Chapter 5 Lo
Lo
Ibypass Main completely.
No festival chaos today, thanks. No bunting, no overpriced eggnog, no forced smiles.
My skull’s still throbbing from yesterday’s crash, my grand entrance back into Honeysuckle Grove in a tragic, dramatic show. And my ribs still ache where the seatbelt tried to cut me in half.
Beck got my car towed by Rafe Cadler this morning. Honestly, much as it’s been kind of a nightmare to see him, I don’t know what I would have done without Beck in this mess.
But first… this.
The townhouse stands tall, looking exactly like it always did. As if nothing happened. It might as well have been holding its breath for the past seven years, just waiting for me to come back and ruin everything again.
I stand on the porch for a minute, keys clutched so hard the metal bites into my palm. My stomach’s churning as if I drank bleach for breakfast.
Then I unlock the door.
The smell hits instantly.
Dust. Lemon polish. Old wood. The ghost of dinner rolls and cinnamon sugar toast and my mother’s vanilla bean lotion. Underneath it all, that faint sour note of rotting wood from the upstairs bathroom leak nobody ever bothered to fix.
I’m stepping straight into a memory. One I don’t want.
I walk inside. Slow. Careful. My boots creak against the floorboards. Every step feels like it echoes off the walls, as if the house is announcing, “She’s back! Look who crawled home! A failure.”
The living room is dim, curtains drawn tight against the sun. There’s still a half-burned candle on the mantle, wax dusted with lint. The couch cushions are slumped, and the mail basket is overflowing with unopened envelopes.
Probably final notices and tax threats. Nothing new there.
I keep moving.
Past the dining room table where we had dinner every Sunday like clockwork. Roast chicken, burnt dinner rolls, green beans with too much garlic, my dad reading case notes between bites.
Mom was never good at anything other than spending money.
Past the built-in bookshelf lined with thick law journals and glossy business magazines featuring my father’s smug face on the cover. A smile that held more sour than sweet.
My throat burns. I swallow it down.
The kitchen’s the worst.
I stand there for a second, just staring. The cracked tile. The empty fruit bowl on the counter. The faint scent of lemon cleaner clinging to the cabinets.
I used to sit in the kitchen nook after school, scribbling homework answers while my mom lectured me about posture and my dad argued with creditors on the phone about living paycheck to paycheck… until he took matters into his own hands.
God. I hate this place.
I yank open the pantry out of reflex. Empty shelves. Mothballs. My stomach growls, but the nausea curls up tight around it, choking it out. I shut the door and lean my forehead against it for a second, breathing through the wave of guilt and fury and grief.
They ruined everything.
My parents. Their little “investment genius” scam. Selling people dreams of lakeside retirement houses and private pensions and then laundering it all through shell companies and loopholes until the economy tanked and everything fell apart.
People lost everything. Houses. Savings. Futures.
And me?
I lost the last scraps of my dignity when I tried to tell the truth, and nobody listened. When I walked into that town council meeting with trembling hands and stolen paperwork, thinking they’ll believe me. Thinking they’ll help me stop them.
But they didn’t.
They turned on me like a feral pack of ghouls because nobody wants to believe the Omega princess is the snake in the grass. Easier to pretend I was just ungrateful. Attention seeking. Crazy.
My chest feels too tight. My eyes sting. I press my palms hard to my eyelids until I see little sparks of light dance behind them.
I hate that my family still has this hold over me.
Get it together, Lo.
I push away from the pantry and head upstairs. The railing wobbles under my hand. The carpet smells of stale air and mildew. At the top of the stairs, my bedroom door is half open.
I nudge it wider with my toe.
Peach-colored walls. Bare mattress. Curtains drawn shut, but a sliver of light cuts across the floor, illuminating old candle jars lined up on the window ledge. My old perfume bottles. A dusty jewelry box with a cracked clasp.
It’s as if she’s still here. That girl with chipped black nail polish and punk band posters, who used to believe she’d burn the world down just to prove she could.
I sit on the edge of the mattress. Springs squeal under my weight.
My reflection stares back at me from the cracked vanity mirror—hair tangled, face pale, dark circles under my eyes deep enough to bury secrets in.
I don’t look like her anymore.
And maybe that’s a good thing.
Because that girl was naive enough to think truth was enough. That girl thought coming home would feel safe again.
Idiot. Nothing will feel safe again.
I don’t let myself stay too long. The house might swallow me whole if I sit still.
If I breathe too deeply, I’ll dissolve into the wallpaper and become just another haunting no one wants to talk about. I’ll sink into the past I’ve done nothing but run from.
So I leave.
I’ll do what I have to before I fall apart again, and then I’ll leave.
I’m good at leaving.
Rafe Cadler’s shop sits exactly where I remember it when it was owned by his grandfather: brooding behind the old water tower.
It’s a metal box of a building, all rust and shadows and barely any signage. If you didn’t know what it was, you’d walk right by.
I shove my hands in my jacket pockets and cross the lot, boots crunching over gravel. My head’s still pounding, and my ribs feel like someone played kickball with them.
But sure. Let’s go retrieve my car corpse from another part of the town I wish I could avoid like the plague.
The garage door’s half open. Music’s playing, something twangy with no lyrics, just angry guitar and repressed emotions.
“Hello?” I call into the dim. “I’m here for the world’s saddest Honda Civic?”
Silence.
Then a low voice, flat as week-old soda:
“You’re early.”
And there he is.
Rafe Cadler.
Same as I remember him, except maybe broader, grimmer, somehow even more allergic to small talk than he was in high school. He steps out from behind my poor crumpled Civic as if he’s the final boss in a game called Emotionally Unavailable Mechanics of the Midwest.
I’m surprised finding his pack in Clay and Theo hasn’t chilled him out at all. Maybe the day they find their Omega, everything will change for him.
He’s in coveralls, tied at the waist, tank top stained with grease, baseball cap pulled low. No pack marks. No expression whatsoever.
“You bent the axle,” he says, deadpan. “Blew a tire. Cracked the oil pan. Congratulations.”
I blink. “What can I say? I’m gifted.”
No smile, just a nod. He might as well be logging that information for future insurance purposes.
“You shouldn’t have been driving it,” he adds, like this is a courtroom and I’m the idiot on trial for vehicular hubris. “That car’s frame was already compromised.”
“Well, it was either drive it or sleep in it,” I say, too tired to sugarcoat. “And I was really hoping not to die in a Walmart parking lot outside Fayetteville.”
That earns me a look. Not pity, he wouldn’t waste the energy, but acknowledgment. He’s seen that kind of desperation before and filed it neatly into a mental cabinet labeled Shit Happens.
He turns toward the little office and gestures. “Keys are inside. You’ll need a loaner.”
“Oh, I don’t…” I start to protest, but he cuts me off with a single look. A whole thesis on don’t argue with me in one raised eyebrow.
“It’s not a favor,” he says, as if the very idea insults him. “You’ll pay for parts. Labor. If you scratch the loaner, I’ll add that too.”
“Great,” I say. “Love a transactional relationship. So clean. So emotionally sterile.”
Still no smile. The man is an impenetrable wall of diesel fumes and quiet judgment.
Inside the office, it’s all cracked linoleum and sticky notes and a coffee machine so old it could have survived several wars. He hands me a clipboard and a pen.
“You’re taking the blue truck,” he says. “Back lot. Ugly as sin, but it runs.”
I sign. He hands me the keys.
“I’ll text you when the Civic’s fixed,” he says, already turning back toward the bay.
“That’s… Thanks,” I say, and immediately hate myself for it.
He pauses. Doesn’t turn around.
“Don’t thank me, Marsh,” he says. “Just don’t crash the truck.”
Then he’s gone.
And I’m standing there holding keys to something I absolutely will crash if today continues at its current level of emotional sabotage.
The blue truck is, as promised, hideous. It’s boxy and loud and smells of pine air freshener and aftershave. There’s a bumper sticker that says NO PACK, NO PROBLEM in faded letters. I get in. The engine roars to life, surprised to still exist.
I guess that’s something, right?
The engine coughs, then settles into a rumble like it’s offended I even turned the key. Cautiously, I back out of the gravel lot, afraid the truck might collapse if I jostle its feelings too hard.
Once I’m a few blocks away, I finally exhale.
One errand down. Only a hundred emotionally charged disasters left to go.
I hit the first stoplight out by the old feed store, finger tapping the wheel. The sun’s glaring off the windshield, and the heater might be blowing cold air, but hey, at least I’m not on fire. So, you know. Progress.
My phone buzzes in the cupholder.
I grab it without thinking. One-handed, reckless. Add it to the list.
Sal: Hey, you left town, right? Because there’s been some drama at your apartment. A break-in or something. I heard from Bex.
Oh god.
Sal and Bex, my old neighbors and colleagues. They know better than anyone what I’m leaving behind.
I stare at the screen, pulse thudding in my ears. My stomach drops.
Lo: I’m gone. Was it… him?
Sal: Probably. I mean, who else…?
The light turns green. I don’t move.
At least no one knows about here, right? Not a single soul in my life outside of this town knows I’m from here. I was always vague. New York, sometimes Chicago.
I’ll be safe here, at least for a while. Which is something I never thought I’d say about Honeysuckle Grove.