Come Home

by Raleigh Ruebins

  I loved cold-pressed juice. But there was no amount of money that would make that worth it for Hunter. For me.

  “Tired, Gav?” Natalie asked, nodding at me.

  “Ah, yes,” I said.

  “Clearly without your twice-daily ginger shots, you’re flagging,” she said.

  “In any case, don’t worry about the damn public hearings,” Jack said. “They’ll complain, they’ll yell, but they don’t matter. Not really.”

  “They matter, Jack,” I said.

  Royce chuckled as he shook his head. “Bell’s been spending way too much time with his old island buddies,” he said. “One week and you’ve gone soft, huh?”

  “I haven’t gone soft,” I said. “We’re building the bridge. There’s no question. It’s what’s best for the town. I just want to do it right, even if it takes a little more time convincing the residents.”

  “We don’t have time to sit around wining-and-dining everyone’s irritable old aunt,” he said. “This isn’t about feelings. It’s business.”

  I clenched my teeth a little, trying to retain some semblance of calm.

  “Or,” Royce said, “maybe it’s feelings with you and your boy toy, but not with anything else.” He chuckled as he crunched on more peanuts.

  It had been a long time since I’d felt real, pure anger. It was something I’d all but trained out of myself since high school. I knew anger didn’t serve me, and that theoretically it only hurt to hold onto rage. Typically, nowadays, I was able to act compassionately even if my instinct was to get angry.

  But right then, at that moment with Royce, I felt white-hot rage. It came on suddenly like a lightning storm in summer. Royce had always been a great member of my team—he got things done, usually ahead of time, and with impeccable attention to detail.

  I’d never really had to deal with him on a personal level, though. And right now, that was the only level I was operating on.

  “Royce, I’d rather we did not talk about Hunter. Now, do we have the factsheets, informational displays ready? Is the presentation tight? I don’t want to go longer than thirty minutes before we open for discussion.”

  My words were diplomatic, but the team clearly could tell I was upset. I was usually the one trying to maintain harmony, to encourage positivity—it was extremely rare that I ever shut a topic down.

  But then, I’d never had to before. My team had never known about Hunter.

  After a pause, Natalie spoke up. “The factsheets are set and ready, Jim and Maria from the DOT liked the ones we sent over today,” she said. “They’ll be at the hearing, of course, as will representatives from all of the other firms. We’re meeting in the Kinley High gymnasium at seven o’clock. Doors will open at six so people can mill in, read the posters, see the plans for the bridge, and grab factsheets before the presentation begins.”

  “Good,” I said. “For the rest of the day, we need to go over how we will respond to residents’ questions and protests. We need a plan. We cannot go in blind. Let’s get started.”

  We worked straight through until sunset.

  We ordered in food, took a lot of stretch breaks, and I did more than a few one-minute meditations throughout the day, but I knew how vital it was to have an answer to every possible question the residents would fling our way.

  And each time we discussed a question, the resident I imagined was Hunter.

  It was bad. It was business, Royce was right about that, and I shouldn’t have been making anything about the project personal.

  But every time we discussed our potential answers to questions we anticipated, all I could think was that Hunter would poke through them all with ease.

  I was nervous about a project that I’d never been nervous about before.

  I was questioning myself.

  If I was going to do this right, I knew I couldn’t stumble. My mom would still be alive if there had been a bridge, and that was the most important thing in the world to me. What if something happened to Hunter? An accident, an unexpected ailment, anything?

  That was what got me through the rest of the workday, tirelessly working toward making sure the presentation and materials were ironclad. Because even if I couldn’t give Hunter the world, I could give him something that would make his life so much better.

  Even if he didn’t know it yet. Even if right now, it might make him hate me. He’d come around, and I had to believe that.

  But as I worked, a nagging voice inside me repeated the same thing over and over, looming in my mind.

  No, he won’t.

  9

  Hunter

  “So, what did we learn today?”

  A roomful of eyes avoided me. Not a single student wanted to answer this particular question—not even Rachel Beringer, whose hand usually shot up quicker than anyone’s when I asked a question. Especially something so easy.

  It was the last period of the day, and all I could think about was leaving.

  Gavin had spent the night at my house for the last two nights, and both mornings, he’d been up and out to go to meetings that lasted all day. After the goal-setting we’d done the first night, we’d mostly just been two ships passing—I’d had a bunch of exams to grade and Gavin hadn’t been coming home until I was heading to bed.

  But it still had been nice having him in my bed. Nice enough that it made me wonder if I was enjoying his company too much.

  And all day, I’d just been wanting to be back there instead of in school.

  It had been a long class—longer for me than the students, I was sure of it—but I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed with their lack of enthusiasm.

  “Come on, guys. What do I have to do? Promise you all I’ll get a Snapchat exclusively to post pictures of my dog Meatball to my stories? Remind you that there are only two weeks left in school? Lie face-down on this lab bench and groan until one of you realizes I’ve become a zombie and I start eating everyone in sight?”

  That last one at least got a couple laughs—Justin Pinker and Luis Diaz, my two beloved nerdiest students, snickered at the back of the room.

  “I can always count on you to laugh at a zombie joke, Luis,” I said. “C’mon. What did we learn about?”

  He finally looked up, dropping his pen down on the desk. “We learned that mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell,” he said.

  “Gotta give me more than that,” I said.

  “The… concentration of ions inside is higher than in the rest of the cell?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Think of it this way. If I were to whip out a can of pepper spray outside the window, right there—” I pointed to the side of the room, “—and only the window screen was closed, would it make its way inside here, causing a lot of red eyes, some screaming fits, and me losing my job?”

  This got a few more smiles and some nods.

  “It sure would,” I said. “Because the screen is semi-permeable. If someone tried to toss a shoe at me through the window, maybe because they were mad that I’m the best teacher on the island, that shoe would not make its way through. We would have to arrange for transport of the shoe, through a small hole in the screen, before it could properly hit me in the face. The mitochondrial membrane is no different. Small ions and molecules can make their way through freely. Large ones need to go through transport proteins.”

  Carla Sachi laughed from the front row. “So when we take the final, we just have to remember that the inside of the mitochondria is a bunch of people suffocating from pepper spray, but totally protected from shoes flying at their faces.”

  “Carla’s got it!” I said.

  “Thanks, Mr. Wilson.”

  The bell rang soon after. Students bolted out of the classroom, practically tripping over each other to get out the door. Justin stayed back though, approaching my desk with a cautious look in his eyes.

  “What’s up, Justin?” I asked, closing my laptop and turning to erase the whiteboard. “If you’re wondering about extra credit, there’ll b
e plenty of opportunities next week for it.”

  “Nah, it’s not that, Mr. Wilson,” he said.

  I faced him, lifting an eyebrow. “Was my zombie joke that bad? Have you come to give me notes on my comedic performance? I get it, they can’t all be zingers.”

  He smiled a little, but the wary gaze didn’t leave his face. “I saw the Benz around the back of your house,” he said, keeping his voice low even though we were the only two people left in the classroom.

  “Oh,” I said.

  This wasn’t good.

  “My dad said those people are trying to destroy the island,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Why was it… at your place?”

  Justin Pinker and his father had lived on my street for years. Occasionally I waved at them as they biked by on the weekends, and when his father had too much zucchini growing in the garden out back, he always stopped by to give me a boxful.

  I’d never even considered that they might see Gavin’s Mercedes.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Justin said, his blemished cheeks flushing bright red. “Not my business.”

  “No, no, it’s fine, Justin,” I said. “Your dad’s right—I... don’t agree with what the developers are trying to do. Kinley doesn’t need a big bridge, and we definitely don’t need to just be another neighborhood of Seattle.”

  Justin nodded. “My dad says his job would be gone instantly if they start building all that stuff.”

  His dad was a house painter—everyone in Kinley who needed a fresh coat of paint, inside or outside, would go to him to get the job done quickly. Justin was right—if new developments came to the island, Gavin’s company would surely hire cheaper, more efficient contractors to get their tall buildings painted.

  “It’s not going to happen, right?” Justin asked.

  “Gavin Bell’s been my best friend for my whole life,” I said. “We went to this school together. That’s why he was staying with me. But I do not support the project. I never will.”

  “You didn’t really answer my question though,” he said. “Is it going to happen?”

  I had a knot in my throat. I wanted so badly to tell Justin no—to reassure him that his father would be fine. But there were forces at play so much larger than just me or even Gavin. So many investment firms ready to pony up money, already lobbying multiple levels of the county and state governments for God knew how long.

  “I sure hope not,” I said.

  He nodded. “Me too,” he said. “See ya, Mr. Wilson.”

  “Have a good night,” I said. “Promise me you’ll think about mitochondria!”

  “I will if you tell your best friend he’s a dumbass!”

  “Hey, language, Justin,” I called after him, but the door of the room had already swung shut.

  On the drive home, it was apparent that the people of the island had been busy over the past forty-eight hours. Usually the signs protesting the city were kept to a small cluster near the ferry docks, but they had sprouted all over the town overnight. There were signs outside Kinley High, along the grassy edges of Route 4 that cut across the island back to my neighborhood.

  And conspicuously, right along the edge of my property, no less than seven signs had appeared.

  Never Seattle.

  Our Island, Our Rules!

  Take the Suits Back Where They Belong!

  The worst one made my stomach drop, though. Someone had printed out a huge photograph of Gavin’s face, drawn devil horns and teeth onto it, and labeled him with a big, scrawled TRAITOR.

  I ripped the sign out of the ground, tearing it in half and stuffing it in the trash can at the side of the house. I barreled inside, slinging my messenger bag down onto the couch.

  I jumped when I saw a figure in the kitchen.

  “Caleb? I thought you were at work,” I called out.

  But as I approached I saw that it was Gavin. And that he had a bloody scrape along the side of his face, from his temple halfway down his cheek. In his other hand was a folded up gray bandana that he was trying to clean himself with.

  “Oh my God, I said, frowning at him. “Gavin. What the fuck happened?”

  “I couldn’t find a first aid kit, so—”

  “Holy shit. Come with me. We’ve got some stuff in the bathroom.”

  I ran over to the downstairs bathroom, swinging open the medicine cabinet and scanning it for alcohol wipes. Gavin followed behind me, still pressing the bandana against his face.

  “She didn’t mean to,” he was saying as I turned to wipe his face. He hissed gently as I ran the wipe over his cheek, cleaning off any blood that had dried on his face. “She didn’t mean to.”

  The cut was actually fairly small compared to how bad it had initially looked. Two Band-Aids would do just fine.

  “Hang on. Let me get the Band-Aids on your face and then you can tell me who the hell I’m going to have to make my enemy.”

  “No. No enemies,” Gavin said.

  “Stop talking, you’re going to make it bleed again!” I said.

  He did as I said, and after applying antibiotic ointment, I placed the two plasters over the cut.

  “Alright. Spill. But try not to move your face too much as you talk.”

  He puffed out a laugh through his nose. “Okay,” he said softly, running his fingers gently over his cheek. “She didn’t mean to. For a late lunch, I tried to go to Luna’s.”

  “Gavin, why would you go to the diner when you know Caleb’s there?”

  “Because I like the diner,” he said, “and I like Caleb, too. He’s not my enemy, Hunt. No matter how upset he may be right now.”

  “Still a bad idea.”

  “Regardless, I went,” I said. “At first, it seemed fine. Caleb glared at me, but he said he was doing his job and therefore he’d serve me like anyone else. I ordered a few slices of pie and some coffees to go, to take back to my team. And then Marcie Luna came out from the back, and she… had a bad look on her face.”

  Marcie Luna was the owner of Luna’s Diner. She was a big woman with a big personality, and took no shit from anyone. It was probably why she and Caleb got along so well. She’d always been friends with my parents, and she’d started the diner over twenty years ago after leaving a job she hated commuting to in Seattle.

  This meant that I knew exactly what the “bad look on her face” must have been when she’d seen Gavin.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  “She told me to go outside, that they wouldn’t take my business. That my dollars were dirty. So I followed her outside.”

  “Marcie wouldn’t fight you though,” I said. “She doesn’t have a cruel bone in her body.”

  “She wasn’t trying to fight me at all. She took me outside and… told me a story about my mom.”

  “Oh,” I said, reaching out to grab Gavin’s hand in mine. His eyes held a bittersweet sadness as he nodded. “She… made me cry, actually. I don’t cry all that much.”

  “She wasn’t mean, right?”

  “Not in the slightest. She told me that she knew Mom well, that she knew Mom would be proud of what I’d accomplished. But she also said that Mom fought against having developers ever come to the island. That she wouldn’t support a bridge project.”

  “Is that… is that true, Gav?”

  He shrugged, shaking his head. “I have no idea. I didn’t think so, but then again… I’d never appreciated her enough when she was around. Every time she would have friends over—Marcie included—I’d be up in my room. I have no idea what they talked about. Marcie said that I’d be welcome at the diner anytime if I realized what a huge mistake the development projects were. And then when she reached up to hug me, the edge of her ring scraped against my face.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “It was nothing, Hunter.”

  I eyed him warily. “How can I be sure you aren’t just covering up for Davey Tanfield? Did he come to the diner and try to fuck you up?”

  He quirked one sid
e of his mouth up into a grin. “Not Davey. I promise. Marcie just hurt me when she was really just trying to show me love.”

  Christ. If that wasn’t a metaphor for my entire relationship with Gavin lately.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said.

  “I tried to go back to my property, but… the lawn is more angry signs than it is grass, at this point,” he said.

  “I’m sure you saw the ones here, too,” I said.

  “Not as many. But yes,” he said.

  “It’s awful.”

  “This is insane. The public hearing is tomorrow night, and I feel like a frog in a pot of boiling water.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, but unlike the frog, you’re aware that the temperature is rising.”

  “I guess I am,” he said.

  I smoothed his hair with my hand, taking a long breath in. “You can stay again tonight. I don’t care who sees the Benz in the back.”

  “Oh, I parked it way down the street, making sure it wasn’t in front of anyone’s house in particular,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s like I’m a black mark anywhere I go. I’m so sorry for the signs outside the house, Hunt—”

  I shook my head. “Don’t even think about worrying about that. I don’t care about the signs.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “You sure? You’re not embarrassed to be associated with me?”

  “Embarrassed, God no,” I said. “You already know that I don’t support the bridge or the developments, but... I still love you. That isn’t going to change. And if people can’t understand the difference between those two things, they can kiss my ass.”

  “Your own brother doesn’t understand the difference,” Gavin said.

  We made our way back out to the kitchen, and I rummaged in the fridge for food to scrape together.

  “Caleb understands,” I said. “He’s just way more stubborn than me. He… wants me to stonewall you until you agree to stop supporting the bridge project.”