Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Delilah
Cameron was right. After forty-eight hours I feel mostly back to normal. Aside from painfully sore abs that haven’t been put to this much use since I was in high school training for volleyball. I lift the hem of my loose tank top as I study my reflection in the vanity mirror, half expecting to see a six-pack has miraculously formed from all the heaving.
No such luck.
At least the bruises beneath my eyes are mostly gone. My skin looks healthy again, no longer tinged with a sickly green. I sweep my mussed waves into a ponytail while pushing away the memory of Truett’s hands doing the same. My scalp tingles at the thought of his fingers in my hair. Like I can still feel it two days later.
What a ridiculous thing to come undone over. But I sense it, somewhere in the tight knot of my heart. A loose thread. An unraveling.
“Delilah?” Three raps follow my name.
I break eye contact with myself. “Yeah, Roberta?”
My door cracks, whining on its hinges. Her hair is pinned back today, leaving her face bright and exposed. Her brown eyes are crinkled at the corners, a half smile playing on her lips. “What are you getting up to today?”
The sound of a nursery rhyme played on the keyboard spills in from the hall. It’s echoed by a choppier rendition. Caleb, the little boy I first met the weekend I arrived, is here for another lesson. I wince at a particularly harsh note. Roberta’s lips close around a choked-off giggle.
“I thought about taking Dad for a walk by the river.” I turn away from her. If we keep making eye contact, I’m going to burst into laughter. I’m not trying to crush the boy’s ego. “You know, once the maestro is done with his lesson.”
A sound not unlike what would happen if one pressed every single key at once assaults our ears. My bottom lip quivers as I try to smooth ChapStick on. Roberta snorts but covers it up with a cough.
“Is his mother here?” The memory of her overwhelming questions last time is enough to send a spark of discomfort down my spine. I’ll grin and bear it if I have to. But if I can avoid it, I will.
“Nope,” Roberta says, popping the p . “Said she had errands to run.”
The sigh of relief is involuntary. Roberta offers an understanding smile in response.
“That’s great, Charlie!” Dad’s voice drifts across the hall. “Love your enthusiasm!”
“It’s Caleb,” a small voice replies.
“Your father is overwhelmingly positive,” Roberta muses.
I glance at her reflection in my mirror. I nearly smudge my mascara across my eyebrow when I see how tightly pinched her face is in an effort to contain her laughter.
I bite the corner of my bottom lip. “Always has been. I once served the ball into the bleachers in my early days of volleyball practice, and he stood up cheering like it was the best play he’d ever seen. ”
We both raise our eyebrows as something close enough to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” follows a brief pep talk from my dad.
Our gazes meet and I shrug. “Positive reinforcement. It works wonders.”
“I knew it did.” She smiles warmly, sweeping a hand in my direction. “Look how you turned out.”
My lungs squeeze, choking off my breath. I glance at her over my shoulder and put on my best smile, though inside it feels like she’s carved out a piece of my soul with an ice cream scoop. “Thanks, Roberta.”
“Anytime, sweet pea.” She winks.
I roll my eyes, that tightness releasing enough for a quick intake of breath. “Did you need something?”
“Yes, actually. The school called.”
I turn and rest my hip against the vanity. “The music school?”
She shakes her head. “Nope, the school school. They’re renovating the band and choir classrooms this summer and found some things of your dad’s they thought he might want.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I snap it closed.
Why does even the mention of that place fill me with so much anxiety? I’m a grown woman, so far removed from the girl I was in high school. The girl who walked those halls with her head hung low, listening to the hateful things people who’d known her for her entire life had to say about her family. About her. It shouldn’t hurt like this anymore. It shouldn’t matter.
I patched up that wound with the sutures of a few states’ distance. So why does it still ache?
“Truett said he’d go if you don’t feel up to it,” she offers.
I work to keep my expression neutral, but inside a fault line forms. Do I want to step foot in that hellhole? No. But do I want to let Truett take care of one more thing that is supposed to be my responsibility? Absolutely not .
“I’ll do it.” My voice sounds more confident than I am.
“Perfect,” a familiar voice calls from the living room. Truett’s sure strides thud down the hall, and he appears over Roberta’s shoulder, all smiles. “I’ll drive.”
I glance up at him and my jaw slackens. I’ve been so focused on getting mine and Dad’s health back to one-hundred percent that I’ve had no time to think about the conversation Truett and I had in my room, or even at the river. At the apology he never finished. The one I’m not even sure I’m owed. I don’t know what I want from him anymore, if anything at all, and that scares me. Going on a field trip with him right now isn’t exactly ideal.
My gaze falls from him to Roberta. All attempts at neutrality drop. I know this, because she winces, and her shoulders hit her ears. Sorry, she mouths. But the damage is done.
“Let’s go, Temptress.” He smirks. “We’re late for class.”
“Did you miss this?”
I snort. It comes out harsher than I intend, mostly because my nerves are eating me alive. I clear my throat and try for humor. “Miss what? Traffic jams that involve a train holding up the main thoroughfare through town?”
“This.” His hand sweeps in front of us. The train groans to life at last, moving forward to clear the tracks, letting the long line of waiting vehicles through. “Fly Hollow.”
My gaze cuts from the window to Truett’s profile. His jaw is taut as he chews on a thumbnail, but the rest of his face is relaxed. He’s got a faded Alabama football hat on backward. A tuft of dirty blond hair sticks through the gap on his bronzed forehead. It reminds me of weekends like this, when we’d hop into his truck and ride to the next town over to get a change of scenery. It’s a new truck but the same view. The floorboards are still dusted with grass clippings. The cab still smells of hay and fresh dirt. I breathe it in deeply but quietly. No need for him to know just how much I did, in fact, miss this.
He turns. Catches me staring. The thumb falls away, and a knowing smile ghosts his lips.
Heat flares in my cheeks. I roll my lips, trying to think of something to say. The first thing I can manage is, “Why would I miss this town? Nothing ever happens here.”
His eyes go wide. “Are you kidding?”
I stare at him, unsure of how I earned such a spirited response.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “ Everything happens here, Delilah.”
I cross my arms over my chest, eyebrow arched. “Like what?”
The car in front of us pulls away, signaling our turn to go. Tru tears his eyes away to focus on the road, but I feel it still. The weight of his attention on me.
“Yesterday, a calf was born in my pasture.”
I don’t know what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Isn’t it a little late in the season for that?”
“Bull hopped the fence at an inopportune time,” he grumbles, swiping a hand over his face. “Got a few more coming thanks to that horny bastard.”
“Right. So a calf being born equals everything? Talk about a limited worldview.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “When did you get so uppity?”
My jaw slackens. I was mostly joking, but now irritation courses through me, solidifying my determination to win this weird argument. “I’m not uppity.”
“Are too.” His hand flexes on the steering wheel, the veins in his forearm popping.
“What are you, a child?”
Suddenly I’m careening into the center console as he yanks the wheel toward the shoulder and throws us into park there in the gravel. He turns, gaze fiery, as I right myself.
“What the hell, Tru?”
“Last week, Emily down at Sunshine Grocery said her baby took his first steps.”
I open my mouth, but he presses a finger to my lips, stopping my words along with my breath.
“Do you hear that?” He pauses and a familiar, low chime reaches my ears. “The church bells are ringing. Trinity Martin and Cole Whitcomb, you remember them? They just got married. Promised to grow old together in that little white church.”
I blink. I don’t know how we got here, but I’m tipped unsteady. The phrase poking the bear flits through my mind. Passion ripples underneath Tru’s skin. He’s looking at me hard, gaze raking over my flushed cheeks. My wide eyes. My parted lips, which he releases, though the burn of his touch remains.
His chin dips, and when he speaks again, his voice is low and reverent. It reminds me of his grandfather and the few sermons I watched him preach growing up before my mom put a stop to me going with the Parkers to Sunday service.
“People are starting businesses, building new homes, starting families every damn day. My mama lived and died here, and I stood by as they buried her on that hill behind my home. Things are always happening, Delilah. Life goes on here the same as it does in any big city. In Charleston. We’re just lucky enough to have a hell of a lot more time to slow down and notice.”
He’s right. And that fact lets the hot air right out of me.
My gaze drops to my hands, folded in the cradle of my lap. The truth is, I’ve spent the last nine years listening to my mom rant about everything that makes this town miserable. I’ve clung to those reasons desperately so I could forget all the reasons I grew up loving where I lived. So I’d never feel the need to return. But Tru’s laid them bare before me. There’s no hiding from it all. The simplicity. The slow pace. The way everyone knows about the big and small moments in each other’s lives. Much as it’s miserable when that moment is a shitty one, it’s pretty spectacular when it’s something you’re proud of.
I wasn’t like my friends or even my mom, always itching to get away. I would’ve stayed forever if circumstances had been different. It’s painful to remember that. It feels a lot like grief.
But circumstances are different, I remind myself. All the things that drove me away from here in the first place still exist, like an infection festering beneath the surface. It’s not lost on me that I’m back in a loud, growly truck with the same painfully tempting boy all these years later, on my way to a school I never thought I’d step foot in again.
Only he’s all man now. And I’m a woman who can still feel the buzz of his fingertips on her lips.
I clear my throat, breaking the fragile silence that has settled in the cab, save for the rush of vehicles flying past every few minutes.
“We better go,” I say, voice guarded. “Someone’ll think you’ve broken down and pull off to check.”
“You’re making my point for me,” he mutters, but he puts the truck in drive, sending us on our way.
Some things never change. In fact, in Fly Hollow, very few ever do. The school being a prime example.
The linoleum floor is still a dingy speckled white. The walls are comprised of cement blocks painted with layer after layer of a pale yellow color that makes the hall seem even more dated. As we follow the same ancient office secretary to the wing that houses electives—which, in a school this small, means band, choir, and shop class—my gaze traces over the years of graduating classes framed on the walls. I never got to be in one. The school I graduated from in South Carolina didn’t have that kind of tradition, with 400 students in a single year. I didn’t think that bothered me until we pass the one with all my classmates pictured, and I’m nowhere to be found.
“Alicia is right in here,” Mrs. Pierson croons. Her voice reminds me of wooden wind chimes, hollow but musical. At just shy of five feet tall, she’s a stereotypical grandmother. She wears her readers on a beaded chain. It’s possible that her cardigan was crocheted from a bunch of leftover doilies. Her lips are framed by deep wrinkles, and they quiver at the corners when she smiles like she is now.
“Thanks, Patty.” Truett leans over and kisses the top of her head. I swear the woman blushes.
“Anytime, handsome.” Her birdlike gaze dances between the two of us. “Always did think you two would make the cutest couple someday.”
I hold up a hand. “Oh no, we’re not?—”
“Delilah!”
The three of us turn. The heavy double door to my dad’s old classroom is propped open, and Alicia Busby stands in the threshold, rag in one hand and bottle of cleaner in the other. Her gaze is locked on me.
“Alicia,” I manage to choke out. “What are you doing here?”
Her smile wavers. Mrs. Pierson and Truett exchange a glance.
“Alicia is the new music teacher,” Mrs. Pierson offers. “John Davis, the man who took over after your dad…” Mrs. Pierson’s expression turns sheepish. “He retired this year. Passed Alicia the gauntlet. Isn’t that so special? I remember the two of you girls huddled close in these halls giggling like fools as though it was yesterday.”
Alicia’s hand crosses over her waist to cup her elbow. “Well,” she says, ignoring Mrs. Pierson’s last comment, “this fall I will be. Gotta get the room fixed up first.”
“Small world!” Truett swings an arm around Mrs. Pierson’s shoulders and smiles down at her. “Patty, why don’t I walk you back to the office while these two catch up?”
Her excited, “I’d love that!” drowns out my attempts at protesting.
“Be back shortly, Delilah.” Truett’s gaze is hard as it locks with mine, like a warning. Or a plea. “Alicia.” He nods at her, that tuft of hair bobbing on his forehead, then turns with Mrs. Pierson still in his arms. They walk down the hallway attached at the hip, like those couples that annoyed me in high school. Only much slower.
“Now, when are you coming back to mow my lawn, boy?” is the last thing I hear before they turn the corner.
I scoff. “Whose lawn doesn’t he mow?”
“Mine,” Alicia pipes up, raising one of her hands as my gaze returns to her. “Though my husband is very territorial about the yard, so it’s no surprise. Real lawn guy, that one.”
My eyebrows lift. “You’re married?”
She flips that raised hand around, the cleaning cloth now tucked between her thumb and forefinger, to show me her sparkling oval-cut ring. “Mrs. Alicia Busby-Hughes at your service.”
Hyphenated. Nice. I don’t recognize the name, so I ask, “Where’d you meet him?”
“College. I went to UWF,” she says, smiling softly. Alicia has always been smiley. When we became friends in kindergarten, it was because she was the only other kid who didn’t cry on the first day of school. I made friends with the teacher right away, since I’d always enjoyed the company of adults more than kids, so I wasn’t scared. Alicia is just a happy-go-lucky person, so she took it all in stride with a gap-toothed grin. We bonded to one another, content with our crayons and picture books, while our teacher handled everyone else.
I shift uncomfortably. Nothing could hold a candle to my friendship with Tru, but for most of my life, Alicia and I were incredibly close. We played volleyball together for years. We’d swap stories about our crushes (she’s the only person who ever knew mine was my lifelong best friend) and commiserate over period pains. When she iced me out after everything with my parents, it didn’t hurt quite as much as Tru, but it still created a gaping hole in my life.
“Delilah, listen?—”
“Where’s Dad’s stuff?” I interject, glancing over her shoulder. “Y’all told his caretaker you found some of his things.”
“Caretaker?” Her dark brows furrow. She looks like Snow White, with pale skin and a thick, black bob that’s grown out enough to dust her shoulders. Even her lips are bright red today, her makeup perfect despite the fact that from the looks of the classroom, she’s knee-deep in dust and debris from the renovations. “I guess I just assumed I was talking to a new wife or something. Is everything okay?”
I think about sugarcoating it, but my conversation with Truett left me wrung out. Seeing Alicia again is the cherry on top. I can’t come up with anything but the truth. “He has dementia.”
“What, like Alzheimer’s?”
“Frontotemporal dementia,” I say, my voice a thin monotone. “Different cause than Alzheimer’s. Similar result.”
Her red mouth forms a perfect little O of shock. “Isn’t he too young?”
I swallow hard, my gaze dropping to the floor. Does it ever get easier to say this all aloud? To make it real by making it known?
To my surprise, she drops the cleaning materials and steps forward, her arms wrapping around my shoulders as she pulls me in tight. She smells like vanilla body spray and paint. I stiffen beneath her touch. Alicia is smiley, and a hugger. It’s all so familiar and yet so very strange.
“I’m so sorry, Delilah.”
I force myself to reach around her and grab on. Lightly at first, and then I’m squeezing her so much tighter than I planned. Because I’m sorry, too.
She leans back, her hands locking on my biceps as our gazes meet. “I’m sorry for a lot more than that. After everything with your parents, and Tru’s mom?—”
“We really don’t have to talk about all that,” I mutter. I try to pull away, but her fingers dig into my skin. Not enough to hurt, but enough to hold me in place.
“We do.” She licks her lips and swallows. I briefly wonder what lipstick she’s wearing, because it doesn’t smudge. “You and your dad were like a second family to me. The number of days I spent in this classroom, soaking up any- and everything he could teach me? I’m sure my brain turned half to mush.” She shakes her head, her dark locks swaying gently. “I was seventeen and stupid, and I didn’t know how to handle everything when the news got out. My parents were freaking out about your family being a bad influence, people were filling my head with so much nonsense…”
She’s babbling, which she always did when she was nervous. I snort at the familiar trait, even as tears burn the backs of my eyes. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
She slaps an open palm against her forehead. “Sorry.” Her chest expands with a deep breath, and a phantom smile tugs at her lips. “Do you know what’s so ironic? While I was away at college, my mom ended up having an affair with Jessica’s mom.” She shakes her head. “What’s that saying again about throwing stones in glass houses?”
“Jessica Mathias? ” The bitch who made sure the entire school knew all the sordid details? “That’s fucking rich. ”
Alicia huffs out a laugh. “Anyway, I should’ve reached out to you then and told you how sorry I was, but I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.” Her arms drop to her sides. “Really, I should’ve stood up for you in the first place. Like a real friend.”
The bridge of my nose burns. I blink against the sting of it, and when that’s not enough, pinch the source.
She’s watching me with her wide brown gaze. Waiting, I assume, for me to accept her apology. Only I don’t know if I want to, or how to do so even if I did. I made up my mind about all these people so many years ago. It’s disorienting to find so much wasn’t as it seemed.
I’m off-kilter, so out of my depth. With my dad. Truett. And now Alicia. I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll feel steady again.
“My dad’s stuff?” I mumble, folding my hands at my waist.
She nods, offering a somber smile. “Right. Come inside. I’ll grab it for you really quick.”
The classroom is in a state of disarray. All the posters with cheesy musical puns and various awards the band won during my dad’s time are gone from the walls and shelves. The doors to the instrument rooms are open, their cubbies bare. The only thing left is the baby grand piano, which I recognize from its shape alone under a protective drop cloth.
My dad’s proudest accomplishment was raising enough money to purchase that piano for the classroom. To teach kids on a “real piano” like he’d always dreamed of owning. It makes me think of the little keyboard in his home office, and my throat constricts. He used to talk about buying one for himself when he retired, a music-obsessed man’s version of a midlife crisis. The loss of that dream hits me hard in the chest. I look away from the instrument, past the stacks of chairs by the back door, to the glowing light coming from what used to be his office. Alicia appears in the doorway carrying a cardboard box.
“Let me get that!” Truett calls out from behind me. I turn in time to see him stride past. He relieves Alicia of the box with a grunt. “Man, what’d Henry do? Leave his whole life behind?”
His lips flatten the moment the words are out of his mouth. The room collectively holds its breath, waiting for my response. He did, I want to say. We all did.
“Is that all?” I mumble instead.
They exchange a quick glance. Alicia takes a step toward me. “That’s everything, I think. If I find anything else, I can give you a call. Is your number still the same?”
“Yes,” I say at the same time Tru grumbles, “If she hasn’t blocked you.”
Her mouth pops open, but before she can ask, I say, “You’re not blocked!” and shoot Truett an exacerbated glare.
He shrugs and offers Alicia a smile. All that heated tension from the ride over is gone from his face. And thank God, because regular Truett is hard enough to be around. Passionate Truett is a new level of danger for my psyche.
“Thanks, Alicia.” I give her a wave and start toward the door with Truett hot on my heels. We step into the hallway, disjointedly bright after the dimness of the deconstructed band room. I blink against the glare coming off the yellow walls, feeling a headache forming at my temples.
“Hey, Delilah?”
I turn. Truett shifts to reveal Alicia braced in the doorway, her flowy tunic top still moving against her thighs as she comes to a stop.
“I don’t know how long you’re in town, but if you ever want to hang out, I’d love to catch up.”
My lips thin and I nod. “I’m not sure, but I’ll let you know. Thanks again.”
I try to look away before the disappointment on her face can lodge in my memory, but it’s too late.
Truett hefts the box into the back seat on my side. As he’s slamming the door shut, I step around him to climb in, and he surprises me with an outstretched hand. “Need a lift?”
Surprise ripples through me. That he would offer, when we were in some sort of pseudo-argument a mere half hour ago. I place my palm in his, briefly marveling at his rough hands against my delicate ones, before he passes me into the seat and lets go.
The truck rumbles to life. I yank my seat belt over my shoulder and clip in. Since this man is prone to flying off the road at any moment to lecture me about the benefits of small-town living, I need all the security I can get.
“So you’re not sure how long you’ll be here?” His voice dips low as we reverse out of our parking space. “What happened to ‘as long as Dad needs me’?”
I stare straight ahead, afraid of what I might see if I glance his way. “That’s still the plan.”
A hum vibrates his throat. “Do you think you’ll take Alicia up on her offer?”
The school slowly grows smaller in the side mirror. I roll the window down and brace my elbow on the sun-warmed windowsill, inhaling the fresh scent of azaleas that flows in on the breeze. “I don’t know.”
Tru scoffs. “Why not? Are you morally opposed to having friends?”
I turn and level him with a hard glare. “Do I really want friends who can’t stand up for me when someone is hurting me? Who will abandon me when my life is falling apart?”
It’s harsh, but it’s the truth. Just because he and I have found some sort of truce doesn’t mean that all magically goes away.
His chest deflates, shoulders caving. He flicks on the blinker to pull onto the main road through town. “You’ve got to allow people to grow, Delilah. You can’t spend your whole life seeing people as their worst mistake. I doubt you’d want to be judged by yours. ”
I blink, momentarily stunned. Exposed, if I’m being honest.
He pins me with a sidelong glance. “Or does the great Delilah Ridgefield never make mistakes?”
I slump against the leather seat, letting its blistering heat seep into my body, but it does nothing to ward off the cold of his statement. I wish I could tell him that’s right. That I don’t make mistakes. But all I can see when I close my eyes is my dad’s face the day Mom and I drove away. Mom’s disappointment when I told her I was coming here. Lately it seems like mistakes are all I make.
We ride the rest of the way home in silence. I climb out of the car and retrieve the box of my father’s things wordlessly. As Truett pulls away, headed toward town instead of the farmhouse, I can’t help but add the look of disapproval on his face to the slideshow that appears when I blink, contemplating his question.
I’ve never been able to decide if it’s the things I have done with Truett or those I wish I had, that make him one of my greatest mistakes. Only that he sits at the top of the list.