Page 18 of Hearts at War

If I were to stay here for good, then I’d double down on forming a list of specific things that needed to be fixed. I wasn’t sure who of the ranch owners was in charge. It was a family business, operating in the smack middle of Iowa for many generations. Todd was the only person I thought of as being in charge, or at least the closest to a landlord that I could imagine.

But I wouldn’t take my grievances to him. I didn’t even jot them down. Keeping a mental list was the most I’d let it fester.

Because I’m not staying here. I refused to. I hadn’t been here in Burton for a full week yet, but no amount of time would sway me from wanting to get out of here again. Nothing was warming me up to sticking around for good.

This cabin was livable. My deep clean was the TLC it had been missing for years, maybe decades, but it was a habitable place where I could be safe and comfortable at the minimal degrees of those descriptions.

Yet, I knew I wouldn’t hang out for long.

Every day, as I waited to fall asleep, I scrolled on my phone. If I wasn’t checking for jobs, I was browsing the housing market. Buying a place would seem like a step closer to permanently being here, but that wasn’t how I looked at it. Owning a house, even a small one, would give me more control. Then when I moved on, I could sell it for a profit.

Nothing stood out, though, at least not on the housing front.

I applied to a couple of office and clerical positions, one here in town and another in the neighboring county.

Staying or going, I had to have some sort of income to provide for myself. When I was a teen, just eighteen, I’d entered adulthood with an unforgiving and blunt learning curve. My parents passed away the day after my graduation. They’d won that dumb trip and skipped my graduation, then never came home.

I was thrust into having no family, no backup. Not even a home since they’d let it get so daringly close to foreclosure that it was inevitable for the credit union to seize it as soon as they’d passed away. In those trying years, I busted my ass off, working whatever part-time gigs I could find while going to school.

Maybe that’s where my shitty sleep habits all started.

I huffed as I blinked my tired eyes in bed.

Regardless, a job would be nice. It was mandatory, and on I searched.

When I tired of looking at job posting—half of which looked like scams—I dared to peek on social media and try to keep track of what David was up to. He was the stalker. He was the narcissist asshole who’d controlled me for far too long. It was different, like the tables had been turned, to look him up online.

Nothing stood out as a clue that I was safe. He’d never known where I came from. Burton wasn’t on his radar, and my goal was to ensure I stayed off his radar as well. Forever.

On the seventh day of staying here and blistering my fingers from deep-cleaning the cabin, I smiled at an email from Burton’s only bank. So many financial services and institutions were online only now. Everyone invested and paid bills digitally. And why not? It was far more convenient and faster.

In town, though, on Main Street, a brick-and-mortar bank stood at the corner of one intersection. I recalled opening my very first bank account there when I was fifteen, so I could have my meager paychecks deposited there.

Now, they were interested in me potentially filling their vacancy for administrative help. I tapped in a quick reply that yes, I would be available to come in for an interview at noon the next day.

I’m available at any time of the day...

Hopefully, that wouldn’t be true. I could work there, then still look for something at night. The more I worked, the less I’d think and dwell. The faster I earned, the speedier I could save up.

Staying busy would put a dent in the idle free time I had to stress about how I was still going nowhere with my life.

The next day, I arrived early at the bank, pleased when the manager who’d interview me, Janelle, was pleasant. She was also someone new to Burton, relocated to this specific branch just last year.

“So, you’re born and raised, huh?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, I was,” I told her, careful not to smirk or let my sarcasm show.

She smiled slightly and tapped her pen on her desk once. “I bet it can get boring around here.”

I grinned. “You have no idea.”

It wasn’t boredom that pushed me to want to move. I read a lot, and it was true. Someone could live a thousand lives and travel anywhere they wanted when they were a bookaholic like I always had been.

Yet, this was the small-town life. “Things can move...slowly around here.”

She huffed, still smiling. “Oh, I believe that. It was a culture shock, adjusting.”

That was all she said about what I shared of my past, and I couldn’t have been more relieved. Janelle wouldn’t be another person to judge me. She couldn’t have many biases or have heard tons of rumors and gossip about me or my parents.