Mom hugs me and Ella, then squeezes Dakota extra tight. “You guys be safe,” she says, looking at me with her Mom Look. “Don’t take any detours and don’t drive over any roads that are flooded.”
“So if we can’t take a detour, what do we do if the road is flooded?” I ask with a smirk.
Her lips flatten. “Ethan! You know what I mean! Just figure it out,” she says with a laugh. “And be safe. You’ll get home before we do, so just be safe.”
“Thank you so much for taking me to the airport,” Kennedy says. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was some sweet southern girl with a charming smile. But that charm is as fake as the shimmery makeup on her eyelids. It all washes off eventually, and you see the mean girl underneath. I’m so glad to be done with her. My jaw tightens as I remember the drama she put us through this week. But then I take a deep breath and tell myself to let it go. Ella and I are okay now. If we can survive Kennedy’s crap, then we can survive anything.
Finally, we’re in my truck and on the road. Dakota stretches out in the backseat and plays on her phone, listening to music through her headphones. Ella sits next to me, which is exactly where I like her.
I reach over and take her hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” she says.
The drive home isn’t too bad. There’s a little traffic on the main highway, but it’s not like it was before when everyone was panicking and trying to get away. As we get closer to home, you can tell a storm was here. Tree branches litter the roads, and business signs are toppled over or broken. We drive past a huge McDonald’s golden arches that’s blocking half a lane.
“Whoa,” Ella says. “That thing is much bigger down here.”
Once we turn off the highway, things get even worse. The small town roads of Hockley, Texas are completely covered in debris. It’s mostly tree branches and street signs, but there’s other stuff too. A canoe hangs out in a ditch that’s nearly overflowing onto the street. Patio furniture litters front lawns and cars are left in weird angles on lawns and driveways as if the water pushed them there.
We all drive in silence as we make our way through the town. Dakota is sitting up now, her face pressed to the back window. I have to stop a few times to drag a tree branch out of the road. Some parts are worse than others. We drive down one back road toward Ella’s house and the only thing you can see is the road. To the left and right is just water, and houses poking out from the water which is around three feet deep.
Ella gasps and puts a hand over her mouth. “This is terrible.”
“I hope your house is okay,” I say. But there’s no telling what it’ll look like until we get there. It’s funny how you don’t realize the different elevations of the town until it’s covered in water. Some parts of the road are high enough that the houses are fine. Others dip down just slightly and the houses are filled with water.
Things look better when we pull onto Ella’s road. There’s still trash and debris everywhere, but none of the houses are flooded.
I pull into her driveway and her house looks almost the same as usual. Only there’s signs of water everywhere. The grass is bent over at an angle from where it drained off.
We get out of my truck and walk up the sidewalk. Her house is two steps higher than the sidewalk, and that might be what saved it. Ella and I both look around at the front porch. You can tell the water was up here, but did it get in the house?
She unlocks the front door and pushes it open. A musty smell fills my lungs. Ella’s feet squish onto the carpet as she steps inside.
“Water definitely got in,” I say as we look around the living room.
“But not much,” Ella says. She walks further into the room, stomping her feet as she goes. The front doorway is covered in water, but it gets less as you walk inside. Once we get to the kitchen, the floors are dry. We check every room of the house, and it’s all dry. Looks like the water probably rose up to the porch and slipped under the front door, but not too badly.
“Wow,” Ella says, turning back to look at the wet living room carpet. “We got lucky.”
“Very lucky,” Dakota says. “You’ll probably just have to rip out the carpet and be fine.”
“Let’s start,” I say. Ella’s parents are driving home from New Orleans today but I know from watching the news all week that starting the clean up as soon as possible is the best thing to do. Otherwise you get mold.
My sister and Ella help me move the couch into the kitchen, and then we unhook the TV and move it all into the hallway. They don’t have much furniture, so it doesn’t take long.
Then I search how to remove carpet on YouTube, and it turns out it’s pretty easy. You just pull it up. I pry up a corner of the carpet and then roll it back. It smells terrible, and the water underneath is all muddy and gross.
With the girl’s help, we roll up the carpet from the small living room and carry it outside. Luckily, the rest of the house has tile or wooden floors, and the water didn’t reach any of that. We mop up the water that’s still on the concrete of the living room. Ella gets some bleach and sprays it all over to get rid of the smell.
We’re covered in sweat and it’s only been one hour since we got here.
Ella puts her hands on her hips and studies the empty living room. “I feel really, really, lucky,” she says, glancing up at me with watery eyes. “I had pretty much convinced myself that I’d come home and it would all be gone, just like the last time.”
I put an arm around her even though I’m kind of gross and sweaty. “Mother Nature spared you,” I say with a grin.
My phone rings. I let go of Ella to answer it.
“Ethan,” Mom says in a voice that’s so strained it makes the hairs on my neck stand up. “Can you come home now?”
“Yeah, I’ll head over there now,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
Mom takes a second to answer. “Not really,” she finally says. “It’s not okay.”
