Chapter 27 – Hannah
“What the heck have you gotten us into?” Monroe asks, a look of horror on his face as he takes in a run-down country bar on the outskirts of town. The barstools are made of saddles, the floor is polished light hardwood, and the light fixtures look straight out of an old-timey Wild West movie. But my favorite part is the neon lights of the beer signs behind the bar. It’s like the bat signal for us country folk, and darn it if it doesn’t heal a little part of me.
“Who’s going to dance with me first?!” I ask, my eyes darting down the line of hockey players to Abby, whose face I’m assuming is a mirror of mine.
“Ugh, fine.” Monroe sighs overdramatically, his hand coming out to grab onto mine. “I don’t know what I’m doing, so you’re going to have to teach it to me.”
Boy, are they in for a treat. I go through the basic steps of a line dance, teaching him the steps to Cotton Eyed Joe because, well, they teach you that in elementary school PE here.
The eight-count dance is easy to pick up, but on these floors, if you make one wrong move, you’ll be flat on your back. Once Monroe masters that, we move on to a two-step. There aren’t many people here, so Abby and I trade off between the guys teaching them different dances as the songs change.
“Okay, what’s the point of this?” Wilson gruffly asks.
“Gives us rhythm-deprived people an option to dance because we sure can’t move and groove to anything else.” His laugh echoes off the walls; it's so loud and powerful. Way out here, no one gives two chicken shits who you are or what you do for a living. These guys could be the president and his mini ons, and no one would bother them.
“Is it nice going out and not being noticed? Or at least not be bombarded?” He nods. Wilson ever the reserved guy. It’s been fun to watch him come out of his shell around me a bit.
“Yeah, we couldn’t do this back in Tampa. It’s nice being able to let go for the night. No one here has their phones out. They’re actually talking to each other, enjoying the company they’re with. It’s kind of weird.” Life is simple out here. Always has been, minus the dad situation.
You work hard, drink where your parents can’t find you, and drive trucks down dirt roads at the age of nine. Social media and the fast pace of life aren’t par for the course here. It’s a nice palate cleanser, and I’m questioning why I haven’t come back before now.
By the time the bar fills up, the guys are more comfortable as they try to keep up with the steps. We’ve done more than one round of the do-si-do, and when Copperhead Road comes on, Abby grabs my hand and pulls me to an open corner of the dance floor. The bagpipes at the beginning of the song are like a siren calling fishermen out to sea. Or the Cha Cha Slide for the rest of the country.
We did this dance so many times in college; it was my party trick. I used to hate it because it reminded me of everything I disliked about my past. But now, each stomp of my boot frees a little piece of me I’ve kept locked in a cage. As I spin around with my head tipped back, a level of happiness I believed I was never good enough to feel, fills me to the brim. I catch Andrews pulling out his phone. I send him the biggest smile I can, only to be pulled down to the floor by a cackling Abby.
This is what I’ve been missing out on all these years. This is what I was giving up just to get ahead in my career. What I was letting pass me by because I was so focused on proving my dad wrong. Every time my mom and Abby asked if I thought it was worth it, I said yes. I can now, without a doubt, say I was lying to myself.
I make a silent vow to never prioritize my career over having solid relationships in life, to spend time with the people who feel like sunshine. To make as many memories as I can with those I choose to have in my life and who choose to be in mine right back is everything I’ve dreamed of. It’s the happiness and fulfillment I was chasing in all the wrong places.
It's almost enough to make me forget the reason I’m here and that there are hard conversations coming my way. Ones that we both deserve to have. I promised I wouldn’t run, and I did. He promised we’d heal together, and instead, he pushed me away.
Not looking forward to that.
“We have to head back today; we’ve got a game tomorrow.” Reed throws his arm over my shoulder as he sits next to me on the back porch. I nudge him with my shoulder, the smile that feels so free to give now back on my face.
“You guys didn’t have to come all the way out here, but I really appreciate it. It helped put some things in perspective for me.” Picking at the label on the side of my peppermint mocha my mom so lovingly brought for all of us this morning, I let my self feel what I’ve been burying for so long.
“Need to offload whatever that perspective is?”
Looking up, I’m met with soft eyes, ones that remind me so much of my brother’s. I promised myself last night that I wouldn’t run from hard conversations, and I needed to start somewhere. “I don’t think I want to work in sports anymore.” The look of shock on her face brings me so much joy. “What? Not what you were expecting?”
He scoffs, running a hand through his long, dirty blonde hair, “No, absolutely not. Where’d that conclusion come from?”
Truth be told, I’ve always loved sports. Even before college, it was a tradition on Thanksgiving to watch football and then pass out wherever we eventually landed around the house. But somewhere along the way, it became an act of rebellion, some way to prove I was worth something. That I was good at something I loved, now though I can’t say I have the same love for it, I don’t get excited about it.
“My mom and Abby have been telling me I overwork myself for years. Always asking where the rat race will come to an end. It’s always, oh, when I get to this level or that award. There’s really no end; I just felt like I had to keep going.” Looking out past the tree line, the distant hills are covered in a thin layer of fog, the sun just breaking out of its slumber, making the sky a purple hue this early in the morning; I gather some courage to voice what I haven’t been brave enough to admit out loud yet.
“I think my time and effort would be better put to use working for a charity. Working to put the carnival together was a blast, but the sense of fulfillment I had when it came to completion, minus psycho Barbie, I haven’t ever felt that being a journalist.” He nods his understanding, and a weight fee ls like it’s been lifted.
“Last night, I felt free. I gave up friendships and relationships for the sake of getting to the next level of my career. And what do I have to show for it? Pieces of paper saying I wrote the article of the year three years in a row. Big whoop. I’ll never get that time back. I don’t want to waste any more of it.”
“It’s about freaking time.” Abby’s voice cuts through the chilly morning air. She and the rest of the guys file out of the doorway, coffees in hand. “I’m proud of you, sister.” She says as she drops down on the other side of me, her arm snaking around my shoulder. I lean my head on her shoulder and relax, truly letting go of all the crap I’ve let hold me captive all these years. She’s right, it’s time.
“The number of times I’ve found you in this exact spot is probably in the thousands.” I’m off the ground in half a second, flying in the direction the voice came from. I have a bit too much momentum and end up taking us both to the ground, my arms wrapping my baby brother in a bear hug.
“I missed you!” I cry; this was the last piece I was missing. Eight years without seeing my little bestie was slow torture I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The warmth in my soul right now is indescribable.
He, however, is laughing. His chest rumbles under my ear, and I squeeze him a bit tighter. “Missed you too, sis.” He lets me have my moment before he pushes me off him, and I go rolling down the hill in the backyard.
“Jerk!” I call from the bottom with no heat behind my words; I can’t help but smile as he clutches his sides, telling me to stop because he can’t breathe. I ran back up the hill and swatted his arm. “When did you get so big? And why do you have so many muscles?” Scrunching my face and feigning disgust, I give him a very obvious once-over.
“Gotta get the ladies to notice me somehow.” He quips.
Slamming my hands over my ears, I give him a good “LA LA LA LA. I CAN’T HEAR YOU” before returning to sit next to the rose bush. Memories of our childhood play like a highlight reel, the times we’d play “hide and seek” just to get away from our dad. Or the many times we pretended to be secret agents and chase hypothetical bad guys through the forest. The rose bush was always our home base.
“You okay?” He asks as he sits next to me. I don’t know how to answer that because, on one hand, I feel so free, like facing the life I ran from, finally released the hold it had on my life. On the other hand, I’m so freaking mad at myself for wasting all this time on stupidity.
“Obviously, I’m not healed of all the crap we went through growing up; coming back here was a starting point I didn’t know I needed. I feel free to just be me, me, before Dad threw every negative name and label he could at me. Like the little girl I was when we were running around back here chasing deer, finally feels safe enough to venture back out of hiding.”
His arm finds my shoulder and pulls me into his side; I let my head fall to his shoulder and just exist. I let that little girl out, the one who loved her little brother so damn much that she tried to be the shield that kept him from the same treatment from her fa ther. That little girl that just wanted to be loved, she’s safe here now. She can heal now.
“I wish I didn’t let him ruin so much of my life, E. I feel like I’ve missed so much. I didn’t even come home when you graduated. I’ve never forgiven myself for that.” His deep sigh pulls at the guilt I’ve harbored over the years.
“I’m not mad about that. Out of everyone here, you were the one who got the worst of him. Maybe it’s because you stood up for Mom and me; maybe it was just because he was a mentally abusive jerk. I don’t know, but not once have we ever blamed you for not coming back. Now, if I get married here someday and you don’t show up, I might be a little salty.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world little dude.”
“Now, tell me about the guy that made you run nine hours west and a whole state over?” Although Eli may be shy, he’s been my protector since he was old enough to say the word.
“He’s great; I think you’d really like him. He’s like Harley personified.” I smile as I think back on my time with Grey.
“So why are you here? Not that I mind, but I don’t think you’d be here if everything was good.”
“Things kind of got to a boiling point; he said some things, and I reacted.”
“You mean you ran? Did you give him a chance to explain first?” I look down at my hands, finding and pulling at the piece of skin hanging on the side of my thumb.
“No. I should have let him explain. I got overwhelmed and scared, and I bolted.” His hand covers mine to stop the picking; he’s always hated when I did that. Said there were other w ays to deal with anxiety that didn’t involve physical harm.
“You deserve good things, Han. It’s okay to break so you can shine a little brighter. A lifetime of being told you’re not good enough no matter what you do doesn’t go away overnight. It’s good that you’ve gotten to the point where you can come home. But like you said, Dad controlled so much of your life; don’t give him anymore. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume Mr. Harley personified is nothing like Dad.” I nod; if there’s anything I know, it’s that Greyson Wilder is the exact opposite of my father.
“Then you owe it to both of you to keep healing, keep moving, and if you can help each other through the messes you have on the inside, I think you’ll be surprised at how good a relationship can be when it’s the right person.” I eye him skeptically; when did he get so wise?
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
His eyes crinkle at the corner, hand rubbing across his jaw as a smile graces his face. He looks like the little boy I chased around for hours all those years ago. “Let’s just say I’ve learned how not to treat a woman by watching how Dad treated you and Mom.”
There’s a silver lining I wasn’t expecting. I think I’d go through my childhood a hundred times over if it meant keeping my little brother from getting the brunt of it. I’d hate to see him turn out like our father, but he’s too kind; he always has been. A shy, gentle giant. I sometimes wonder how much of his personality is because he tried to make himself small to avoid the heat of things.
We watch the sunset as we talk about everyth ing I’ve missed over the past eight years. The classes he’s taking, the fact that he just changed his major from computer science to creative writing. He’s come to realize his written communication is better than verbal, and he has some ideas for novels he’d like to write. It’s like so much time has passed, but I also feel like no time has passed at all.
“Never thought this would be a sight I got to see again in my lifetime.” Looking over our shoulder, Mom is leaning against the pillars on the porch. “Makes my heart feel full.” She smiles, and it fills me with warmth. “Come on, dinner’s ready. Let me eat with my kids before one of them flies the coop again tomorrow.”
Eli pops up first, extending his hand to me as he helps me off the ground. We link our arms together like we’ve always done and head into the dining room, where we spent many nights in silence, afraid of what was coming. But tonight, instead of fear, there’s nothing here but love. New memories are taping over the old ones.