2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
An old truck awaited him the next day, parked off the side of the driveway. It could only have belonged to the stranger living on his dad’s property. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The polite thing to do would’ve been to walk over and introduce himself, to at least meet the guy who’d been looking after his dad for the last several years.
His nerves won out in the end.
Instead, Colt grabbed the empty boxes and trash bags from the back seat, well aware he’d need way more, and hauled them inside. He deposited them in a foot of empty space he’d cleared in the hall, dusted off his hands, and looked around. To his left, the living room, and the dining room and kitchen beyond. To his right, the den, laundry room, the detached garage.
Straight ahead, the stairs.
Colt stood at the bottom, peering up. The electricity in the house was off—probably smarter that way—so he was effectively looking into the void of the second floor.
You have to go up there eventually. It has to be done.
The bottom step creaked beneath his weight. Followed by the second, then the third.
It’s been years. Nothing about this place can hurt you anymore.
Halfway up.
You can take joy in tearing through all this mess, throwing it all out.
Three-fourths of the way.
He stopped.
From this spot, an open doorway spilled gloomy light into the hall. Even without looking directly at it, Colt could still see a sliver of the inside of his childhood bedroom, the bookshelves and boxes that had overtaken it while he’d still lived in it. How much worse had it gotten after he’d left?
Heart racing, he hurried back downstairs.
It needed to be done…but not today.
The onset of a panic attack swept over him as he moved into the living room and tried to relearn how to breath. Years of breathing exercises and mindfulness bullshit—he hoped it’d pay off now when he needed it most.
God, there wasn’t even enough room to pace back and forth more than two feet. Two feet was enough, though, to notice something on the floor he’d overlooked yesterday.
There were boxes—not his—stacked and sitting open, half-filled with stuff. The labels on the outside in black sharpie were neither his handwriting nor his dad’s. Kate hadn’t been here. So that left…
A cold sweat crept along the back of his neck. Did that guy have a key to get in?
No one is supposed to be in the house.
No one’s ever supposed to be in the house.
Sweeping back the panic-induced dizziness, he focused on an emotion that wouldn’t send him into hyperventilating. Anger .
Fuming, he stalked out front, crunching across the frost-coated yard with purpose, and pounded on the trailer door. No idea what he’d say, and dimly in the back of his head, he was damned well aware that getting pissed off was both ridiculous and unfair. Of course he’d been in the house if he’d been the one to find Glenn.
But after that? He’d been in there after that?
Colt didn’t know if he was going to be sick or cry or both.
No one’s allowed into the house.
It took a moment, but Colt heard shuffling, the old trailer creaking softly beneath the shifting weight. He dragged in a breath and squared his shoulders as the door opened. And…promptly exhaled it in a rush as the-man-that-must-be-Sera stood looming over him.
It was impossible for that—how tall he was—not to be the first thing Colt noticed. He cleared Colt’s five-foot-eight by a head and a half. Lean and angular, long dark hair halfway down his back. He didn’t look much older than Colt, either, though Colt thought he spied some gray.
And then he smiled, and Colt just wanted to punch him.
“Hey, you must be Colt. Come on in.”
Colt swallowed past a dry throat, caught off-guard by the offer. “What… No.”
“No, you’re not Colt…?”
“No, I don’t want to—” His mouth drew into a tight line. “You’ve been in the house.”
The man blinked slowly. “Y…es? Was that a question?”
“It was a statement,” Colt said tersely. “No one else needs to be in there. I’m taking care of Dad’s belongings. In fact, if you don’t mind, if you have a key, I’d like it back.”
The smile didn’t fade from Sera’s face, yet his expression darkened with a narrowing of his eyes. His head tipped, scrutinizing Colt as though trying to figure him out. After a stretch of uncomfortable silence, he descended the stairs, making Colt take a step back to get out of his way. Even still, there was barely half a foot between them. Sera loomed. Colt tipped his head back, jaw set, unwilling to budge further, but not able to make eye contact, either.
Then Sera reached into his pocket, retrieved something, and held it out. A house key, attached to a yellow plastic tab.
When Colt reached for it, Sera lifted it higher.
“To be clear, you’re here not to introduce yourself, not to talk about your dad or…even ask what happened?”
Colt tripped over his thoughts, tried to stay focused. He refused to feel bad or back down when this guy had crossed a line, invading the house like he had. “I talked to the doctor. I know what happened.”
“No questions about how I found him? His last words? Nothing?”
As much as he wanted to hang onto the anger, it was mostly his nerves that had his voice trembling. “Is it anything I need to know, or just more fuel to keep my therapist employed?”
Sera’s green eyes narrowed. “Why are you here, Colt?”
“I already said, I came for the key—”
“Why are you here, at the house, if you didn’t give a shit about Glenn?”
Colt stared. “What are you talking about? I love my dad.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” Sera said flatly.
“Right. Because you knew him so well.”
“I knew a lot more at least regarding the last few years,” he responded cooly. When Colt looked stricken, he sighed. “Look, I’m not here to make your life difficult.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
Sera’s jaw briefly clenched. “… Glenn had asked me to help take care of some things. I was keeping my word.”
“Well, he’s not here anymore, is he?”
Silence.
Colt winced inwardly at the harshness of his own words. All lingering traces of good humor and amicableness vanished from Sera’s face. They stood there, Sera watching Colt, Colt looking anywhere else while trying not to choke on his guilt. Sera lowered his arm, and Colt waited for…something. To be yelled at or hit. Hell, getting into a fight might not’ve felt so bad right about then.
Sera opened his mouth to speak, paused, absently licked his lips, and looked away with a shake of his head, seeming to decide against whatever he’d been about to say. He tossed the key into the air, leaving Colt fumbling to catch it. (He didn’t. It landed at his feet.) And without another word, Sera disappeared back into the trailer. The screen and door slammed shut behind him.
Colt shoved a hand back through his hair, face flushed, shoulders so tense his back had begun to ache. After stooping to retrieve the key from the frosty ground, he cast one last look back at the trailer. The vestiges of his anger and his earlier panic attack were fading, swallowed whole by a sense of guilt.
Maybe he didn’t need to be in the house, but did you have to be such an asshole about it?
And…now what? Did he knock again, apologize? Would he have meant it in that exact moment? Would anything Sera have said in return have made him feel any better about…any of this?
Colt slinked back to the house with his metaphorical tail between his legs. Stepping inside, he was hit with the same overwhelming urge to flee as when he’d first arrived.
It never changes .
From the time he was four or five, this was how it’d been. What started as a few piles of clutter turned to closets stuffed full turned to piles stacked in corners of rooms. And then they grew. Spreading steadily throughout the house until not a surface was left uncovered.
Colt stared into the living room at the boxes Sera had left behind. Laughable, next to the mountain of things that needed to be sorted. Now, this twenty-something years’ worth of stuff was his to figure out. Where did he even begin? Every stack looked intimidating, like Jenga towers waiting to come crashing down.
Forget that guy. You came here to do this, so fucking do it.
He grabbed one of the lawn-sized black bags, took a deep, steadying breath, and got to work.
***
Nine hours. Twelve boxes packed with donation items. Eighteen trash bags full and hefted out onto the front lawn, each packed with papers, water-logged books, unsalvageable knickknacks, and cracked vinyl records. Clean out some of the trash first, he’d figured. It’d make the rest easier. Because as it stood, he didn’t even have space to think about organizing and sorting.
He stared at the bags with a sense of pride, yet when he went back inside, he was struck with the realization of how little progress he’d made.
This would take months.
Kate offered to help. Apparently this Sera guy had been willing to, too. He could hire a team—he had money incoming from Dad’s estate, he could afford it—he could walk away and never have to look at this place again while other people dealt with it.
Colt had made the choice to leave when he turned eighteen. He’d made the choice that if Dad wasn’t going to get help, then Colt refused to be one more thing buried in that house. He had his own life in Whitehall, six hours south. His own job, his own routine, his own apartment that stayed blissfully clear of clutter.
It’d been the right choice. The healthy choice, according to some therapist Colt had seen for awhile. It wasn’t like he’d cut Glenn completely out of his life, he’d just…set boundaries. Put up walls. Enforced the hell out of them. Why the fuck did he feel so guilty about it now?
Because you always thought he’d come around. Colt went into the den and stared at his dad’s bed. You always thought one day, he’d miss you enough that he’d agree to get help. But now he’s dead and that’s never going to happen.
The admission lodged in his throat and left a bad taste on the back of his tongue. Had it been the right choice? Should he have tried harder? As a kid living under the same roof, the father-son dynamic made it hard to get any kind of leverage. Maybe, as an adult, if he’d approached it differently…
“Why are you content with leaving this half-finished?” that therapist had asked. “Left to his own devices, he’s not likely to seek help. If he knows he risks losing all contact with you, it might knock something lose. This isn’t much different than an intervention with any addict, Colt.”
Colt’s vision briefly blurred. He blinked it back.
Why hadn’t he gone all the way? Why hadn’t he presented his dad with an ultimatum—get help for yourself, or I can’t be involved in your life at all? Why’d he stop with one foot out the door?
You know why , a voice, weary with time and age and grief, whispered in the back of his mind. If forced to make a choice…
You weren’t convinced he’d choose you.