2. Aurora
2
AURORA
WELCOME TO ROCK BOTTOM
T rees lined the road as I zipped around marshy wetlands. The change of scenery after twenty-nine hours of Midwestern highways was more than welcome. My car was running on air and prayers, and so was I . The coffee I had gotten during a gas station stop four hours ago had been reduced to droplets.
Frankly, I was surprised my clunker had survived the drive from Colorado Springs . But two days of driving, sleeping in a McDonald’s parking lot, and surviving on honey buns and beef jerky were preferable to another moment of being smothered.
There was rock bottom, and then there was moving back in with your mother at thirty-two.
I turned the hand crank and rolled down the window, letting the sea breeze wash the beef jerky smell out of my car. I quickly regretted it when it felt like I was drowning in North Carolina swamp soup. The air conditioning sputtered to keep up, straining under the humidity.
That was going to be a bitch to deal with all summer.
Shadows cloaked the road as I drove through another thicket of trees. The thought of driving to an island for the summer had been exciting until I realized it was all in the name and not in the land. A peninsula on the North Carolina coast wasn’t the tropical, palm tree-laden vision I had been holding on to.
It seemed like I had been driving along the coast for ages and had yet to see the beach. Just more stupid trees.
The GPS on my phone chirped, signaling that I needed to take a left. Before I could see what the street name was, the screen changed with an incoming call.
“Hi, Mom ," I said as I put it on speaker.
“Hey. I’m just checking in. Where are you at?”
“Um . . .” I took the left and looked around. “ I think I’m getting close to the house.”
“Oh good. I’ve been worried sick about you making that drive all by yourself. You know, I offered to buy you a plane ticket. I know that things are?—”
“I like driving,” I said, cutting her off. “ It helps me brainstorm.”
Unfortunately, I had been on a twenty-nine-hour brainstorm drive and had yet to come up with anything usable.
Just my freaking luck.
“I know, but that car isn’t the best. I’ve been sick to my stomach thinking about you breaking down in the middle of the road, somewhere in Kentucky , and getting kidnapped and sliced to pieces.”
“You’ve been watching too many Lifetime documentaries,” I said.
The GPS chirped again, taking me onto a narrow road. Crisp blue water sluiced along the horizon like a single stroke from a paintbrush. I sat higher in my seat to try to get a better peek, but the grassy dunes were too tall.
Mom’s sigh could have been heard all the way from Colorado —without the call being connected. “ I’m starting to think it’s a bad idea for you to be all the way out there by yourself. Cedar Island is kind of remote. Maybe you should just come back and we can figure something else out.”
I pulled into a barely marked, overgrown driveway and sat back in my seat as a wilting beach-front mansion loomed in front of me.
I had been here as a child, but I had little recollection of it. I certainly didn’t remember it being that teal or the shutters being that green.
Half of the siding was in the yard, being swallowed up by tall grass. The house sat high on stilts. I wasn’t entirely sure how to get up to the door since half of the stairs were missing. I had a key, but from the looks of things, I didn’t need it. The wind could open the doors and windows all on its own.
“Aurora?”
“Huh? I’m here.”
“You made it to the house?” she asked. “ How is it?”
I took another look. “ It’s ...something.”
“You can always turn around and come home. This whole thing... I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe you can find someone local to deal with the property and come back. I can send you money for a hotel, though I think you’d have to drive an hour or so to get to a room.”
My phone beeped, signaling an incoming call.
Saved by the bell.
“Hey, I gotta go. I’m getting another call.”
“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “ Be careful. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom ." I tapped the end call button and swiped to jump into Whitney and Willow’s group call.
“Thank God ! She’s alive!” Whitney shouted when my face filled the third box of the video call.
“Did you make it, or are you still on the road?” Willow asked.
I let out a deep sigh as I crawled out of the cramped interior and slammed the door. “ I just pulled in. You saved me from a call with my mom.”
“Your mom’s so sweet,” Willow said.
“It’s only been two days, and she’s already calling you?” Whitney wrinkled her brows. “ That’s weird.”
“Some people have a good relationship with their moms, Whit ,” Willow teased. “ I mean, not us. But some people.”
I snickered. “ She called to make sure I didn’t get diced up by a serial killer in Kentucky , and then freaked out about me coming out here to work on the house. After I did the whole drive.”
“So how’s the house?” Willow asked, propping up her hand on her chin as lavender hair spilled over her shoulders.
“And when can we come visit?” Whitney chimed in. “ Miles is out of town and I’m lonely.”
I looked up at the house.
When I had jumped at the chance to get out of Colorado and renovate my late great-aunt’s beach house all summer, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so...run down.
I imagined some paint touch-ups. Maybe a little landscaping, and some exterior work. But this was a nightmare.
I didn’t need a hammer; I needed a bulldozer.
The house looked like my boobs when I took my bra off for the day. It was still safe even though it was sagging, right? I didn’t exactly have any other options at the moment.
“It’s not company-ready yet,” I hedged.
“But soon,” Willow chimed in. “ Because I think we’re definitely overdue for a beachfront writers’ retreat. Picture it: the three of us with laptops and margaritas at the ready. Sun tanning and writing all day, and getting drunk off our asses and commiserating over deadlines at night.”
“I’m in,” Whitney said.
While Whitney and Willow ping-ponged back and forth about a hypothetical girls’ trip, I studied the house.
Once upon a time, it probably had charm and character. Flakes of paint in teal blue still clung to the siding for dear life. Scalloped trim hung off the deck like a broken arm. The weeds were nearly taller than I was.
The lime-green shutters were a choice.
The image of what had once been flashed through my mind like a premonition. The vision of brilliant summers full of salt-sprayed magic.
“Wander.”
I snapped out of the daze at the sound of Whitney’s voice and looked back at the screen.
“Huh?”
“I was asking if you got over your writer’s blo?—”
“Don’t say it!” I snapped. “ I don’t have it, but if you say it, I will.”
Whitney just rolled her eyes.
I might have been more than a little superstitious. And maybe Whitney wasn’t exactly wrong...
I had been b-l-o-c-k-e-d for eight months and twenty-nine days, but I wasn’t about to admit that to them.
Whitney West and Willow Winslet were two incredible authors and my best friends. They were out in the world, kicking ass and taking names.
And here I was. The broke, newly single romance author who couldn’t write another book.
Willow’s smile was kind, but completely unhelpful. “ Have you tried seeing a therapist? Maybe you’re not—you know—the ‘ B ’ word. Maybe it’s like stage fright, and you just need to figure out a way to get over it.”
Just get over it. I wish I had thought of that.
I bit back a snarky response because I knew they meant well. If I asked, the two of them would drop everything and fly across the country for me at a moment’s notice.
That was the thing that sucked about long-distance friendships. Southern California , Colorado , and Rhode Island weren’t exactly conducive to a “come over and hang out” friendship.
But they were my sisters in every way that mattered, even if we rarely got to see each other.
“Okay. I have to pee. Which means I have to figure out how to get inside and hope there isn't a snake in the toilet or something.”
Whitney squeaked and clapped a hand over her mouth. “ Oh my god. Is that a thing? Where exactly did you move to again? Because that sounds like hell.”
Honestly? It was starting to feel like it. Because Cedar Island wasn’t actually an island. And this magical beach house summer? It was starting to feel more like a curse.