Life as We Know It: A Treasure Key Novel

by Sarah Bates

  “Try what again?” she asked, cranking the engine.

  “Dating.” I reached out and covered her hand on the steering wheel when she blinked in surprise. “You’re a beautiful young woman, Mom, and you deserve to be happy,” I told her. “You deserve love.”

  “Oh, Chloe.” She smiled and turned her hand to take mine. “I appreciate that, but I’m not ready. Not yet. I’m not saying I won’t ever be, but for right now I’m content to just be here with you, with our family, and rebuilding my life. Once I’m settled, and have had time to work through some things…I just might give it a try. But not right now.”

  “Okay.” I nodded and let her leave it at that. But I did hope, while she drove us across the street to Seaside Shopping Center, that she really did give love a second chance. Because now that I knew what love was really like, I wanted nothing more than for her to have it in her life, too.

  With everything she’d been through, she deserved it more than anyone else I knew.

  Fourteen

  We spent a really great hour together, sitting under one of the red and white umbrellas at Sal’s Sandwich Shack, eating cheeseburgers loaded with everything, a mound of hot, salty French fries doused in malt vinegar, and drinking about a gallon of unsweetened iced tea while we talked about possibilities for our upcoming renovations.

  My mom, who had been watching reruns of all her favorite HGTV home makeover shows on her tablet at night when she was in bed, was in her glory, writing down notes on paint samples, carpet samples, tile and grout, and everything else you could possibly think of.

  It was a relief for me to see her this way, smiling as she studied cabinet hardware on her phone and made notes in the brand new spiral bound journal she’d bought the other day at the pharmacy. It was a relief because I could see some of her old self resurfacing, long dormant over these past few months since my dad’s affair had been brought to light. I had continued to worry about her, because even though she’d seemed more relaxed since we had arrived on the island, she hadn’t quite seemed sure of herself.

  I knew there were nights when she still cried herself to sleep.

  But since Derek had hired her and she’d found the bungalow, she seemed so much more confident, her smiles brighter and more genuine, and I knew that even if it weren’t for having met Hayden, I’d still be glad we had come here. Because being here, on this small island in a tropical ocean, I finally had my mom back.

  Because my mom agreed that Hayden and I needed to have that serious talk, once the hour was up, she drove me to his grandparents’ motel and dropped me off before she went to check on something at the local garden center.

  She was, clearly, a woman on a mission.

  Since Hayden had been just about to call me, it seemed our timing had been exactly right.

  “How was work?” I asked as he let me into his room. His hair was still damp from his after-work shower, the ends of it curling a bit in the humidity, and he wore a simple pair of cut off shorts, the hems fraying a bit from age and wear.

  He’d yet to pull on his tank top. Not that I was complaining.

  “Busy,” he replied, closing the door. “And stressful. The radiator went in Neal’s BMW, and yours truly was the only one available to fix it. He gave me a headache.” He sighed and wrapped his arms around me, resting his cheek against mine. “This makes it better,” he added.

  I smiled and held him close, enjoying the way his smooth, warm skin felt against mine. I could still smell the scent of his soap lingering on it, and I had to admit, I liked it. I liked it enough that I would have happily stayed there, just like that, for the rest of the evening.

  When he pulled back, I felt a tug of regret that I couldn’t.

  “Have you eaten yet?” I asked, tipping my head back to look at him when he lifted his hands and brushed them over my hair.

  “My grandma made chicken enchiladas, so I ate one before I got cleaned up.” He paused, just as he was about to kiss me. “Wait. Did you eat, or did you wait for me?”

  “I ate with my mom. We had burgers at Sal’s,” I replied.

  “Oh. Good.” He sighed, shook his head at himself, and his lips curved into that lopsided grin of his. “I’d have felt like an ass if you’d waited.”

  “Same here.” I pushed up on my toes and kissed him. “We should maybe work on being more specific when we make our plans.”

  “Yeah, probably.” He pulled me close, holding me against his bare chest again. “We should talk first.”

  I hated that he was clearly dreading this, that he felt obligated to it. It made me want to tell him – again – that whatever it was didn’t matter and it could wait for another time.

  But my mom had been right. In order to choose him, I had to know the whole him. Plus, I hoped, finally getting it all out of the way might help him feel more secure in what we were becoming to each other.

  So, with that thought in mind, I tightened my hold on him, pressed a gentle kiss to his chest, just over his heart, then pulled back. “Okay,” I said, taking his hand in mine and lacing our fingers together. “Let’s talk.”

  He nodded. “Let’s talk.” He led me over to sit on the couch and we sat together, facing each other.

  He took a moment to collect himself, then let out a weary sounding sigh. “I told you that day we had lunch at Sal’s that my parents died when I was fourteen.”

  I nodded and felt my heart ache over the sadness I saw in his eyes. “You said they died in a plane crash.”

  He nodded, and cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “What I didn’t tell you is…I was on the plane, too.” He nodded again when my eyes widened in horror.

  “Oh, Hayden,” I didn’t know what else to say, I was so shocked by the horror that he had gone through. Now I knew, I realized, where his scars had come from. While not hugely pronounced – I had only noticed them the first time we’d gone swimming in the pool here at the motel, and he’d playfully caught hold of me, pulling me close for a kiss – he had several on his torso and back, and a few on one of his legs. Not wanting to pry, I had decided not to ask how he’d gotten them.

  “I don’t actually have any real memories of it,” he said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “Just the before and after. Some impressions, maybe. Like the heat from the fire, that kind of thing. I’m grateful for that, at least. The not remembering the middle part. If I did, I might have tried even harder to knock myself into oblivion. And trust me, I tried pretty hard to begin with.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and it took all I had in me to keep from insisting he didn’t have to tell me anymore. But I didn’t. Instead, as before, I gave him the chance to work through what he wanted – needed – to say.

  Finally, he sighed again, that same weary breath. “I was really messed up when I got out of the hospital. I’d spent a couple of weeks there, broken bones, internal stuff; anyway,” he continued, shaking his head. “I missed their funeral, and I was equal parts relieved and pissed about that. I was angry because they were dead, I was angry because I wasn’t – I mean, how unfair is that?” he asked suddenly, and he shook his head again, a single tear slipping down one cheek, then the other.

  “How was it fair that I lived, and they didn’t? I hated myself for that. Hated them, too, because they left me. Left Logan. He wasn’t with us that day, thank God, because he was at a friend’s birthday party. I remember being grateful for that even back then, but everything else? I hated it. I was pissed and heartbroken, and all I wanted was to forget everything, to stop feeling. I wanted to be numb. Honestly, I wanted to be dead, right along with them.”

  “Hayden.” I shook my head, unable to imagine a world without him in it now that I knew him. Now that he was such an important part of my life.

  “It’s called survivor’s guilt,” he said, giving my hand a quick squeeze. “At least that’s what my shrink told me. At the time I didn’t care what it was called. All I knew was that I didn’t want to feel anything. So, I began to drink, sneaking beer or anyt
hing else I could get my hands on from anyone’s liquor cabinets. And I started to go to parties, because, hey, free booze.”

  He shook his head. “And then eventually while I was at the parties I started taking drugs. Most of the time I didn’t even know what I was swallowing; so long as it made me numb, I didn’t care. Around that time, I started hanging out with Neal, mostly because he had the biggest parties and I knew I’d always score there, and he started hanging out with me because he appreciated my total lack of control and disdain for all forms of authority. We were a match made in hell, and we reveled in it.”

  He was so polite and respectful that I had a difficult time imaging him this way. Obviously seeing the doubt on my face, his lips curved up a little at the corners, though this vague semblance of a smile held neither any joy nor humor in it.

  “Like I told you before, you wouldn’t have liked me back then. I was awful. I treated my grandparents terribly, and I completely ignored Logan. I was vicious to Levi and his parents. And I didn’t care. The more they all tried to help me, the more vicious I got. I said things to them that will shame me to my grave, no matter how many times they’ve forgiven me. I did other things I pray they’ll never know about. And I just kept going. I was a cyclone of absolute self-destruction, and I had Neal, and then Ava too, like my own personal little devils sitting on my shoulders encouraging me deeper into my spiral, even as I encouraged them into theirs.”

  “What made you stop?” I asked, holding his hand more firmly.

  “It was more of a series of events, really, than any one particular thing,” he replied. “All of this went on for about a year. Then one night, Ava told me she was pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” I asked, my breath catching in my suddenly tight throat.

  He nodded. “I was, needless to say, not happy about it, and I blamed her for it. Then, because clearly I had needed some space, Neal being the obliging friend that he was, decided we should take his dad’s new car for a joyride, during which we proceeded to wrap it around a utility pole. As we’d helped ourselves to the better part of a bottle of his dad’s whiskey beforehand, we’re lucky the only thing we killed that night was the car. The thing is, he was the one who was driving, but we both got out after the crash, and when your uncle and the rest of the cavalry showed up, Neal lied and said I’d been driving.”

  “Oh, Hayden.” I felt a sharp sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, and shook my head. “What happened?”

  “Well, since there were no other witnesses, it became a he-said-he-said situation, and his dad could afford the best lawyer, while I got stuck with an overworked public defender. So, what happened is, I did six months in juvie, and when I got out, another six months’ probation, on top of a very hefty fine, and damages, which I’m still trying to pay off.”

  “What happened with Ava? With the baby?” I asked, my heart sinking at the thought of what had happened to him, and how unfair and unjust all of it had been.

  “Given the situation I didn’t get much say in anything, and by the time I got out of juvie…there wasn’t a baby. It was as though that, at least, had never happened.” He frowned and looked down at our hands and cleared his throat. “I’m fairly certain she made sure of it before I even went in, but I never did get the particulars on the when and where, and how, and honestly, I don’t think anyone else but the Humphreys know. My grandparents were certainly never told, and Levi hadn’t known about any of it until I’d asked him about it.”

  He shook his head as he thought back over everything. “I’m also fairly sure it’s because of that, because of how I treated her over it, that she’s decided to make my life miserable, and by extension your life and Logan’s, too. She hates me, but for that reason she won’t let me go. She and I are bound to each other by what never was.”

  The way he said it, with a weary mix of pity and shame, I couldn’t help but feel a tug of pity for both of them. “Did you care for her?” I asked, lifting a hand to brush it through his damp hair.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Back then I didn’t care about anyone. She was just a convenient outlet for me when I got bored. And that is another shame that I will take with me to my grave, because I’m pretty sure I’m what ruined her. She’s always been a brat,” he said when I frowned and shook my head. “But before she and I got tangled up in each other, she was a tolerable brat, not the heinous, vindictive bitch that she is now.”

  I studied our hands as I considered this – as I considered everything else he’d told me – and then shook my head as I looked back up to him. “You may have brought out the worst in each other, but you can’t be held responsible for her actions, Hayden. You’re each responsible for yourselves. You chose to change, to get help,” I said when he frowned. “Or at the very least you finally chose to accept help, even if it wasn’t what you wanted at the time. You took accountability for yourself and your actions. You couldn’t do the same for her, or Neal. That’s a choice they have to make for themselves.” I lifted my free hand again and touched his cheek. “That’s a choice Logan has to make for himself. You can’t force him into it. All you can do is keep holding your hand out to him, no matter how many times he slaps it away, so it’s there for him when he’d ready to take it.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he cleared his throat. “You’re really not horrified by what I just told you?” he asked.

  “Of course I am,” I said. “But I’m horrified for you, not by you. Hayden, you went through a horrifying, traumatic experience.”

  “A lot of people would say that that’s not a legitimate excuse for the things that I did and said,” he pointed out.

  “Then they don’t understand the psychology of it. Trauma can induce destructive behavior. As odd as it sounds, it is actually a coping mechanism. What?” I asked when he gave me a strange look.

  “Your uncle said basically the same thing to me the night Neal and I wrecked his dad’s car,” he said. “When I got sentenced, just before they took me to the detention center, he spoke with me again. He told me that up until that point I could blame it on the crash, but from that moment on it was a choice. He told me I could keep going down the path I was on, and if I did, I’d probably end up succeeding in putting myself in the ground, where I wouldn’t be any good to anyone, or I could choose to be better. Not perfect, because no one is. But better. I told him to go do some rather unpleasant things to himself.”

  “What changed?” I asked.

  “Well, the first month I was in, nothing really. But then Ethan came to visit. And I was awful to him, just like before. But then he kept coming back again, and again, and again, and my grandparents, too. Then finally one day – it had been family day – Levi was allowed to come, too. And I just broke. Everything I’d been bottling up just spewed out of me, and I’d never cried so hard in my whole life. He just sat there and held me until I was finally empty, then he wiped my face and said he loved me, and he wasn’t going anywhere. But that I had to decide what I wanted for my life, and that made me think about what your uncle had said. So, after spending a few days doing some uncomfortable soul searching, I decided I wanted to live after all, and I joined a program to help me figure out how to do that. I started participating constructively in our mandatory group therapy sessions, and I studied my ass off so I could catch up and not fall behind a year in school, and then suddenly…my six months were up, and I was released.”

  “And you’ve been continuing to do the same since you got out,” I said.

  “To varying levels of success, yes,” he said. He studied me for a long moment, his mossy green eyes searching my face. “I keep waiting for something I said to click, and for you to be disgusted by me.”

  I scowled – I couldn’t help it – and leaned back from him. “Do you really think so little of me that you think that’s even a possibility?” I shook my head. “If that’s the case, we don’t know each other as well as we thought we did.”

  “I don’t think li
ttle of you at all,” he said, shaking his head. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best part of my life. But how can I expect you to not be disgusted, when I myself am disgusted? There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel regret for what I did.”

  “I understand that,” I told him. “But the thing is, Hayden, that was one year out of your life. One, out of eighteen so far. You can’t spend the rest of your life regretting the things you did when you were a grieving child.”

  “Jeez.” He shook his head, and this time there was some amusement in the curve of his lopsided smile. “It’s like you’re channeling Levi. I swear, you two are on the same kind of brain frequency or something. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d shared notes.”

  “Or we’re both just capable of seeing it all more objectively than you can,” I said. “We didn’t live it the way you did. And we can see that you’ve suffered because of it. Plus,” I shifted closer to him and lifted my hands to take his face in them, “we both love you.”

  “Coco,”

  “I love you, Hayden,” I said before he could finish. “And that hasn’t changed. Not one bit. This,” I lowered my hands and took his in them, and brought them to my heart, “is yours. If you want it.”

  “I do,” he said, quickly and emphatically, even as he leaned forward and kissed me. “I love you, Chloe.” He rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. “God, I don’t deserve you. But I’m so glad I have you in my life.”

  I smiled and kissed him softly. “I’m not going anywhere. Except for right about here,” I added, and I shifted and moved closer, settling myself in his lap as I wound my arms around him, resting my head on his shoulder.

  He wrapped his arms around me and held me close, his cheek rested against my hair. “Here’s a pretty good place to be,” he said softly.

  “Here’s my favorite place to be,” I replied.

  And in that moment, there really was nowhere else I’d rather be.