5. Old Wounds, New Distractions
Old Wounds, New Distractions
Rowan
T he rain tasted like salt and rust, metallic on my tongue when I breathed through my mouth. Every step felt heavier than it should, like the pavement was trying to drag me down into the earth where I probably belonged.
The conversation with Elias from the night before played on repeat in my head, each word cutting deeper with repetition.
The way his face had looked when I'd accused him of lying.
The careful way he'd said my mother's name, like it was something sacred he was afraid of breaking.
The desperate hunger in his voice when he'd asked about her letters.
I'd fucked it up. Of course I had. Walked into his house carrying two years' worth of rage and grief and thrown it all at him like he was responsible for every wrong turn my life had taken.
Like he was the reason she was dead, like he was the one who'd kept us apart, like he owed me explanations for choices that were never his to make.
But that was the thing about grief. It made you stupid, made you cruel, made you lash out at anyone who was still breathing when the person you really wanted to scream at was six feet underground.
Two years gone and people expected you to be “better” by now, to have processed it all into neat little boxes of acceptance and healing.
They wanted your pain to follow some prescribed timeline, to fade politely into something manageable that didn't make them uncomfortable at dinner parties.
But grief didn't follow anyone else's schedule.
It lived in your bones, showed up uninvited at random moments, turned ordinary conversations into minefields.
Some days it felt fresh as an open wound, other days like a dull ache you'd learned to carry.
Either way, it was always there, and pretending otherwise just made everything worse.
A group of kids had gathered on the corner outside Murphy's old stationery shop, one of them strumming a battered acoustic guitar while the others sang along.
Their voices cracked in the cold air, hitting notes that were almost right but not quite, the kind of imperfect harmony that only worked when nobody was trying too hard.
I didn't mean to stop, but the sound pulled me in sideways.
The melody was simple, familiar, one of those songs that gets passed down from musician to musician like folklore.
The kid playing guitar couldn't have been more than sixteen, all elbows and enthusiasm, fingers moving across the fretboard with the confidence that comes from not knowing how much you don't know.
I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and forced myself to keep walking.
The kids' laughter followed me down the street, tugging at the corners of my mind like hands trying to pull me back into a world where music meant joy instead of loss. I walked faster, jaw clenched, wanting distance from the sound and from the part of myself that still responded to it.
I passed the turnoff to the cemetery without looking, but the awareness of it sat heavy on my neck like a hand I couldn't shake off.
She was up there somewhere, under a headstone I'd never seen, in a plot I'd been too fucked up to visit after the funeral.
The guilt was a constant weight, pressing down on my shoulders with every step I took away from the road that led to her.
The smell of fresh bread drifted from Margaret Dane's bakery, thick and sweet in the damp air.
Another memory hit me: my mother at Christmas morning, flour dusted across her cheek, hair pulled back in a messy bun while she hummed something wordless and warm.
She'd been making cinnamon rolls, the kind that took all day and filled whatever cramped kitchen we were using with the smell of sugar and spice and love made edible.
I sped up, jaw tight, wanting distance from the scent and from the way it made my chest feel hollow and full at the same time. Everything in this fucking town was a land mine, every corner holding some fragment of a life I'd tried to forget.
I lifted my head and spotted the faded painted sign for Mariner’s Rest, the letters worn by salt air and time. The sight hit harder than I expected—like running into an old song you hadn’t thought about in years but still knew every word to.
My throat felt dry suddenly, and my hands had developed an itch that had nothing to do with the rain soaking through my jacket.
I told myself I was just going in to get out of the weather, maybe say hello to an old friend.
It was a lie, and I knew it. But lies were easier than admitting that what I really wanted was to stop feeling everything so fucking much.
The bell over the door gave a tired jingle as I stepped inside, the sound exactly the same as it had been when we were kids.
The interior had been updated, exposed brick and Edison bulbs replacing the old wood paneling and fluorescent lights, but the bones of the place were unchanged.
Same long bar, same scarred wooden floors, same smell of beer and old wood and the faint citrus cleaner that never quite covered the scent of decades of spilled drinks and broken dreams.
Anna looked up from behind the bar, a rag in her hand and surprise flickering across her face.
She was older, of course, her dark hair shorter and streaked with early silver, laugh lines around her eyes that hadn't been there before.
But her smile was the same, bright and genuine and completely without judgment.
“Well, look what the tide dragged in.” She tossed the rag aside and leaned against the bar, grinning like she’d been expecting me. “Rowan fucking Hale. I thought I smelled trouble coming.”
I managed a half-smile that felt foreign on my face, like I was remembering how to use muscles I’d forgotten I had. “Guess it did.”
She was already reaching for a bottle before I’d even made it to the bar, pouring whiskey into a rocks glass with the practiced ease of someone who’d been doing this for years.
“On the house,” she said, sliding it across the scarred wood. “For old times’ sake.”
“Pretty sure the last time I was here, you threw me out,” I said, picking up the glass.
“That was different,” she shot back without missing a beat. “You puked on my cymbals. I don’t forgive crimes against music.”
A laugh scraped its way out of my throat. “They were out of tune anyway.”
Her grin widened. “Still got the mouth on you, huh?”
“Only when I’m sober.”
“Good thing I’m fixing that,” she said, topping me off before I’d finished the first.
I picked up the glass and stared at the amber liquid, watching the way it caught the light from the Edison bulbs overhead.
“Thanks.” I lifted the glass in a mock toast and downed it in one swallow, feeling the burn cut through the damp chill that had been clinging to me since I'd stepped off the train. The heat was immediate, spreading through my chest like wildfire, almost comforting in its familiarity.
I tapped the glass against the bar, and Anna refilled it without being asked.
“So,” she said, settling in like she had all the time in the world. “What brings you back to our little slice of paradise? Last I heard, you were conquering New York one dive bar at a time.”
“Conquering might be a strong word.” I took another sip, smaller this time, trying to make it last. “More like slowly destroying myself in front of increasingly smaller audiences.”
She laughed, but there was concern in it. “That bad, huh?”
“That bad.” I stared into my drink, watching the whiskey swirl against the sides of the glass. “Turns out the music industry doesn't give a shit about your feelings. Who knew?”
“Shocking revelation.” She wiped down a glass that was already clean. “You know, your mom used to come in here sometimes. After you left for the city.”
“Yeah?”
“She’d sit right where you’re sitting now, order a glass of wine, and talk about how proud she was of you. Said you were going to be famous someday, show all of us small-town folks what real music sounded like.”
I groaned, dragging a hand over my face. “Please tell me she didn’t tell you about the garage concert with the broken amp.”
“Oh, she did. In vivid detail. Apparently it was ‘visionary.’”
“Visionary my ass. We blew the power for half the block.”
Anna smirked. “You’re welcome, by the way. I was the one who sweet-talked the neighbors into not calling the cops. I told them you were just passionate.”
“Guess passion sounds a lot like dying raccoons fighting in a dumpster.”
Her laugh rang out, warm and unguarded, and for a moment the weight in my chest loosened.
“She was always good at seeing things that weren't there,” I said, the words coming out rougher than I'd intended.
Anna's expression softened. “Or maybe she was good at seeing things that were there but hadn't grown yet.”
I finished my second drink and signaled for a third. The room was starting to feel warmer, the edges of my thoughts going soft in a way I welcomed. This was what I'd come here for, this blurring of sharp edges, this temporary reprieve from the weight of being myself.
Anna poured the whiskey but didn't slide the glass across immediately. “You want to talk about it?”
I looked up and met her eyes, saw genuine concern there.
“There's nothing to talk about.”
“Bullshit.” She pushed the glass toward me. “I've been tending bar for eight years, Ro. I know what running away looks like.”
I picked up the drink and held it without sipping, feeling the weight of the glass in my hand. “Maybe I'm not running away. Maybe I'm running toward.”
“Toward what?”
That was the question, wasn't it? What was I running toward in this place that held nothing but ghosts and guilt and memories that cut like broken glass? What was I hoping to find in the house where my mother had lived and loved and died while I was too proud to pick up the fucking phone?
“I don't know,” I admitted, and the honesty felt like bleeding .