by Lauren Wood
Scott was coming out and kissed his mother on the cheek before bounding towards the truck and getting in. His red hair was about as bouncy as was the curls in a manic state around his head. He didn’t do much to achieve the look and it was the only way that I knew Scott. He always joked about cutting it off, but then we would never be able to find him in a crowd. Now he stood out so well that he was always easy to spot.
“Let’s go, she’s bitching.” He said the words under his breath without moving his mouth much.
I knew that he was talking about his mom. I waved and smiled at Mary and told her we would be back soon with her daughter. She thanked me again and I got out of the driveway. He was anxious to go and I could tell by the way he was fidgeting next to me.
“What’s going on?”
He shrugged a little. “I don’t know, but mom is on edge and she is driving me crazy. She has been on my ass for an hour, so I hope Bianca was worth it.”
“She always is. That girl can…”
He cut me off and told me to shut up. He didn’t want to hear it and he had a look on his face that told me he wasn’t seeing the humor in it all. I asked him if he was not getting in from Betty and he just gave me this look that told me that I needed to stop talking.
“Not cool. You know how my mom gets and she’s been on me for the last half an hour. Bianca could have waited. Bros before hoes, right?”
I agreed, but had to laugh. I hadn’t heard that saying since we were in high school and we’re both eying the same chick in school.
Mary was anxious by nature and I imagined she had shredded several napkins because of it. “Sorry, you didn’t say anything about your sister when you called, so how was I supposed to know? You know I don’t move very fast, unless I have to. I thought we were just driving to the hardware store to get that sealant and finish up the driveway for your dad.”
“Well things change and you need to move a little faster. I don’t know why, but I think something happened at Melanie’s school and she’s home for a reason. Mom isn’t usually this anxious, so I just want to get her home and mom off my back.”
Feeling guilty that I was so late and caused so much trouble, I pushed the gas pedal down and made the truck go a little bit faster. The city wasn’t too far, but we still had to get back and get the driveway done before it got too hot. It was going to be one of those summers if it was already getting so hot in the daytime.
Chapter 2
Melanie
“Can I help you?”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
“You sure are. I’ve been watching you and it looks like you’re here all alone. You must need some company.”
“I’m good on the company part. I know you’ve been watching me. You aren’t very slick about it at all. You know it’s not nice to stare, right?”
He chuckled at me and introduced himself as PJ. I didn’t know him, but he was the third one to come and try to talk to me while I waited on my ride since touchdown. I didn’t think I was letting off a vibe that told the world that I wanted some company, but I could be wrong because PJ was now here and didn’t appear to be leaving any time soon.
I was close to taking a cab and if I thought I had the cash on me I would have. Mom could always pay for it when I got there. If they hadn’t already said that they were on their way, my brother and his friend Carl, then I would have already left. Guys like PJ were getting on my nerves, but there was nowhere else to wait but inside. Outside had been even worse. The heat made it sticky and my irritation had gone up a lot faster.
“So are you from around here?”
He was talking again and I realized as he sat down next to me that he wasn’t going to take the hint, so I might as well try to start a bit of a conversation with him. It would at least make the time go a little bit faster until Scott got here. I was going to kill him when he got here. He was always late.
“Yeah, I’m from here originally, but I haven’t been home in a while.”
“What brings you here?”
That was another question with a lot of different answers, none of which I wanted to share with a complete stranger. “Things just got weird and I wanted to come home I guess.”
“You single?”
I sighed to myself and looked out the tall, floor to ceiling windows in hopes that Scott would appear and this guy would go away.
“Yes, I am.”
That was something new and I still wasn’t used to being single again. I’d been with someone for almost two years now, so being alone was something new and I should have kept that excuse for PJ because it seemed to work mighty well.
“We should get together soon. I’ll be here for a week before I have to go back to the office.”
I caught a glance of something on his finger that made me want to talk to him even less. He didn’t have a ring on his finger, but he did have a curious tan line on a certain digit. It told me that he had a little wife at home and possibly some kids that he wasn’t thinking about. I didn’t want a man like him. I apparently had already had one and it hadn’t worked out that entirely well as far as I was concerned.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea PJ, I doubt your wife would like it.”
He looked around like cameras were going to come out like on that cheating show and I watched him bounce out of the seat so fast.
“How do you know about her?”
“I didn’t, not really, but I do now. You have a good day PJ.”
I smiled at him and he didn’t smile back at me. He didn’t seem to like my humor, but I was glad for some peace and quiet finally. I hadn’t wanted to do that, but there was no way that I was going to entertain the idea either.
PJ was about to say something that I wasn’t going to like. I could see it in his face, but he stopped when he saw Scott walking up. Scott was a big guy and no one really messed with him because he was a scary guy as well. I was happy to see him and I was thankful that he showed up when he did, even though it was his tardiness that left me with waiting with the likes of PJ anyways.
“Hey Scott. Are you ready?”
He said he was, while he eyed PJ who was still looking back and giving me a dirty look. I don’t know what was going through his mind, but I was glad that I didn’t have to stay here by myself and find out. The place was packed, but there was something about the guy that had turned me off to it all and made me shiver inside.
“Is this guy causing you any trouble?”
I looked back at PJ and told him no. “No big deal. It was just some married guy that was trying to find some tail while he was away from his wife. Feel sorry for her.”
He just looked at me like he wanted to cover his ears and say la-la-la over and over again so he couldn’t hear me.
“Would you stop please?”
“What?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You know, talking about guys trying to get some tail with my sister.”
He made me laugh because he was so uptight about it. The way he acted, I would have thought that I was fourteen still. He was so protective and I couldn’t help but wish that he’d been around a week ago when I found out about Dustin. That would have been helpful, but he was a thousand miles away and I was meant to deal with it on my own.
I hadn’t done so well with it, but in my defense, well it was a lot to take.
“Well he didn’t have a chance, so don’t worry about it.”
He looked worried and that made me smile a little bit more. It was hard to tell, but I knew that he cared, even if he was more comfortable thinking that I was not a girl at all. His friends had flirted with me last time I was down for the summer last year and it had been hilarious to realize that my brother was so freaked out by it.
“Let’s get you home.”
I giggled again. My brother was content to hide me away at home, just like dad when he sent me to boarding school across the country. Some things never changed and the men in my family were one of those things.
&
nbsp; Chapter 3
Carl
“What the hell was that anyways Mel? That guy was a creep.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about Scott. I didn’t want him around me, but I can’t just make people go away. I told you that I didn’t know who he was. He was just some married guy that was hitting on me.”
They were walking back to the car and I looked over when I heard Scott’s voice. He was walking with his sister and I wouldn’t have recognized her as that if I wouldn’t have known already. She’d changed a lot since I’d seen her last. Every bit of her was different, except those emerald eyes that caught mine before she looked down quickly. That would have made me recognize her because it was something that she had done many times before.
I didn’t know what the two of them were talking about, but the conversation was holding less of my attention as I took in the woman before me, and I was right in thinking that she was all grown up now. I just hadn’t thought that the gangly girl that I’d seen last would ever look like the woman in front of me now.
She was taller than I remembered and still wispy in her body, but she had curves now that weren’t there before. Her breasts were subtle and swaying as she walked the last few feet to me. I was staring, I know I was because I could have counted all of the freckles on her cheeks; I looked so long at her face, trying to see the resemblance to the girl that I’d once known. It was almost like I was trying to compute in my head that she really was who I knew her to be. It was hard to do it, really hard.
“Carl you remember Mel, Mel, Carl.”
I smiled at her and wasn’t sure what to do. It felt like something was in order, but I wasn’t sure what. She’d come to me once and bared her soul to me and I hadn’t handled it very well. It was right before she went to boarding school and she was very young. I had pushed her aside in a way that was callous and now, more than ever I had changed the way I’d done it. Now I wished that I’d given thought to what I was saying to her, because now she was all grown up and probably hated me.
“You ready to go?”
Scott was a bit louder than he had to be and I avoided his eyes, sure that he had caught me staring down his sister. I knew how protective he was of her and the last thing that I wanted to do was get him pissed off at me, but damn, hadn’t seen that one coming. Who would have known that the teen that I told to buzz off six years ago would look like that? She had already gotten her revenge without lifting a finger to do so in just being.
“Yeah let’s get out of here. We have some work to do back at the house that needs to get done.”
Scott was happy to hear that and he insisted that he sit in the middle in the truck. I ignored his sister to make him think it was all a fluke and he finally started to relax. The last thing I wanted to do was to fight with Scott. We’d never fought in all of these years and it wasn’t going to start now. I knew better.
The ride back I was silent and listened to the two siblings talk. The first bit was about their dad and how he was doing. Scott worried that there was something wrong and their mom had called her back to be there, but she assured him that it wasn’t the case.
“No, I just had to get out of there for a little while. My grades are good enough that I didn’t have to stay the last two weeks, so I left. I just wanted to get back home and I don’t know, chill I guess. It doesn’t have anything to do with dad.”
Scott seemed relieved and I was relieved as well. The man was a good role model to me and I knew that I needed to visit more. I owed it to Ted, but when I saw him how he was now, I didn’t know what to say and I froze. I told myself that it was worst to do that.
“So what happened?”
She didn’t want to talk about it, but Scott kept pushing the subject and made her.
“I broke up with my boyfriend and it got messy. I don’t want to talk about it Scott.”
“Was that the professor you’ve been dating?”
I snuck a look over at her and our eyes met for a moment. She didn’t want me to know about that, but I had to wonder why I’d never heard it before. Most likely I had heard Scott railing on about her, but I hadn’t cared. I was feeling so damn foolish now for not caring. Look at her. What an idiot I was back then to have been so aloof with her. I’d made her cry and now I was the one regretting it more than ever.
“Yes, it was him.”
She bit out the words and I just focused on the road like I wasn’t even there to hear it all.
“Well I told you that you shouldn’t be with some old guy. He’s almost as old as me and Carl. You’re too young for guys our age.”
I didn’t have to look at Scott to know that he’d said it like that for a reason. He had seen me checking his sister out and he wanted to make sure that I knew it wasn’t okay to do so. He was putting his foot down, drawing the line in the sand and it was as transparent as if he had actually done either one literally.
“You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve learned my lesson on older guys Scott.”
Chapter 4
Melanie
I could have hit my brother. I really could have. I don’t know what he was thinking bringing all that up in front of Carl. He didn’t know what the big deal was, but I couldn’t believe that he had said those things about Dustin. I didn’t want Carl to know that I was dating a professor. He’d told me long ago that I should date people my own age. I never had.
My face was red and I just look out the window at the ever changing countryside and I was happy to be back where everything was familiar. This was the same scene that I’d run past many times before and it was unsettling now to see some of the changes taking place since my last visit.
“Did they sell the market?”
“Yeah, it’s going to be one of those chain supermarkets soon. They finally sold out.”
“I’m going to miss that place. I remember working there every summer when I was in boarding school. It was a really nice place to go, so different than everything else. Never did find another place when I was in San Diego that was anywhere near like it.”
It was usually all local vendors and lots of them that would gather together every weekend and sell locally made goods. It was a great time for me and I hated to see the sales sign on the front that told the world that it was sold. Every time I came home, something else had changed and I still didn’t like it.
“Do you know what Lily is going to do?”
“I don’t know. I think she is going to retire. She talked about getting the old Johnson Mill and trying to make something of it, but I don’t think she is going to, not if there is more competition coming in that she can’t compete with.”
It was sad to hear the old woman was calling it a day. I promised myself that I was going to go and see her while I was here. She was always so nice and I’d really enjoyed working for her. I’d learned a lot of new things from Lily.
The house came into view and a feeling of anxiety and happiness came over me. This place will always be my home, but everything was so unclear. Coming home was always a mix of emotions and seeing Carl right off the bat, if at all was not something I’d prepared myself for. I’d embarrassed myself with him, but I’d learned from my mistakes and I told myself that I was never going to do that again.
I grabbed my bag and was out of the truck before anyone could say anything else. Mom was on the porch waiting for me, always somehow knowing when I was home. She hugged me and I don’t know why, but it was times like this when a girl needed her mother. A bad break up was one of those occasions and this one had been a doozy.
I looked back to see Carl watching me with a new interest and curiosity in his eyes and my brother looking at his friend differently as well. I hadn’t expected my time at home to be so eventful.
Focusing my attention on mom, I went inside and smelled the familiar smells of the house I’d grew up in as a child. It always did take me back to a different time. Everything was so much easier back then and it was hard for me to believe it. I knew that
I wanted to be back at home. This was where I was supposed to be.
***
“So tell me what happened, Melanie? I know that you were together for a while.”
I hadn’t wanted to tell her, but mom had a way about her and I wanted to tell someone. I was dying to really and it was impossible for me to think of anything else to say but the truth.
“He cheated on me and made a fool out of me basically.”
It was all I could get out before I started crying a little bit. It was the truth and now that it was said out loud, it made me feel even worse. All of the time that I’d tried to keep it in the last week was killing me. Everyone on campus knew about it because Dustin hadn’t seemed to care that he was humiliating me.
“Come now, Melanie. It can’t be as bad as you have made it out to be in your head.”
It was and when I started to tell her who he cheated on me with, she could see why I was so upset.
“Amber?”
I shook my head and I angrily pushed the tear from my eye. “Yea, Amber.”
“But you’ve been friends for…”
I agreed because I knew what she was going to say. We’d been friends, best friends since boarding school and my parents had met her several times. We were so close that she’d stayed the second and third year all summer with me because her own family was on shaky grounds. I’d tried everything to fully understand what happened, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. I would have never thought that Amber would do something like that to me, but she had. He had too.
It was the betrayal and public humiliation of it all that really bothered me. It still did and I guess that’s why I was back home, licking my wounds before I emerged once more to start again. Right now I didn’t want to even try getting over it. I wanted to feel bad that two people I loved had hurt me so much.
“I know. I don’t know what happened. Maybe they are in love and maybe the love that me and Dustin had was never real. I don’t know and it hurts to think about it sometimes.”