made.

Her fingers were all cut and bruised. Even her face managed to get caught from the debris falling around her as she swung at the walls and the tacky furniture that sat in her living room for over 20 years. It wasn’t anything major, superficial damage at best. A scratch on her cheek that was no bigger than a dime once she scrubbed the dried blood from her face. It’d be gone by next week.

She just wished she could say the same for the loneliness and anxiety that clung to her like a spider web as she laid in the uncomfortable motel bed that night.

It ended with a morning alarm clock.

Her first day back at work. Her first day back in civilization. Her first day back at the ruins of her childhood home.

And Phoebe Yates would do what Phoebe Yates did best.

Survive.