She steps up to give me a hug. One of those where their body is rigid and kept at a careful distance from yours. It makes sense we aren’t immediately comfortable with each other after all this time. And not everyone is a natural-born hugger. I choose not to take this as a bad omen.
A shiny new luxury hatchback is parked outside. The shadows are lengthening as the last light from the sun streaks the sky. I lock the door and face her with a smile both polite and puzzled.
“Long story short,” she says. “Turns out my fiancé was cheating on me.”
“No. What a bastard.”
“He kicked me out of our apartment and caused trouble for me at work. I thought getting out of the city for a while would be helpful. Give all the drama a chance to die down.”
“That’s awful. I didn’t even know you were engaged.”
“Yeah. You can see why the idea of being somewhere different appealed. Give myself a chance to get my shit together and figure out what life is going to look like now. I would have called to warn you I was on my way, but I don’t have your new number. You and I always had such good times here during the summers. Guess I was feeling nostalgic.” She smiles. “Remember how Grandma would play classical music at top volume? She was always saying it was the original pop and punk music, and we should know where things came from.”
“I remember those lectures well.”
“And how she used to pay us to pull weeds?” she asks. “I swear I still have calluses on both my knees.”
“We needed money for ice cream and movies. Though I distinctly remember you sunbathing around the corner of the house where Grandma couldn’t see while I did the gardening for both of us.”
“That doesn’t sound like me at all.” Grace laughs. Then she gives me this sad sort of smile. “Remember when we were little and we used to spend hours searching for four-leaf clovers?”
“That was a long time ago.”
“I am sorry I disappeared on you. Would you believe I didn’t know what to say? And then Gran died, and Mom was so angry about you getting the house. She made it this whole big thing. God…the way she would go on about it. It was like she was obsessed or something.”
“Yeah. Her feelings were pretty clear at the funeral.”
“But we’re family, and I should have tried harder.”
Guess it’s my turn to not know what to say. This is the thing when someone comes back. Whatever faith you used to havein the person is gone. Showing her how much she hurt me by not reaching out during my worst days isn’t an option. Because being vulnerable requires a level of trust we don’t have right now. Though she did make the trip up here and I could definitely use more friends.
“I saw the trailer for the documentary,” she says with a wince. “How are you doing with all of that?” Before I can answer she’s off and talking again. “I mean, having people know your name and being sort of famous must be at least a little fun, right?”
“It’s not the kind of situation where people give you free coffee or other perks. And the stares are more along the lines of ‘is she going to pull an axe out of her handbag and kill us all’ as opposed to ‘wow, check her out, she’s so cool.’”
Her enthusiasm dims. “Well, what do you think of the documentary?”
“Eh. The less said the better. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Fair enough.” Her smile disappears for a moment before returning to full force. “Do you still like to lie out in the backyard and howl at the moon?”
“It’s been a while since I did that. But I mean, someone has to, right?”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “You know I wasn’t even sure where I was heading at first. Just got in the car and started driving north. It would be great if we could spend some time together. I booked a room at a cheap hotel out by the highway. You wouldn’t believe how broke my ass is. All the money had been going toward paying for the big day. I spent like an hour on the phone to the baker yesterday arguing about a two-thousand-dollar deposit on a cake.”
“Ouch. That’s a lot of cake.” My mouth opens and closes. Like the words don’t want to come out. “Stay here. I have a spare room. Though it’s a little messy. Storage boxes and things.”
Her smile widens with relief. “Really?”
“Yeah. Of course,” I say, convincing us both. “Like you said, we’re family.”
Bright sunlight borders the curtains by the time I wake the next morning. It took forever to get to sleep. My brain wouldn’t shut up and shut down. And hearing my cousin moving around didn’t help. She went downstairs for a glass of water or something multiple times. In the end, I got up and worked for a while. It’s one of the benefits of data entry. You generally get to set your own work hours.
When I finally did get to sleep in the small hours of the morning, I had one of my favorite recurring nightmares. The one where I know my ex is somewhere close by. He’s hunting me as I stumble down hallways and through darkened rooms. Looking for a way out or something I can use as a weapon. But there’s nothing that might help me and every window and door is locked tight. His brutally strong hands grab at my neck and… this is where I wake up covered in sweat, gasping for breath.
Trauma sucks.
I realize that it was the sound of people talking that woke me. Not coming from inside the house, but from below my open window at the ruined section of the fence. Noah’s voice I recognize straight away. However, it takes me a minute to remember that my cousin is currently a guest, and the other voice is hers. My brain isn’t great first thing. Or the first few hours. And I am not used to sharing my space. Hana has crashed here a time or two after we stayed up late talking or binge watching something. Though I think she’s probably the only one. Which reminds me. I grab my phone and text Hana, who responds immediately.
