But I refused to justify my love for Flynn. Ever. Nor would I explain that while the thought of living in an exciting city was appealing, I could never turn my back on the only person who had ever offered me unconditional love and support. If it weren’t for Flynn Hendrick, I wouldn’t be standing there having the discussion in the first place.
“I’m not giving up anything. I’m getting everything I’ve ever wanted,” was all I told her. She didn’t seem happy about it and definitely more than a little confounded by my refusal but I really didn’t care.
Even if there was a twinge of bitterness at the thought of returning to Wellston, it was drowned out by the overwhelming desire to be with him.
Nadine hadn’t given me a hug when we parted ways, having learned a long time ago that I would never be the touchy feely sort. But she had squeezed my hand quickly before I had gotten into my car to drive away.
“You know my number. If the mountain men take you and try to make you their sex slave or force you to work their still, have me on speed dial. You know, so you can discreetly call me and I’ll know. Maybe we should come up with a safe word.”
“Safe word?” I had chuckled, shaking my head at her ridiculousness.
“Yeah. Just say—potato chips. And I’ll know you need rescuing. I’ll send out the cavalry. Aka, me. Or at the very least I’ll tell you where the closest bus terminal is,” she promised, smiling. Her uneven eyes wide and her mouth smiling.
“Potato chips? Really?” I rolled my eyes.
I appreciated her concern though I would never be able to convince her it was unfounded. And just maybe, in the back of my head, I wondered if it was unfounded. And just maybe the thought of a lifeline was more appealing that I wanted it to be.
“Don’t forget that the safe word is for more than mountain me. If you need to get out, you know there’s always a place you can go,” Nadine had said just before I pulled away from my apartment.
I hoped that I would never have to use a safe word. That all of my reservations would disappear and I’d have the life I’d always wanted.
But I also knew, with a cynicism that remained after all this time, that real life didn’t work that way.
Chapter Two
-Ellie-
A man with grey hair put a blanket around my shoulders and picked me up.
I thought about screaming.
He was a stranger.
Mommy had told me never to go anywhere with strangers. That strangers could hurt me and take me away from her forever.
But I was so tired. And so, so hungry.
And Mommy still hadn’t come home.
I was scared to leave my house in case she came back and wondered where I was. I was scared of the strangers outside that wanted to take me away.
I hadn’t eaten today. There was no more food in the house. I ate the box of old cat food that was in the back of the cabinet.
I used to have a cat named Miss Banana. I would laugh and laugh and laugh every time I said her name. She was a pretty cat with brown and white fur.
But she ran away last year and never came back.
Just like Mommy.
Maybe Mommy went to look for Miss Banana. Maybe they’d come back together.
The man with the grey hair put me in a police car. I wondered if he would turn the lights on.
“Mommy won’t know where I am,” I told him, starting to cry again. My tummy hurt so badly and I thought I was going to throw up.
The man’s eyes were sad as he buckled me in. “Don’t worry about that right now. Let’s get you somewhere where you can have something to eat. What’s your favorite food?” he asked me.
“’Psgetti,” I told him, brightening up a bit. I loved ‘psgetti. Mommy made the best ‘psgetti ever!
The man patted me on the top of my head. “Well, let’s get you some ‘psgetti then.”
“Can we get some for Mommy too?” I asked as he got in the front of the police car.
He didn’t answer my question.
**
Welcome to Wellston. The hidden gem of West Virginia.
I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white. My car slowed down to a near stop as I drove down the main street through the town. I couldn’t quite let myself look around. I wasn’t prepared to see all the ways that it had or hadn’t changed in the three years since I had left.
These streets were paved with my pain and regret. But it was here, among the ugly reality that I had inexplicably found my heart. My soul.
My everything.
Maybe that would be enough.
Memories flashed unbidden through my head even as I tried to murder them before they could take root.
Memories that had nothing to do with Flynn.
Nothing to do with the future I hoped to have.
They had to do with other things. Things I had tried really hard not to remember.
“You get out of here in three weeks. Whatcha gonna do?” Dania asked, sitting on the other side of the table as she had done every weekend since I had been remanded into state custody.
There were a lot of things I thought about while locked up in Spadardo’s Juvenile Detention Center. Getting out was at the top of the list. But I had no idea where I was going to go or what I would do once I left. I would be eighteen. Having aged out of the foster system and without any money to my name, homelessness seemed the only viable option.
So Dania’s question made me angry and defensive in an effort to cover up the simmering freak out I experienced whenever I thought about life on the outside.
“I don’t fucking know. What the hell does it matter?” I snapped, tugging on a piece of hair that fell from my ponytail. I ran my finger along the puckered scar along my hairline. I had found myself on the wrong side of a fork my first week there. Some bitch had wanted my brownie and I hadn’t wanted to give it to her.
My raised voice caught the attention of the COs on duty. I sat up in my chair and tried to relax.
Dania frowned, never the one to take my verbal bullshit. “Well, do you have any money? Do you have a place to go?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
I didn’t really understand why Dania continued to come out to see me every weekend. It wasn’t for my winning personality, that’s for sure. We had been close only because we had to be. Living with our foster dad, Mr. Beretti, required strength in numbers.
But now that we didn’t have that one very important element of connection, I hadn’t expected our friendship to continue.
Particularly not after everything that had gone down before I came here.
But I appreciated Dania’s visits. Though I’d never tell her that. We weren’t the sort to share our feelings.
I chewed on my bottom lip and looked around the cramped visiting room. Most of the other kids were being visited by family. Mothers and fathers. Brothers and sisters. The stupid bastards had no idea how lucky they were.
“I don’t know. I figured I find something,” I answered belligerently, not letting on to my complete lack of planning.
Dania snorted. “Are you planning to camp out in the park you dumb ass?” she scoffed and I found myself clenching my hands into fists. Her dismissal irritated me.
“I guess I’ll just dip into my trust fund early,” I sneered.
Dania rolled her eyes and popped her bubblegum noisily. “Yeah, well if that doesn’t pan out, you could always come and stay with me for a while,” she offered, smoothing her long, dark hair away from her face.
I blinked at her in surprise. Was she serious?
“I’m not going back to that place,” I replied tersely. There was no way in hell I’d ever step foot in Mr. and Mrs. Beretti’s house ever again. I’d rather chew off my own arm.
“Psh. I moved out of the pedo palace two months ago when I turned eighteen. My social worker helped me find a place in town. It’s only a one bedroom but at least I don’t have to lock the bathroom door when I take a fucking shower.” Dania popped he
r gum again. “You can crash on the couch until you find your own place.”
I opened my mouth but no words came out. The last thing I ever expected was for Dania to offer to help me in anyway. Dania Blevins was a selfish person. She used and abused others without thinking twice. Just before the fire at the Hendrick’s house I had been slowly and carefully separating myself from Dania and the rest of our group.
I had grown tired and disgusted with the way they treated others. I was sick of their fucked up head games and how quickly they’d turn on you if you didn’t agree with whatever they had to say.
It had become harder and harder to look the other way at the things they did.
But then the fire happened.
And I was sent to Spadardo’s.
Things that had started to seem so clear in the weeks before had become blurry and muddled and not as important.
Especially not when I was now full of a bitter anger that erased everything else.
I wouldn’t allow myself to think of him.
He had been the reason I was so willing to turn my back on the girl who sat across from me.
What an idiot I had been.
“Really?” I asked, refusing to show how relieved I felt at her offer.
Dania shrugged. “Sure. Why not? But just so you know, it won’t be a free fucking ride. You’ll have to help with rent and shit. And you can’t just sit on your ass and eat all of my Pringles. I’ll cut your damn fingers off if you go near my moisturizer. But yeah, for a while, I think it’ll be cool.”
For the first time I felt that maybe Dania was a real friend. The kind who would be there when your world fell apart.
That maybe under that bitchy exterior, she had come to care about me.
I couldn’t claim to feel that way towards her. My emotions were stunted and muted under the weight of resentment.
“Thanks, Dania,” I finally said.
Dania smiled. A real one. “That’s what friends are for.”
A horn honked from behind me, startling me. I almost flipped them off in my rearview mirror but thought better of it. No sense alerting the locals that bad ass Ellie was back.
I had, without realizing it, come to a complete stop at the intersection in the middle of town. I put my blinker on and turned down a familiar side street, slowly driving past JAC’s Quick Stop and thought briefly about stopping.
But I kept on driving, eyes trained forward.
Maybe it was completely selfish of me, but I had thought little of Dania, my former best friend, in the years I had been away.
Sure, every once in a while I wondered how she was doing. I wondered if she had ever been able to turn her life around. But I would never allow myself to think about her for too long.
My mind ran scared of any and all thoughts that would remind me of the despicable person I had been.
And I sure as hell never thought about the other people who had formed my shallow and miserable inner circle—Shane Nolan, Reggie Fisher, and Stu Wooten. I had never particularly liked any of them.
But getting the hell away from them and the shit storm I had lived had been the biggest motivation to leave.
I remembered that moment when I packed my car and drove out of town, unsure, lacking confidence; terrified I was making a huge mistake.
And for the first few months I had been convinced that I was right. But then slowly, I began to realize that maybe I could be something better. Something more.
It had been the most liberating feeling I could ever remember having.
Now here I was, back in my own personal hell. It was hard to associate this town with anything other than my misery. It was where my mother had left me. It was where I had been bounced from foster home to foster home, never finding a family.
It was here that I had made friends with a lonely boy and then I had hurt him in the worst way possible.
But it was also here that I found him again and then fell in love.
So maybe these streets, these houses, these shops, weren’t all bad.
I attempted to loosen my death grip on the steering wheel and all I did was succeed in alternating one nervous behavior for another. I tapped rhythmically with my fingers over and over again. Maybe I had inadvertently adopted some of Flynn’s tics without my realizing it.
I was anxious. I was worried.
Though I couldn’t figure out the exact reason.
Was I nervous about seeing Flynn again?
Absolutely.
I wasn’t the type of girl to believe in sparkly, shiny, happily ever afters. I was a pessimist by nature. I wasn’t particularly likable and I wasn’t in the habit of opening myself up to anyone.
It took a special person to look at the woman underneath all of that mess. To stare in the face of my horrible history and to love me anyway.
My phone chirped from the seat beside me. I picked it up and read the text, easily navigating my car at the same time.
Have you gotten back yet? Call me next week after you’re settled.
Julie’s message made me smile. I had few connections in my life and Julie was one I could never get rid of, even if I had wanted to.
My former social worker had made it a point to continue her weekly check-ins even after I had moved away.
The truth was, she was the closest thing to a parental figure I had ever had. Even if she had been paid to be in my life.
She was consistent. She was always there. She was a giant pain in my ass.
But in my own Ellie McCallum way, I loved her.
Flynn was expecting me. I knew that he would already be pacing the floors, wondering why I hadn’t shown up yet. He had calculated my journey down to the minute. Down to the mile.
I didn’t like him worrying or anxious. I spent a good majority of our relationship ensuring he didn’t feel that way. He was slowly coming into his own. He was taking tiny steps towards pushing past the boundaries that had always kept him caged in.
But everyday things that most people took for granted were still difficult for him. Like traveling.
The process of Flynn leaving home and staying somewhere else was extremely taxing. He would spend days planning and re-planning. Calculating miles. Familiarizing himself with every detail.
When we had gone to the beach together just after we had gotten together, it had been the first time since the death of his mother that he gone somewhere new. And the beach, when he had visited as a child, hadn’t been a particularly pleasant experience.
But he had gone.
For me.
Despite his hesitation, it was on that trip that we had finally come together. Emotionally. Physically. Secrets had been exposed, and we had had been as close as two people could be. Before my penchant for self-destruction had almost derailed us completely.
During those early days after enrolling at The College of Baltimore, I would think about that time with Flynn at the beach and it made me happy. It gave me hope. It’s what kept me going.
I never wanted him to worry about me. I never wanted him to wonder what I was thinking or what I was feeling. I wanted our relationship to be totally transparent and honest. I needed it. He needed it. It’s the only way we could make this difficult thing between us work.
But even though I knew Flynn was waiting for me, I needed to take my time. I had to reacclimatize myself with this world I had left behind. I needed to drive down the once familiar streets and remember a time when I never thought I would leave.
But I had.
I had gotten out.
Wellston, West Virginia hadn’t smothered and destroyed me.
It was important that I remember that.
I drove down a one-way street that had once been lined with maple trees and white picket fences. There had been swings in yards and children running in the streets.
It had been a cheerful place of laughter and smiles.
It was also the place where the innocent Ellie had died.
I came to a stop in front of a small one-story Cape Cod
house. Even though it had been twenty years since I had called this place home, I remembered it perfectly.
If I closed my eyes I could see my mom’s face. Beautiful yet vacant. She had always been there in person but not in mind. Physically present but emotionally unavailable. But as a child I hadn’t known any better. Until one morning she wasn’t there anymore.
And everything had turned on its axis.
The house was empty. I could tell by the dilapidated state of the yard and the broken windows that it hadn’t been lived in for a while. It was a skeleton. Unloved and discarded.
It was fitting.
My phone rang and I looked down to see Flynn’s name flash across the screen.
My hand was shaking as I answered it.
“Hello?” I said, sounding breathless.
“Where are you? You should have been here twenty-seven minutes ago,” Flynn stated, getting straight to the point as always.
I stared at the house, where I had spent the first five years of my life and felt sadness. And bitterness. Resentment and a long buried anger. But I also felt relief that that part of my life was over. The girl who had been defined by the things that had happened there had grown up and moved on.
And now I was ready to go home.
“I’m on my way, “ I told Flynn, putting the car into drive and pulling away from the curb.
Chapter Three
-Ellie-
“Come on, Ellie,” Julie said, taking my bag. I clung to Clive, my stuffed dog, and followed her out to a red car.
I knew that I wasn’t going to live with Mr. and Mrs. Evans anymore. I knew Mrs. Evans had been mad when I poured glue in her bed and ripped up all of her roses.
I don’t know why I did any of that stuff. I felt bad after I did it. Though I never said that I was sorry.
“Where am I going?” I asked Julie after she pulled away from the house I had lived in for only three months.
“I’ve found you another family. A great one. They have a girl a few years older than you. Her name is Chelsea.”
“I’m seven. So is she nine?” I asked her, wondering about Chelsea.
Chasing the Tide Page 2