Mac
SIX
TWO WEEKS LATER
I’ve been back at Jessie James Trailer Park for two weeks. It’s been weird and unsettling at times. While Sage is a great distraction, my father is never far from my thoughts. He hovers over the park like a toxic shadow.
Every time I’m forced to walk out of the bubble Sage and I created, I’m hit with fear.
A terror that has the hairs on the back of my neck rising, as if sensing the danger that’s never far away.
I race from the trailer, head swiveling around to spot the predator on my tail, jumping into Sage’s Mustang with the feeling of eyes drilling into my skin.
Only when I’m closer to the garage does the terror ebb away.
I don’t feel the horror when I’m safely hiding inside with Sage, though. His trailer has always been an oasis. An island that’s separated from the park. Another world where the thin metal would protect me from harm.
With Sage, the world never existed. He would smile, or laugh, and everything that haunted me would drift away.
Only now, a new thing haunts me in the trailer. Mom’s ghost lurks around, finding me in my dreams. I wake drenched in sweat, peeling myself off the couch I’ve been calling my bed.
Since coming back, my dreams aren’t dark and sinister. They are filled with love and birthday cakes. Tight hugs and gentle reassurances that I want more than anything. It’s almost worse. It compounds the guilt that weighs me down.
Sage seems content to avoid the hard questions. The painful memories remain locked away in Mom’s room. We tiptoe around her, never telling stories where she was a key character.
I know we’ll have to talk. I know we have so many words we keep trapped in our mouths, in our souls. But for now, I selfishly don’t want to. I want to bask in this second chance, too scared to pop the bubble we’re in.
I don’t know how long I’m welcome, if his want for me to be around will fade. That he’ll recant my invitation. I’m too scared to ask. So, I soak up every second I’m with him, like a plant starving for water in the desert. Locking it all away for when I’m asked to leave and return to the real world.
He always looks shocked when I return from work. A deep exhale punches from his throat every time, like he was holding his breath. Afraid I wasn’t going to come back.
Sometimes, our awkwardness resets, sending us back into an atmosphere of weird glances and held-back confessions. It never lasts for long, though. Just like when we were kids, I’d force him to laugh, and we’d go right back to normal. Or a new normal, I guess.
The two years we had apart changed us both. I find myself fascinated by those changes. I still can’t keep my eyes off him. Always trying to watch him from the corner of my eye. That’s when I see the biggest difference.
When Sage thinks I’m not looking, he watches. His eyes bore into me. Even if I wasn’t looking, I’d feel the heat of his stare.
For the first time in two years, I feel like I’m home. I appreciate my small-ass apartment, even thought it was home for a minute. But now that I’m back, I know I was lying to myself. This is home. Maybe not this trailer, or this bong-water couch, but Sage. Wherever he is, that’s my home.
“Mac!” Sage calls from his bedroom. I yell back, but he pretends not to hear me. Only calls out my name again.
With a grunt, I climb out of this deathtrap couch. My neck cracks every damn time I wake up.
That first night, Sage offered his mom’s old room. He seemed reluctant and endearingly shy about it. My guilt didn’t allow me to except. I tried to brush away my disappointment that he didn’t want me in his room.
I stop at his bedroom door that’s cracked open just a little, light spilling out into my bare feet. I haven’t gone into his room yet. I still don’t know if he got rid of me in here. I’m a coward and have avoided it.
“Mac!” he says louder, and I slowly push the door open. My breath hitches.
Shit, it’s the same. The twin bed, the carved-up dresser, the posters, even pictures of me and him, pictures of us growing up.
One of Mom holding my hand when she took us to the state fair.
Sage holding my arm high after I won a fight, grinning with blood-stained teeth.
Everywhere I look, I see us. I see my life.
I take it all in, greedy to see every small detail. When my eyes circle around the small room to the bed, I stop. I hold my breath once again when I see Sage sprawled out on his bed, feet crossed and dangling over the footboard of the twin bed.
Every fucking inch of him is sprawled out before me with his arm folded behind his head. He stares at his phone, ignoring my presence. I can’t stop my gaze from sliding over every inch of him.
Coming up short a-fucking-gain when I find the stick-and-poke tattoo he begged me to do peeking out from the bottom of his briefs. It’s fading, splotchy, and looks like a drunk teenager attacked his thigh. But he kept it. My brand is still on him.
How have I missed it? He rarely wears pants in the trailer, stripping out of his work clothes like they are about to catch fire the second he steps into the trailer.
But I know how I missed it. It’s because I’ve been forcing myself not to look.
Terrified it will be gone. But there it is, in all its horrible glory.
“Hey, Luna texted.” He’s still not looking at me, engrossed in his phone, thumbs flying over the screen as he texts. I cough, swallow, and avert my eyes.
“Cool.” God, he probably thinks I’m getting sick with all my weird one-word answers that come out breathy and unusual. Or he doesn’t notice at all. He keeps his emotions hidden away from me, under a mask of casual indifference.
“There’s a party down at the docks tonight. Wanna check it out?”
And just like that, all my tingly feelings vanish. The joy of him keeping my shitty tattoo, the photos, everything comes crashing down on me.
It’s not Luna, it’s not even the party, not really. It’s Dad. It’s always fucking Dad. Back in the day, if I did anything, guys he was friends with would dime me out. Tell him I spray-painted a cow—I didn’t, I spray-painted the barn but that’s not important.
What is important is they could still call him. Tell him I’m back. Then this bubble with Sage would pop, and I’d have to leave again.
My breathing picks up speed, my heart joining in on the panic that claws up my throat.
This is why I’ve been hiding from here. Darting to and from the Mustang for work.
Staying away from windows. I know June would never call my father, but Jimmy would.
Carter would. Old man Grieves would—he’s probably still pissed about the potatoes we shoved in his tail pipe.
Point is, there is a long list of people who would turn on me in a heartbeat. Bring Dad back here to finish what he started.
“Hey, Mac. Mac?” I don’t see him move, don’t hear the bed creaking.
Static fills my ears and black spots slowly take over my vision.
Fuck, it’s a panic attack. I got them a lot when I first moved into the apartment.
I was convinced Dad had followed me. Believed he would find me hiding like the little bitch he always said I was.
But it’s been a year since the last one.
I had almost forgotten what they felt like.
I wish I could still forget.
Hands grab my face, warm palms holding me together. Long fingers bury themselves into my hair. Sage is on his knees in front of me. When did I sit? His mouth is moving, but it sounds like he’s talking underwater. His fingers start running through my hair. Gentle. Distracting.
His other hand drops to my chest. His fingers tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Slow and steady. Mimicking what a normal heart should sound like. Mine beats chaotically under each tap. I slam my eyes closed, blocking everything out except him. Except his touch, his tap. Tap. Tap.
“I got you. You’re safe. Mac. You’re fucking safe. Look at me.” His voice still sounds far away, lost under the sound of my heart hammering. My thoughts are screaming.
My eyes snap open, finding his wide and concerned. Brown. Deep and endless. Tiny gold specks dotted along with the brown. Sage.
“You’re safe,” he repeats, and even with my heart hammering and my breaths punching out of my lungs, I believe him.
I believe him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.