Chapter 45
As I walk through the jack-and-jill bathroom to Hailey’s room, she eyes the large cardboard box in my arms.
“This one is yours, not mine,” I tell her.
“Please tell me that’s the last one.”
I drop the box next to her closet door. “Not even close,” I reply and plop down on the bed, sighing at the joy of being off my feet. Luckily, I haven’t gotten to the feet-swelling part of pregnancy that I keep reading about. I rub my hands over my tiny baby bump and close my eyes
Today is moving day. The day we return home. Our real home. The house Hailey and I grew up in on Fallen Brook Drive. It feels weird without Mom and Dad here. But Hailey is happy and smiling. Like I told Daniel at Thanksgiving, that’s all that really matters.
Hailey starts to unbox the clothes I just brought in, putting her jeans and pants on hangers and placing them inside the closet.
Jayson, Julien, and their parents, along with Fallon, Mr. Montgomery, Meredith, and Trevor, are finishing up with unloading the moving truck.
It takes a village, apparently, to move three people five miles across town.
Of course, Fallon and his dad wanted to pay for professional movers to do it all for us, but Daniel politely declined.
Hailey and I didn’t want strangers touching our stuff, especially the things Mom and Dad gave us.
Things that would be irreplaceable if they got damaged.
The bed dips and Hailey’s hand covers mine on my stomach. She and Daniel went with me and the guys to my checkup on Thursday. The staff at the OBGYN office are used to me having a gaggle of guys accompany me to every visit, so they didn’t bat an eye when two more people joined the party.
“You can take a nap if you want. You need to take a break anyway. Want me to get one of the guys to make a burger run?”
I am hungry. But then again, when am I not? “Freda is making lunch for everyone. Hoagies, I think.”
“Where’s my girl at?” Meredith calls from my bedroom.
“In here!” I yell back.
Coming through the bathroom, Meredith claps her hands. “The truck is officially empty, and I am officially pooped.” She does a swan dive onto the bed.
“What are the guys up to?” I ask her.
“Rearranging the furniture in the living room and making a hash of it. Guys have no decorating sense. I left before it drove me completely crazy.”
The three of us bliss out on the bed for a few minutes
“Thank you for helping out today,” I tell her.
Meredith sees Hailey’s hand on my tummy. “Oh! Is the baby kicking?” She lays her ear on the side of my stomach and I laugh.
“You can’t hear the baby kick. And no, I won’t be able to feel little gummy moving about yet. Not until about twenty weeks or so.”
Hailey pats my belly and gets up to continue unboxing her stuff. She stops at her window and looks across the way to where the oak tree is between our house and the Jameson’s.
“I’m making a bet. Five dollars says that Jayson and Julien will be climbing through your window tonight.”
“I may as well give you the money now because we both know that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
Meredith rolls over and sits up, not able to be still for more than a few minutes. She grabs a box from the foot of the bed and rifles through it. Pulling out a small strip of paper, she squints at it and then at Hailey.
“This is cute. Who’s the hot guy?”
Hailey turns to see what Meredith is referring to and freezes, a look of horror on her face. I snatch the paper from Meredith. It’s one of those black-and-white picture booth photos where it takes a succession of three images. The guy with Hailey is older and someone I don’t recognize.
“Is this him?” I ask her, my hands shaking from the spike of anger that erupts.
Hailey doesn’t even have to answer me. I know it is.
This is Bryant. This is the guy who abused my sister.
This is the man she ran away with. He doesn’t look like the monster I had conjured up in my mind.
He looks like your typical preppy college frat boy.
Clean-cut. Handsome. Twin dimples. Not the evil monster he really is.
Why is she keeping pictures of him? I’m tempted to find a match and burn it.
“Who him?” Meredith asks.
“I’m sorry,” Hailey whispers, shame shrouding her like a black cloud.
Meredith looks between me and Hailey. “I’m clearly missing something.” Then it clicks for her. She knows what happened to Hailey and why she ran away. “Ohhhhh.”
I know I need to tread very carefully. One set-back in Hailey’s recovery could cause her to start cutting again.
Our therapist said to just be there for her and listen when she wants to talk, no matter how hard it is to hear; to make sure she knows we aren’t judging her for what happened or show disappointment or anger at her for how she chose to cope with her emotions.
Trying to figure out what to say, I put the photograph back inside the box and walk over to her.
“I’m here for you. Whatever you need. I love you,” I tell her, hugging her to me. I’m relieved to feel her arms wrap around me in return.
Meredith joins us in the hug. “Ditto for me too.”
“I don’t know what all the hugging is for, but I’m totally in. No way can I pass up an Ace, Wildcat, Firecracker triple decker smush-fest,” Trevor chimes in at the doorway. His arms wrap around all three of us and Hailey starts laughing.
“Horn dog,” Meredith says to her brother.
“I’m a guy,” he retorts, squeezing us tightly until we’re all squeaking. “Food has arrived. I was sent up to get you girls, but I’d rather do this instead.”
Meredith pushes his arm off her with an eww.
When we get downstairs, Jayson grabs me and pulls me down the hallway.
“What’s going on?” I ask when he covers my eyes with his hand.
“It’s a surprise.”
He shuffles me forward twenty steps and then stops, lifting his hand. The first thing I see is Fallon, and my stupid heart does a pitter-patter. He blinds me with one of his rare smiles that always turns me stupid. It takes me a second to realize that his arms are spread wide in a ta-da reveal.
I’m standing in Dad’s music room. The one he built in the back of the house.
I’m dumbfounded. And very emotional as evidenced by the tears pouring down my face.
They fixed it up. It’s unbelievable. Dad’s old acoustic and electric guitars sit in stands against the back wall.
The wood of Grandma’s old piano looks polished and brand new.
Dad’s drum set that I played all the time takes up an entire corner of the room.
There’s a table with mixing equipment and a computer screen.
On the walls are framed pictures of Dad and his band.
Some of them are the band goofing around, others of them playing on stage.
Intermixed are framed posters of me and Dad playing together.
There’s one of me when I was little sitting in his lap, his guitar nestled in front of us as he showed me how to place my small fingers on the strings to play a simple C chord.
I walk around the room taking it all in, then stop at one of the posters of Dad playing his guitar. My fingertips lightly touch the glossy image. There are no words to express how I feel right now, so I go with, “This is incredible. Thank you so much.” I choke up and can’t speak anything more.
Fallon and Jayson remain silent, allowing me time to absorb everything. My eyes scan the instruments and settle on the drum set.
I take a seat behind Dad’s Yamaha drum set he uses to practice with and twirl my sticks between my fingers deciding on what to play.
Scrolling through my phone, I select “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters and press play.
My phone is connected to a surround sound speaker unit Dad installed for the room.
I love cranking up music and playing along on the drums to whatever song is streaming.
As soon as the song starts and I hear the first beat at the beginning of the song, I quickly join in and lose myself in the tribal pounding of the drums. My arms and legs work in synchronicity, and I can feel sweat already trickling down the hollow of my back from exertion.
I’m so connected and lost in what I’m doing, I almost lose the rhythm when an electric guitar joins in, startling me.
I’m even more taken aback to see Ryder in front of me, arms pumping down on the guitar strings, playing the melody.
We grin at each other like fools, never once breaking eye contact as we play.
Ryder ends the song with one last guitar riff as the music fades.
“I haven’t heard you play guitar in a long time. I didn’t realize how much I missed that.” My dad used to give Ryder guitar lessons just like me. It’s why we’re so comfortable playing and singing around each other. “You look so hot playing guitar.” I fan my face pretending to swoon.
“And you’re one sexy drummer. Want to do one more?”
“Absolutely. Your pick. Fast or slow?”
Ryder scratches the side of his jaw with the guitar pick in contemplation. “Another fast one. How about some Fall Out Boy? ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down?’”
I select the song on my phone and hit play. Ryder immediately cues into the music with his guitar, and I watch him as we play.
“Get behind those drums and show me what you’ve got,” Fallon says, lifting one of the electric guitars and placing the strap over his head. He plugs it into the amplifier and turns it on.
Joy floods my veins and I eagerly dash over to the drum set and grab the sticks, twirling one around in my right hand.
Jayson goes to the computer on the table and hits the space bar on the keyboard to wake it up. He opens an app and scrolls through a list of songs, selecting one. “Live Forever” by Oasis comes out of the speakers mounted in the ceiling.
“See if you can keep up, pretty boy,” I tell Fallon.
He gives me his lopsided grin as he waits for the drum intro to end, then he strums the first riff, and the room fills with electric music.