by McLean, Jay
“That basket was the reason you chose it, remember?” I turn swiftly at the sound of Mr. Preston’s deep rumble and blink back the wetness in my eyes. I was not expecting tears. I’m better than that now. Stronger. My constant tears were a sign of weakness, and they don’t belong here, in my body, in my peace.
I nod once, the air in my throat too shallow to speak.
“When Leo saw the FOUND posters around town, he made sure that we got it back as soon as possible. I think there was a part of him that was hoping you’d return.” Trigger. “Every year I do a massive clear-out, and I try to get rid of them, but he won’t let me,” he says. Trigger. Trigger.
I stare at Mr. Preston, wondering how much he knows. Did Leo tell him why I left, or why he chose never to come back that last summer? Regardless of the answer, it didn’t matter. Mr. Preston’s the reason all of this started. If he hadn’t invited me here that first summer, I would’ve never met his boys, and I could’ve— “Why did you invite me here?” I find myself asking, and I hate the way my words wobble with my speech. It’s a question I’ve found myself asking too many times over the past five years, and I could never come up with an answer definitive enough to stick with. I never thought I’d get the chance to find out, but I’m here, he’s here, and I need to know.
Mr. Preston’s hands are shoved in his pockets as he leans against the garage door frame. It’s a move so similar to his son’s, or vice versa. “When I found out that Virginia had a kid that she couldn’t be with—take care of—because she was working to take care of mine, I didn’t think it fair to her.”
I scoff. “Is that what she told you? That she had to leave me so she could work here?”
His eyes narrow, his lips pulling down in a frown as he nods once. “Is that not what happened?”
I almost laugh. Almost. “Mr. Preston—”
“Tom,” he cuts in.
“Tom,” I say, and the single syllable seems foreign in my mouth. “My mom abandoned me when I was three. When she contacted me to come here when I was younger, it was the first we’d heard from her in three years.” I smile, proud of myself. Years ago, I vowed to stop protecting the people who didn’t give me the same in return. I add, “Whatever story she told you was a lie, probably to gain your pity. And I’m sorry she did that to you.”
Tom’s quiet a beat, his eyes on mine, and I look away. It’s too much. “No, Mia,” he says eventually. “I’m sorry she did that to you.”
I shrug, try to play it down. There’s only so much childhood trauma I can handle right now.
“You’re welcome to it,” he says, his voice picking up, and when I look at him, he’s pointing to the bike. “It’s yours.”
Shaking my head, I answer, “I’m good, thanks.” Besides, the bike was never mine. Nothing here was ever mine.
Before he has a chance to reply, his phone rings, and he answers, mumbling something to the tune of “I’ll be right there.” He glances at me one more time, and I can tell he wants to say something, but neither of us knows what, and so he nods, and I do the same, then I stick to my original plan of why I came to the garage in the first place: to hide. I sit on the apartment steps, and, as a much-needed distraction, I go through my emails on my phone, archiving, marking, forwarding, replying, over and over. I don’t know how long I sit there, getting lost in my work when I hear male voices approaching. I look up and see the three youngest Preston boys round the corner. They smile when they see me, and then continue into the garage. A moment later, when they come back out, one of the twins is holding a box of sky lanterns, and Lachlan, the “baby,” who’s now a teenager, is carrying a box of fireworks. It’s only now I realize I’ve been working from my phone for hours, and the sun is beginning to set. I blink the fatigue from my eyes and stand. The boys start to leave. Well, two of them do. One stays. The empty-handed twin. “It’s Mia, right?” he asks, and his voice… he sounds so much like Leo, like the eighteen-year-old version of him that’s trapped in my mind when I allow myself to think about him. The boy standing in front of me would be about the same age now.
I nod. “Liam?”
His smile reaches his eyes. “You had a fifty-fifty shot of getting it right.” A small chuckle filters from his lips. “And you got it.”
I force a smile. I could always tell the difference between the identical twins. It’s their hairlines. The widow’s peaks are off-center. Liam’s is slightly on the left, and Lincoln’s is the right. It was the only way I could tell them apart when I was younger.
“We’re about to set off the lanterns,” Liam tells me, his grin crooked as he motions his head toward the party. “You should come and watch.”
It’s strange, this jolt of emotion that nags at me. For so many days during the summers, all I wanted was to be included and be part of their world. And this… this is all it took. Such a tiny gesture. Too bad it came almost a decade late. I open my mouth to decline, to make up some stupid excuse, but before I can, he shrugs, says, “It’s for my mom. It’s just a thing we do. She’s up there, you know? In heaven. So we set the skies ablaze, let her know we’re thinking of her.”
Well, shoot. My shoulders deflate, along with my facade. How the heck can I say no to that?
Liam and I walk side by side toward the party. We don’t talk, but I can tell that he’s shortening his steps to match mine so he doesn’t leave me behind. Another small gesture years too late. When we get closer and I’m surrounded by the rest of the non-Preston guests, he throws me a quick, “I’ll catch ya later,” and then starts jogging to catch up with the rest of his siblings. He must yell out something because a few of them turn to him. Lucas is the first, but his eyes don’t find Liam immediately. They find mine. The blue of his eyes becomes black as I take them in, let them seep into my veins, replacing my blood with thick, ugly tar.
Trigger.
I blink.
“Where are they going?” a woman behind me asks.
And someone replies, “To the dock.”
Trigger. Trigger.
I can’t be here anymore, and that’s a fact. It’s not an emotional choice or an opinion or a want. It’s a need. I spin quickly and don’t bother looking for my mom as I make my way to the makeshift parking lot by the property gate. My mom’s car is unlocked, and so I sit in the passenger seat and allow myself two things:
Time.
And grace.
My knees bounce, rocking the car back and forth, and I don’t try to hide it. I cry, soft and silent. Thick tears stream down my face, and I let them sit for one minute. Two. Three. When I wipe them away, I see the darkened sky lit with bubbles of fire—the lanterns. It’s pathetic that I smile, that I think of Mrs. Preston up there in the sky, in heaven, knowing that her kids are thinking of her.
The partygoers are quiet as they watch the lanterns float to a new existence, and I breathe. Slowly. Quietly. And then I reach across the car and pull the lever to release the trunk. My luggage is still there, where it’s been since Mom picked me up from the airport. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know that I can’t stay here and I can’t stay with her. I take the luggage out of the trunk, and then, as quietly as I existed in this place all those years ago, I disappear the same way.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Leo
Before the crying and the yelling and the truth, there was everything.
There was you, a girl I’d been in love with since love was a choice, and you were naked and sitting on the edge of the bed. The morning sun filtered through the cracks of the blinds, and they made what parts of your irises I could see from your half-closed lids look like honey. Sweet.
Like you.
You were half asleep, and you asked me twice for the time. Your voice was rough from lack of use, but it was still soft, pure, perfect.
Like you.
I took my time dressing you, taking your ankles in my hands and slipping on your shorts, and when your hands landed on my shoulders to rise just a little so I could bring them over your hips
, there was a moment.
One single, insignificant moment.
It surged through me like a blast of lightning right through my chest.
I envisioned a life with you, and it wasn’t because you were naked and you were mine. It was your hands on me. Depending on me to keep you grounded. Keep you safe. But help you rise. You didn’t notice that I stared at you then, and the visions I had weren’t blurred or hazy. They were clear and concise, and this, I thought to myself. This is what I want forever and a day.
A lifetime of single, insignificant moments.
I used to think of you as my sunrise, but in that moment, I realized you were the sun, the stars, the moon, the sky, the ground, and everything in between.
Before the crying and the yelling and the truth, there was you.
And you were everything.
These are the words I’d wanted to say to Mia if I saw her again. I’d written and rewritten it so many times that I had it memorized. It’s not that I wanted her back or wanted her forgiveness… I just—for some reason, I needed her to know that she was loved.
Before the crying and the yelling and the truth, there was love.
If I’m being honest, I never thought the opportunity would come. I still wasn’t a firm believer of fate, but maybe… she’s here, and I’m here, and I don’t know what I expected to feel when I saw her again. When she came into view, standing just inside the door of my house, it was like a dream, a fantasy. And the only words that came to mind were the ones written in notebook after notebook in preparation for this one moment. If this happened in one of Lucy’s books, I’d have pushed all my siblings aside, marched down those stairs, stood before her, and declared all those feelings, out loud, fuck who was listening. But this wasn’t a fictional story, and I was no one’s hero. So I watched her, from afar, as the day went on and on and on. She disappeared for a couple of hours, but I knew she was still around. If she stayed long enough, I’d be able to catch her, and then... I don’t know if I would’ve told her word for word what I’d planned. I probably would’ve started with Hi, how are you?
It seemed the right thing to do.
If I actually got the nerve to approach her.
God, she’s beautiful. But she’d always been, so that was nothing new. There was a reverence to her now, though, something bold. And I feared that forcing her to even look at me might take all that away. And that was a terrifying thought.
So I waited, and waited, and waited. And then poof, she was gone.
Like a dream.
Like a fantasy.
* * *
The party’s over now, and all the guests have left besides Lucy’s group of friends who are at the fire pit by the lake. Katie, my niece, is sleeping in the crib in Dad’s room, and he’s passed out, snoring like the tired old man he always tells us he is. I’m in the garage apartment with Logan and Red, his girlfriend. I spend more time here than I do in my own room. Ever since the shit that happened with Logan, I don’t like to be too far from him. At first, I thought I might be smothering him with all my big brother bullshit, but then he pulled me aside and told me that he appreciated it, that he needed me to be that person for him, which is good, because I didn’t really plan on going anywhere any time soon.
“Are you ready?” Red, whose real name is Aubrey, asks as she sits on the couch opposite me.
“For what?”
Logan uncaps a beer and hands it to me. “Academy.”
Right. I was leaving for the police academy in less than a week, and I’d be gone for near six months, which made the whole creeping-around-my-little-brother thing hard, but still doable. I take a sip of the beer and nod once. “Yeah, I think so.”
I’d already passed all the previous tests, and Misty, Laney’s kind of stepmom, lined up a job for me as soon as I graduate. If I graduate. Misty and I had become close over the past few years, ever since I told her that I was interested in joining law enforcement. So close that when she had a son with Laney’s dad, they asked me to be his godfather. They named him Preston. To be honest, it was a little overwhelming at first—all that responsibility—but man, it helps that he’s cute as hell, and for some unknown reason, he really looks up to me.
“Dude,” Logan says, flopping down on the couch next to Red. His hands are free. He doesn’t drink alcohol. Weed was his vice. In normal circumstances, it isn’t too bad, unless you’re using that drug to help murder the memories of your past. Which he was. “How much has Mia changed?” I can hear the underlying meaning in his words, and so can his girlfriend, because she narrows her eyes at him and smirks at the same time. “I’m just saying!” Logan laughs out, kissing the side of her head. Red simply rolls her eyes and allows him to bring her closer. And before I can even process the fact that he’s even said Mia’s name, he’s telling me, “I gave her a ride to the hotel.”
“What? When?” Now Logan narrows his eyes at me, and I try to play it cool. “I mean, I didn’t see her leave or anything, so…”
Aubrey stifles a giggle. “You should just sex her,” she tells me, using Lachlan’s toddler talk. “I saw you watching her the whole day.”
It’s true. I was. And also: been there, done that. Greatest sex of my life. And then the crying and the yelling and the truth happened.
“After we set off the lanterns,” Logan says, clueless to the silent message his girlfriend’s trying to send me through her eyes alone. “Lucy asked me to get more ice, so I left, and Mia was walking on the side of the road with her luggage. I felt bad, so I offered her a ride.”
“Huh.” It’s all I can get out.
“What did you talk about?” Red asks. “How much she’s changed?” She’s still teasing him in that way they do—to each other—all the time.
Logan shakes his head. “Nah, she didn’t really talk much. I tried, but it was clear she didn’t have a lot to say.”
I chew my lip.
“But she did mention that she was here trying to get Virginia to sign divorce papers for her dad or something. I didn’t even know Virginia was married.”
You don’t know the half of it, I want to tell him, but my chest is too tight, and my throat is too dry, and so I down the entire bottle of beer in my hand.
Red notices.
Logan doesn’t.
Mia’s doing something for her dad? There are so many things to process in that one sentence, and I don’t know where to start. Five years is a long time for so many things to happen, to change, and really—I don’t know a single thing about Mia’s life now. Not that I knew much about it then.
“Anyway,” Logan keeps talking. “When I dropped her off, I, uh…” He rubs the back of his head in discomfort. “I kind of tried to apologize if I was ever a dick to her and—”
“Wait.” I set the beer bottle on the coffee table and lean forward. “What exactly did you say?” Red’s eyeing me curiously, but I don’t care. Whatever he said, it could be a trigger. It happens. I read about it, and it’s bad.
“I think my exact words were…” Logan starts, eyeing me sideways. “I’m sorry if I was a dick to you.”
“That’s it?”
He nods.
“What did she say?”
“She kind of scoffed, thanked me for the ride, and then left.”
“That’s a little rude,” Red says, but she doesn’t know. None of them do. And there’s no way I’m ever going to tell Logan. Especially now that he has his own triggers to deal with.
* * *
It was about a week after I left her that I found the courage to actually think about everything that had happened... once the anger and self-pity and guilt became too strong to ignore.
It didn’t make sense to me at the time—why her dad was there and exactly what happened that led to him showing up the way he did.
My dad had questions, too, obviously, and I never knew what to say. “I’m a fuck-up” didn’t seem like enough. So, eventually, he left me alone.
But I had questions, and all of them kept me up at
night, stopped me from being able to function like a somewhat decent human being.
What?
When?
How?
Why?
So I researched, and I remembered.
Everything.
Dentists are actually trained to recognize the side effects of bulimia. Vomit contains acid that eats away at the enamel that protects your teeth. If you do it enough, your teeth can erode. Mia had been doing it for three years.
I suspect her “workouts” in the barn, where she felt “self-conscious” and didn’t want anyone watching, was where she did most of her purging. The barn had its own toilet, and a lock, and enough space that no one would hear her.
The how is pretty self-explanatory.
And the why… the why was the only question I already had the answers to. And I hold on to those answers tight. Every second. Every day. To remind myself that I never want to be anyone’s reason for anything ever again.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Mia
If a silent scream could actually be heard, everyone in this sports bar would be diving under their tables or fleeing from the psychopath whose throat that scream came from.
Me.
I would be that psychopath.
I slam my phone on the bar and drop my head on it. Again and again. Because this is officially my third day here, and my mother is doing absolutely everything she can to evade me. The day after the party, I knocked on her friend Leslee’s door and demanded she sign the divorce papers. When that didn’t work, I begged. I pleaded. She told me to leave the papers with her and she’d go through it and sign. She still hasn’t. I was so done with being here, and I needed to get back home. Dad even told me to book the flight. He said it wasn’t worth this toll it was taking on me and assured he’d find another way. But I was determined, and it wasn’t even just for him and his hopefully soon-to-be wife. It was for me, too. Deep down, I knew that. This was going to be my little eff-you and one last, final goodbye to the woman who birthed me. I don’t hate anyone. I’ve never hated anyone, but she—she came damn close a few times.