Page 5 of The House on Haven Way

What’d I do? I watched, and waited, and waited.

And waited. Because Harry Rogers should have been swinging for poisoning me. And my girl should have been there, weeping over me. My Ma gets a pass. She wouldn’t want to set foot in this place, not where I died.

Died. Did he mean for me to die, or just to get sick enough to call off my dinner with Nancy? When he found out I was dead, did he run for it?

Dead. Died.

What fucking ugly words.

And it’s worse than they tell you. Because if you die with a million questions on your mind... It seems like you don’t leave until you get some answers.

September 17th, 2026

“Why? Why Pine Ridge? I looked at the place, and it looks whiter than mayonnaise.”

“Um, excuse me, but why are you talking like we didn’t grow up in the ‘burbs with the most diverse neighborhood ever? We’re probably the only bunch of kids who could have opened an international food court at our lunch table. God, I want samosas, jerk chicken, and a side of Mrs. Weinbeck’s strudel right now.”

“Dang it, Amber. I’m hungry now. And you’re a foodie. You know that place has like a total of six restaurants?”

I close my eyes—which is very stupid considering how I got to this place.

Car accident. Not my fault. Driver was looking down at his phone. Some young guy, drinking an energy drink and texting—slammed into me when he should have stopped at a red light. His dad’s big, heavy double cab truck.

Against my 2002 third-hand compact. Guess who won?

Not me.

Neck brace. Back pain. Broken wrist. Concussion. Blurry vision that they say will clear up—some day. Comes and goes now. Goes more than comes, or I wouldn’t be driving. Wouldn’t be moving to Pine Ridge.

“Look, I’m on FoodFinder.spot right now, and there’s The Pine Loft Coffee Shop, Jade Forest—that’s the Chinese place, One-Bite Pizza—who’s going to want one bite of pizza? Tiramisu, which sounds fancy, but they’re hardly ever open—”

“Honey. I know. I didn’t move here for the food.” I stop my cousin as she rattles on and try to ignore the growling in my stomach.

I moved here because cities now give me PTSD, and I never want to set foot in Boston again. Manhattan? Oh, hell no. Philadelphia? Only with a Valium in hand. Four years of college. Four years of climbing the architectural ladder, always with my foot on the lowest rung, no matter where my firm sent me. No one listening to my ideas. My ideas starting to sound like everyone else’s.

Sometimes... Sometimes I feel like the pain, and everything after the accident, could be worth it if it makes me dream again, chase something again... Reinvent myself, and not end up someone’s suit-wearing mini-me, following the Big Boys around while they get the deals and I spend hours on hold with the planning permission offices.

“The pollution is like zero. The taxes are low. The houses are cheap. The settlement paid for the house outright.” Because they admitted in court that breaking your wrist and possibly having permanently blurred vision would be “detrimental” for a career in architecture...

“That means it’s a fixer-upper.”

“I know it’s a fixer-upper!” I snap. Honey. I love her, but she can make me crazy faster than anyone else except my mother. “I’m going to reinvent myself, okay? Thirty is the new twenty. Gonna figure out what career I actually want, take my nice, easy electives at the local college, and go to the gym and P.T. three times a week. And before you make any more whiter-than-mayo cracks about this place, the guy who runs the rec center at the campus is Persian, and my physical therapist is African American—and married. I saw the ring because I checked. Such a hottie—with a “Doctor” in front of his name, too, damn it,” I shake my head and turn onto Haven Way, “and pretty much every place I’ve been in has been nauseatingly nice, and full of all kinds of shapes and colors. You’re just jealous that I didn’t ask you to move in with me.”

“I thought Devon would have.” The hint is there, a way of prying without fully sticking her nose in.

Remarkable restraint from Honey.

“Hm. No. It wasn’t that serious before the accident.”

And after the accident, he split.

I didn’t think it was serious, but I didn’t think we were a “If things are bad, I’ll ghost you” couple.

“Hate ghosts,” I mutter.

“Then why did you move into a house next to a cemetery?” Honey asks, because of course she overhears things.

“Not that kind of— Never mind. Ghosts aren’t real. And cemeteries aren’t scary; they’re peaceful. Do you know how much I want some damn peace after living in Boston and not being able to leave my apartment for six months? How it feels to live next to some of the noisiest bars on earth during baseball season with a continual headache?” My eyes blur just thinking about it. I feel the familiar headache attack, pounding and dull at once, targeting two regions of my head, above the eyes and in the back, thanks to the headrest that broke off when I got T-boned.