Chapter 17
MAGGIE
The ache in my hips had gone from annoying to nearly unbearable hours ago, but I wasn’t stopping until I pulled into my parents’ driveway.
I’d spent most of the drive shifting from side to side, fiddling with the radio, but the only thing that cut through the drone of the interstate was the memories clawing up my chest.
Every time a mile marker flashed past, I pictured Hunter’s hands on my thighs from the night before, or the roughness in his voice when he whispered things in my ear that made me blush.
The longer I drove, the worse I got. It took everything inside me not to turn my truck around and head straight back to him, but that was insane.
My hands shook on the wheel as I took the last turn off the highway.
The cottonwood trees still lined the long driveway, the same ones I’d grown up with, but they’d gotten enormous, their canopy swallowing the drive ahead of me.
I’d spent years putting as many miles between myself and this place as I could, and now here I was, easing off the gas, coasting up the asphalt like I’d never left.
The porch light was already glowing through the trees, and I could see Mom’s faded hydrangeas spilling along the steps that led up to the expansive porch.
The swing creaked in the breeze, just like always, but there was no one out there to welcome me home as I put the truck into park and killed the engine.
The sun was almost gone, a blue haze clinging to the horizon, and I pressed my head back against the headrest and let myself breathe. I stared at the house for a long time, hands curled tightly around the steering wheel, fighting the urge to gun it in reverse and never look back.
The house was beautiful, I’d give it that.
Deep red brick, porch columns the color of dried wheat, and planters overflowing from every possible surface.
Someone had put real thought and care into those flowers, though it wasn’t my mother or father who’d dirtied their hands and planted them.
That was always how it had been here, the appearance of something warm and living, tended by hands you’d never met, for people who were never quite at home in it.
I sat there for a count of ten and tried not to hate myself for how much I wished I was already turning around. It shouldn’t have been this hard. I’d lived here over twenty years, and all I had to do was walk in that door and smile pretty.
But my hands wouldn’t unclench.
My phone lit up beside me, and I immediately saw Hunter’s name light up my screen.
I’d spent the last two days tangled up in him, letting him touch every inch of me, letting him coax out every stubborn want I’d buried under my guilt.
It had been so easy to get lost in him when I didn’t have to face the reality of my decisions, but the closer I got to Ella, to this house, the heavier it pressed.
My body remembered the scrape of his stubble on my neck, the crush of his mouth on mine, and the way he’d left marks on my body nobody else could see.
I tasted him in every shaky draw of breath that crawled up my throat, and for the last two days I’d let myself stay drunk on it.
Every stolen moment, the way he’d showed up at the bakery just before close, and how I’d called him last night, desperate for him to come over when I could feel my anxiety getting the best of me.
I swiped my phone open and looked at his text.
Hunter: Did you make it there yet?
I stared at the message for a beat too long, my fingers hovering over the screen.
Maggie: Just pulled in.
I watched the bubbles flicker, then disappear. But then they appeared again.
Hunter: Are you okay?
We had barely talked about me coming home, but Hunter knew how my parents and Ella were. Of course, he did.
I stared at his text until my eyes blurred, and I thought about how Hunter touched me, how he held me down and stripped away my defenses until it became easy to believe him when he said it was just us. But in this driveway, the truth caught up with me.
It would never be just us.
There was the past, my family, and the guilt braided through every good thing I had.
Hunter: Call me if you need me. I’ll drive to Alabama if I have to.
I read his text three times before I forced myself to get out of the truck.
Maggie: I’m okay. I’ll talk to you when I get home. Yeah?
I didn’t wait for his reply. I tucked my phone in my purse then grabbed my duffel bag out of the passenger seat. The bugs were already singing in the trees, the low, buzzing croon of summer in the south, and an ache of the past pressed against my skin.
I hefted the bag onto my shoulder and followed the cracked flagstones that led up to the porch. The hydrangeas had gotten wild, swollen into blue and pink balls that crowded the walkway and threatened to swallow the porch whole. I had to brush against them as I climbed the steps.
I stopped at the front door and tried to convince myself I belonged there, that this was still home.
For a second, I imagined myself a kid again, running up this porch after school, letting the screen door slap shut behind me as I shouted a hello to my mom, then I’d run right back outside, finding joy on the land that I couldn’t find in the house.
I knocked against the wood and immediately hated that I had. Who in their right mind knocks on the door of their own childhood home?
The echo sounded sharp and hollow in the thick summer air, and I almost turned around right then, almost walked back to the truck and just kept driving. But before I could even think twice about it, the door swung open and there was my mother.
She looked almost exactly the same as the last time I came home, but time was beginning to show in the lines of her face and the dusting of gray in her hair that she couldn’t quite hide.
She was still elegant in that way she’d always managed to be, and she wore ironed slacks and a sleeveless top, pearls tucked at her collar.
Everyone used to say that I looked exactly like her, but all I could see were the differences.
Her skin was paled and unblemished, and mine was tanned by the sun and peppered with freckles.
Her hair was curled and perfectly in place, and mine was wild and knotted from my drive with the rolled-down windows.
But it was mostly the look in her eyes as she took me in that told me we were nothing alike.
“There’s our girl,” she said, and pulled the door open wider. “You made good time.”
“Yeah.” I nodded and stepped inside, and I could feel her gaze running a checklist as it ran over me.
“You look tired,” she said, and even though her tone was gentle, it stung. “Did you stop for lunch or just keep driving.”
“Just kept driving. I wanted to get here before dark.” I tried to smile, but I knew my mother well enough to know she’d see right through it. “Your flowers look really pretty this year.”
“I like the color, and I’ve been trying to make the house look its best for Ella’s wedding.” Her smile was brittle around the edges, but she wore it well, like every other thing she’d ever faked to perfection in this house.
I followed her through the foyer, and everything looked exactly the way it had always been.
Family photos lined the walls, and the four of us looked every bit of the perfect family.
But the farther I walked, the less perfect any of it felt.
My eyes caught on every little detail and flaw I’d trained myself not to see growing up.
The antique sideboard beneath the photos still had a scratch from where my father had thrown a bottle of liquor when Ella and I were just girls.
The night my mom had found out about his affair that had been going on for years.
No one ever talked about it. We never talked about any of that shit, but I’d always wondered why my mom hadn’t gotten it fixed. Part of me thought maybe she kept it as a reminder of what he’d done, as the one thing in this place that hadn’t been patched up with a smile or a painted-over memory.
I could hear voices before we made it to the den, and when we rounded the corner, I saw my dad was sitting in the same spot he always was. Ella was sitting on the couch riffling through what looked like fabric samples, and Dean was beside her, his eyes on the game even as she talked.
“There she is,” my dad said when he looked up and saw me.
The warmth that moved through my chest at the sound of his voice was something I could never explain to anyone who hadn’t grown up in this house. I never could figure out how to stop loving him for the things he wasn’t. Or for the things he was.
There was a fat tumbler of whiskey in his hand, and I could smell the scotch from the doorway, the scent so strong and familiar my jaw ached.
“Here I am.” I shrugged, and Ella popped up from the couch and nearly launched herself across the room.
She was a head taller than me and always had been, and when she wrapped her arms around me, my face pressed against her chest. Her arms wrapped tightly around me, and for a second, I forgot my guilt, forgot how bad I’d braced myself for seeing her again.
She squeezed me so hard the air left my lungs, her laugh bright in my ear. “You’re here. Finally.”
She smelled the same as always, like expensive perfume and a little bit of honeysuckle. I let her hold on as long as she needed, and when I felt her hands tremble against me, I squeezed her tighter.
For a moment we were just Maggie and Ella, two stubborn girls pretending to be women, and I didn’t want to let her go. When she finally pulled back, blinking too fast, I caught the faint glimmer of tears she tried to pretend weren’t there.
Neither of us said a word as we searched each other’s eyes, but I could feel my throat tighten.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, and she quickly nodded, planting that fake smile on her face that we both knew so well.
“You want some help taking that up to the room?” She motioned toward my duffel bag, but I nodded anyway.