Chapter 3
Twilight was descending as I stepped out of the diner and onto the sidewalk. I glanced around the quiet streets of downtown, looking for any signs of trouble. My mysterious stranger. Brian out for blood. Whatever else might be hiding in the shadows.
There was nothing. I waited for my breaths to come a little easier, but they didn’t. My muscles were wound so tight I couldn’t get a pain-free inhale.
But I was used to living with pain. I could do what I had to even if I was in agony. So, I started walking.
There were still people out and about. Going to dinner or maybe a movie. People whose lives seemed so normal, at least from my vantage point.
I couldn’t help but wonder what that would be like. To live a life where worry and fear wasn’t pressing down every single day.
As I headed for the next block, my steps faltered. My foot nearly caught on the curb of the sidewalk as I took in a figure rounding the corner. I blinked as I righted myself, trying to get a better look at the guy.
There was something about that little crook in his nose.
It looked so much like the same one Colt had after taking a baseball to the face when we were six.
There were other things that resembled Colt, too.
Or what I imagined my best friend would look like now, my mind filling in the empty spaces that eight years without a glimpse or word had left.
I blinked again as the guy disappeared from sight. As I did, the memory of the figure suddenly didn’t look quite like what I had thought. His shoulders were too broad, his hair too dark.
It was official, I was seeing things. It shouldn’t have surprised me that I was cracking up. That I was trying to conjure Colt out of thin air when I was so damned lonely.
An ache flared to life in my chest as a memory flashed through my mind. Colt and I were running through a field behind my old house, chasing each other in the rain. Our laughter lifted on the air, swirling around us.
Colt had become a symbol of sorts. For better times. When life was simpler. When my father still walked this earth. When everything hadn’t shattered into unrecognizable pieces.
My backpack thumped against my side as I stepped off a curb, and pain ricocheted through me. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
This was what happened when you got distracted, when you let yourself get lost in memories of a life that was no longer yours. It was better to stay in the here and now.
I shifted so that my backpack was no longer pressing against the worst of the bruises.
The weight pressed down on my shoulders, but I could handle that.
At least the humidity wasn’t horribly oppressive today.
Fall was beginning to settle in around our small town in Louisiana, and I was beyond grateful.
Rounding the corner, I cut through one of my favorite neighborhoods.
The houses were all neatly kept, with pots and planters full of brightly colored blooms. I’d saved up for my own pot of plants one time, but my mom had ripped out the daisies, saying they were a waste of perfectly good money.
But I guessed booze and cigarettes weren’t a waste.
I’d have my flowers one day. So many I’d get lost in the sea of them. I just had to make it through my senior year. Get one of the many scholarships I was applying for. And break free.
As I turned onto another street, the homes around me changed. Not quite as well-kept. The grass was patchy in places, and the paint a bit faded.
The walk home was a silent preparation for what was to come. Reminding me to brace for whatever might lie ahead. Because whatever it was, it was never good.
By the time I reached my street, the houses were a depressing shade that no one would be able to identify.
Either because people were working way too hard trying to stay afloat to spend any time on their property, or because they simply didn’t care.
Paint peeled off the siding of homes, grass looked more like a jungle or was burned away by who knew what, and junk littered the yards.
Trudging up a cracked driveway, a voice stopped me in my tracks.
“You’re late.”
The voice sounded as if it were coated in sandpaper and dunked in acid. Raspy and patchy, as if not every tone could make it out of her throat.
I stilled, forcing my gaze to the woman on the front steps. I wouldn’t call her “Mom”. Not even in my mind. She certainly wasn’t recognizable as the woman who’d raised me. Not that she had been especially warm then, either. She’d always been…distant. But I’d had my dad, so it hadn’t mattered.
But now, the woman who had once been so put together was…
fraying. She wore jean cutoffs that looked more like underwear than shorts, a tank top that dipped low and had some sort of stain on it, with neon green bra straps peeking out, and a cigarette dangled from her lips.
Her hair, that had once been a deep shade of brown, was now bleached within an inch of its life.
Yesterday’s makeup had sort of melted down her face, making her look like a raccoon.
“I said you’re late, Leighton,” she snapped.
“I had school,” I said softly. I’d learned long ago that arguing with her was never a good thing, and raising my voice was a disaster. All I could do was give quiet explanations and hope that she would see them as justified.
Maryanne huffed. “What a waste. It’s not like you’ll ever amount to anything.”
I hated that the words still hurt. That they branded my skin, leaving invisible scars to match the ones clear to see.
It was as if she were trying to counter every message my father had ever told me.
That I could do anything I set my mind to.
That I was kind and clever. Beautiful in every way. But to Maryanne, I’d always be nothing.
I stayed silent. Waiting for more. To be berated or sent off, sometimes worse. But she seemed too hungover for the worst right now.
“Chuck and I are going out tonight. You’ll clean the house while we’re gone. Every room.”
Every muscle in my body constricted at the sound of his name. Maryanne’s boyfriend had a different sort of cruelty. And the comments he’d begun to make over the past year turned my stomach. Comments I was terrified would turn to action.
“Okay,” I said.
“Speak up,” Maryanne barked.
“Okay,” I echoed louder.
Her eyes narrowed. “You talking back to me?”
This was the game we always played. How she could accuse me of something that wasn’t my fault, then think of the myriad of ways to punish me for it.
“No, ma’am.”
Maryanne laughed, but it had an ugly twist to it. “Just remember, I can kick you out of here whenever I damn well please, so you better earn your keep.”
I simply nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
“Get out of my sight,” she snipped.
I didn’t hesitate. I headed for the detached garage as fast as my feet would carry me, not caring that my backpack thumped against the bruises along my side. Slipping my key from my pocket, I unlocked the side door.
Old junk was piled up, things my mom didn’t want to give away for one reason or another, even though they were broken beyond repair. But those broken things had become my wall of protection.
I figured my mom knew I stayed back here, but she never bothered trying to find me, even though my room in the house lay vacant. It had ever since the day of my sixteenth birthday. Instead, I’d made a home amongst the trash. It was fitting, given that was all she thought I was.
I wound through stacks of car parts and old appliances, boxes of magazines, and who knew what else. It was a path I knew by heart. I could make it through the maze blindfolded and in the dark.
A soft meow sounded from deeper in the space. A smile tugged at my lips, the first one since I’d left my safe haven this morning. “I’m coming,” I called.
Briar answered with another meow, a little more insistent this time.
I made it through the maze and stepped into the tiny home I’d made myself.
An old mattress was pushed up against the wall, covered in quilts I’d found in one of the boxes Maryanne had stored in here.
A milk crate lay next to it that I’d turned into a nightstand.
A camping lantern sat on top of the nightstand that was just enough light to do homework.
I’d created a dresser of sorts from empty boxes that housed my few outfits and other belongings.
It wasn’t much, but I could breathe in here.
Briar brushed against my legs, and I slid my backpack off so that I could pick her up. She meowed and butted her head against my chin. “I missed you, too.”
I stroked behind her ear that was missing the tip from some fight she’d had before I’d rescued her. Who was I kidding? She was the one who’d done the rescuing.
A creaking sound had me tensing, panic setting in. Chuck and Maryanne had always been too lazy to search for me, but maybe that was changing. I frantically searched the space for my baseball bat.
“LeeLee?”
I froze. That voice. I knew it almost better than my own, even after not hearing it for eight years. It wasn’t possible, yet hope bloomed in my chest. Treacherous hope. I didn’t want to look because I didn’t want to find out I was wrong.
“LeeLee…”
There it was again. I forced my gaze toward the sound. My eyes locked with ones that were a unique sort of hazel. A mixture of green with flecks of gold and other tones I couldn’t identify but had always tried.
“Colt?” I croaked.