“Maya, let’s go,” I call into the entryway. My parents have already left this afternoon so it’s just us two.
I hear a door opening before she shouts, “A hand with my bags would be nice!”
Normally I’d chuckle and come up with a witty comeback, but I’m not in a good mood tonight. I take the stairs two at a time, frowning at the large suitcase along with two duffel bags sitting outside her room. “How long are you staying for again?”
She appears in the doorway with another bag and her guitar case. “Hi to you, too.”
I smile at her, shouldering the two duffel bags and pulling up the handle on the suitcase. “Are you sure you’ve left anything at all in your closet?”
She rolls her eyes and saunters down the stairs before me. “I have a lot of bags, get over it already. Oh, and Mom made some meals. They’re on the counter in the kitchen.”
I hold back the sarcastic laugh I want to let out. “You might want to get those on account of me being loaded down with all these bags.”
She huffs but walks toward the kitchen as I get her luggage in the car and wait for her to lock up the house.
She climbs in the car and I motion for her to put her seatbelt on. Rolling her eyes she says, “I’m not two, Nate. I do know how to put my seatbelt on.”
“Then do it instead of staring at your phone.”
“What’s up your ass?”
“Don’t say ass,” I retort as I turn onto the street and begin the drive back to my place.
“Again I’ll remind you that I’m fifteen and not two.” She doesn’t stop her fingers flying over the screen of her cell as she answers and I find myself unnecessarily annoyed.
“I hope you’re not going to be on that thing all week.”
“I hope you’re not going to be in this mood all week,” she counters.
I sigh. “Sorry, Maybug. I need a beer and to fester on the couch. It’s been a long day.”
She nods but doesn’t say anything until near the turnoff of my road. “Can I go in the pool?”
“After you unpack, sure.” I press the fob on the steering wheel of the SUV and the garage door opens and closes behind us when we drive in. “I might join you. A swim sounds like fun.”
We get the car unpacked and Maya automatically takes the room by the pool: she always stays in there. While she unpacks I take the containers of food my mom made for us, rather unnecessarily since I’m a grown man and I can cook for myself, but it’s appreciated all the same. I put them in the refrigerator and open a beer, chugging back some as I walk through the main room. Just as I’m about to walk down the hallway, I hear the ping of my cell.
I walk over to it and I don’t know if I’m happy or pissed with the message on the screen.
AMELIA: I miss you.
I type back furiously.
NATE: Tell me where you live and I’ll come over.
The three dots signaling she’s typing pop up, taunting me as they suddenly stop and I get no reply. I take a pull on my beer, staring at the screen, but when no message pops up I message Tris for her address.
TRIS: Amelia’s address? Why?
Shit. I’d forgotten in my haste that we hadn’t told him about us yet—if there even is an us anymore.
I stare down at my screen, wracking my brain for an explanation, thinking I’m a genius as I message him back.
NATE: Maya is here for the week so I took it off work. I thought I could take the kids out for the day? Maybe take them to see Amelia.
TRIS: Sounds like a great idea, except I don’t know her address. She said she’d message me but I’ve not heard anything. I’m not happy about it but I’ve been letting her settle in.
That doesn’t make sense, they’re like her family. Why the radio silence?
NATE: I’ll find out what it is. How does Thursday sound for me to have the kids?
I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and a few more days before I go knocking.
We make the arrangements before I’m dialing a number I’ve desperately avoided calling, the ring tone reverberating through my nerves telling me I’m invading her privacy.
“Nate, what’s up? Thought you were off work for the week?”
“This isn’t about work, Holland.” I blow out a breath. “I need you to find out where someone lives.”
“Not for work?”
“No. And I need you to be discreet.”
There’s a long pause before his gravelly voice says, “Alright, but only because it’s you and I know you’re not a creep.”
I chuckle. “Gee, thanks.”
“Nate!” Maya shouts from down the hallway.
“Be there in a sec,” I reply, holding my hand over the phone before returning to the conversation with Holland. “It’s Amelia, she moved and I know she’s having problems so I want to help.”
“Your girlfriend?” My stomach drops because I don’t even know if that’s what she is anymore. “How do you not know where your girlfriend lives?”
I sigh, not having the patience to explain everything to him, so I give him a half truth. “We had a fight before she moved, nothing serious but I’m worried about her.”
“You do realize that stalking is illegal,” he jokes.
I laugh. “And you do realize part of your job is to stalk.”
“I’m a private investigator, not a stalker. But I’ll do it. What do you know?”
“Her last name is Rivers and I know she still lives in my town, but look on the north side. She said she was moving there.” I think of anything else I could tell him. “Oh, and to narrow it down look for somewhere that was empty until last Saturday.”
“Got it, I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Holland. I owe you.”
I hang up and go to change into my board shorts, walking into the pool room and seeing Maya hanging over the side of the pool with her cell in her hands.
“What took you so long?”
I dive in and swim up beside her. “Had to make a quick call.”
She wraps her cell in a towel and slides it away from the edge of the pool. “Girlfriend?”
“Something like that,” I murmur before changing the subject. “Race?”
“You’re on, old man!” she shouts, pushing off the side and getting a head start.
After a few races, I concede, leaning against the side of the pool.
“What’s up with you today? You’re no fun.” She swims up beside me.
“I’ve just raced you a few times like a big kid, I’m a barrel of fun.” I run my fingers through my hair, dispelling the water droplets from it.
She turns around and kicks her legs while still holding onto the side. “If you say so.”
I’ll dig my mind out of the gutter and try and get Amelia out of my head until Thursday, but it’s proving difficult.
“Erm, Nate?” I turn my head toward Maya who has somehow got out of the pool without me noticing and is sitting on the side.
“Yeah.”
She looks up at the wooden beams and black ceiling with tiny dotted lights to make it look like the night sky before answering me. “Do you think I could have a few friends over this week?”
“Here?”
She looks down at me and smiles. “Well, duh.”
I chuckle while I think of an appropriate response. “To do what?”
She shrugs while saying, “Hang out.”
I lift myself out of the pool and sit next to her. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable having a load of teenage girls in my house, Maya.”
She raises a brow at me. “There’ll be boys, too.”
“Hell. No.”
“Come onnn. Lacey’s dad always lets her have parties,” she whines with a pout.
“Whoa, you never mentioned anything about a party.” I stand and walk over to the shelves behind us that have towels lining them
Just the thought of a bunch of rowdy teenagers in my house possibly trashing the place makes me cringe.
“I though
t that was obvious with the whole ‘can I have a few friends over.’”
I throw her a towel and she catches it and stands up, wrapping it around herself. “No party.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, holding her towel in place. “Fine, no party, but what about having a few friends over to chill by the lake or use the four-wheelers?”
“No four-wheelers, those things cost money and I’m not being sued if one of your friends decides to injure themselves by being idiots.”
Her face lights up. “So I can have some friends over to the lake?”
I sigh but reluctantly answer, “Yes, but a few, not everyone in your class.”
She throws her arms around me. “You’re the best!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumble with a grin on my face as I push her backward, watching as she careens into the pool with a huge splash.
I laugh as she splutters, her gaze pointed at me.
“I take that back,” she yells as I walk out of the room with extra swagger in my step to get changed.
I chuckle to myself as I grab a shower and pull on some sweatpants and head toward the kitchen, but my mood starts to turn sour the longer I’m left alone. My mind is never far away from Amelia and wondering what she’s doing right at this moment.
Why would she text me saying she missed me if she wasn’t going to reply? And if she misses me so much, why the hell won’t she take my calls?
Putting a bag of popcorn in the microwave, I turn when Maya walks in, her hair still slightly damp. “I’ll get you back for that,” she says, opening the fridge and peering inside. “Water, water, water… why haven’t you got any soda?”
I pull out the popcorn bag, opening it up before I empty it into a bowl. “I don’t drink that crap.”
“I do.”
I shrug. “You’ll have to deal with it until we go to the grocery store.”
She walks over and grabs a handful of popcorn. “Fine, but I get to choose a movie.”
“I am not watching 22 Jump street or 13 going on 30 again.” As I pick up the bowl off the counter, I see a flash of something from the corner of my eye out the window. I hand Maya the popcorn and tell her to go ahead and pick a movie as I step out onto the patio, immediately feeling like someone is out there.
“If there’s someone out there you’re trespassing on private property, so I suggest you get going before I call the cops.” As soon as the words have left my mouth, I hear a car engine start from the direction of the front of the house and I turn to run toward it when Maya shouts, “Nate, are you coming?” from the main room.
I pull the front door open, watching the taillights at the end of the driveway. How did I not hear someone pull up?
I shake my head as I close the door. It must’ve just been some kids thinking they could make use of the lake. It’s not the first time I’ve caught them trying to sneak onto my land and I’m sure it won’t be the last, which reminds me, I really need to get some fences or something put up.
But a little voice in the back of my mind tells me that maybe, just maybe, it was Amelia. Had she come after she said she missed me and then got scared off because Maya is here? Is she worried how I’d react to her not answering my calls? Because I’m pissed and I want answers, but most of all I just want her back in my arms.
I collect my carry-on, shuffling along with the other passengers on the airplane before walking off it and through the tunnel into the main airport as I think about the last few days.
I’d been sitting inside my apartment for three days, surrounded by my boxes of stuff. I don’t intend to stay there long so I saw no point in unpacking.
It was only last night I was searching on the internet trying to find any little thing on them, but it’s like they disappeared off the face of the earth when I moved away. After hours of fruitless searching, I clicked the tab closed and typed in the website for the airline, booking a flight to come home.
The only way I felt like I could confront them was coming back to where it all began.
It’s a smaller airport than the one I flew out of, but the amount of passengers departing the plane is the same. I can tell who the tourists are, who the people are who are visiting home, and who are the ones here for business.
Ignoring all of them, I walk outside and into a waiting cab, reeling off the address of the house I grew up in.
Neither my mom nor dad know I’m coming home because I know what they would say if they knew—more specifically my dad.
As the airport gets smaller in the rearview mirror, a sense of ease washes over me. It’s been so long since I’ve been home, the last time I was here I was being driven to the airport not away from it.
I stare out of the window, hoping after being here for a few days it will solve everything. It’s wishful thinking, but the thought of not seeing Nate for much longer kills something inside of me.
It’s been seven days since I last saw him and I’ve thought about him for every single one of those. I’ve dreamed about turning up at his house, knocking on his door and letting him hold me close.
When I close my eyes I’m almost sure I can smell his cologne and feel his hands on my skin, his breath against my neck.
I can’t help wondering if I was wrong: maybe I should have told him everything the day he came to the pool house and saw the first box on the coffee table? I could have stopped all of this then—right at the start. Instead, I kept it inside and now I have to try and fix it.
I shake my head when I think about the message I stupidly sent him last night.
I should have left it well enough alone, at least until it’s all over.
Opening my eyes back up, I shake the thoughts from my head and look around at the familiar houses and streets. The nerves flow through me at higher speeds the closer I get to my childhood home.
My parents tried to do everything they could to help after “the incident.” My father being the sheriff and my mother a nurse, they knew things like that happened. But it didn’t matter what they said, I still blamed myself—I did then, and to an extent, I still do now.
Being from a small town made things even worse and I couldn’t get away from it—couldn’t escape it.
As the cab drives down my childhood road, the memories slam into me. The calls in the middle of the night, the name calling, the harassment, the prickling feeling that someone was watching me—just like I’ve been feeling since the first package came.
When he pulls up outside of the house, I can’t move as my gaze swings to the house opposite. I can see it all so clearly: the flashing lights of the ambulance in front of the house, the neighbors all gathered around. Hearing the gut-wrenching sobs that played as a soundtrack that night.
My hand flutters to my neck, moving as I swallow against the dryness. I’ll never forget it.
Tearing my gaze away from the house that’s encased in a dark cloud, I stare at my childhood home. The front yard is still the same: grassed with an apple tree sitting in the middle. The light-blue siding covering the whole outside is freshly painted, ready for the summer months ahead, the same as the white window frames.
Nothing has changed; yet everything has. I’m not the same eighteen-year-old girl who just graduated from high school. Now I’m a twenty-four-year-old woman who wants answers and to confront her. The person who has destroyed everything I’ve built in the last six years.
Handing the cab driver a few bills, I push the door open and bring my bag with me, standing on the sidewalk as I continue to stare at the house.
My dad’s police cruiser is in the driveway with my mom’s car behind it. As I’m about to move forward, the front door opens and my dad appears, dressed in his uniform, the sheriff's badge attached to his chest.
He stalls when he glances my way and I’m staring into the same eyes I see in the mirror every morning. His salt-and-pepper hair is short on the sides and longer on top, more gray in it since the last time I saw him.
“What are you doing back?”
My bre
ath escapes in a rush at the deep baritone of his voice. “Hey, Dad,” I manage to choke out, shuffling my feet on the ground.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he replies, stepping toward me and causing my stomach to drop. I knew he wouldn’t be happy I was home, but I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it is.
A lump grows in my throat and I can’t seem to form words as he closes his eyes. I watch as he shakes his head and when he opens his eyes back up, they’re glazed over.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He steps toward me, opening up his arms.
I don’t hesitate, walking toward him at a fast pace.
He wraps me up in a giant bear hug—a hug I’ve missed so much over the last six years—and my head lands on his chest. He always makes me feel like a small child, especially with him being six foot two. The smell of musk and chewing tobacco surrounds me and only one word comes to mind—home.
He rocks us side to side and I make a noise in the back of my throat as I try to keep my emotions at bay.
Pulling back, he frames my face with his large hands and kisses me on the forehead. “You look tired,” he comments.
I nod slowly, my bottom lip wobbling. I’ve kept it together these last few months, but being back home and in my dad’s arms has it all flooding to the forefront.
“Hey, hey,” he murmurs. “What’s the matter?”
“I—”
Footsteps sound near us and I cut myself off. The wooden stairs creak and I prepare myself to see my mother. She was always the one person who I could talk to—always there no matter what. But after that day, something between us changed. I don’t know whether it was me or her, or maybe a combination of both.
When her light-blue eyes connect with mine, all I see is relief and love staring back at me and not the pain that used to be reflected in them.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, cupping her hands over her mouth and staggering down the last couple of steps toward me.
“Hey, Mom,” I finally manage to say when she stands next to Dad.
Fighting Our Way Page 25