Page 6 of Meet Me in Ivy Falls

When my friend Diego reached out to tell me his company was auctioning off my childhood home on Huckleberry Lane, he’d told me that unless another interested party bought it, it’d probably get leveled to build condos. I’d brushed him off at first because I had zero interest in returning to the place that held so many memories for me. A day later, he sent me another text with the listing and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It seemed impossible that the once beautiful house was now in a state of rot. If my parents had still been alive, it would’ve pained them to see the place in such bad shape.

All week long I’d tried to forget about the text, the house, but it was like a fucking siren pulling me back for one last look. Forcing me to remember all the good times I’d had with my family before my life went dark in one blazing moment.

A line of stores including the Dairy Dip and Minnie’s Market slid past my window. I kept an eye out for one of my favorite spots. As I turned the corner, my stomach knotted. The storefront for Robert’s Hobby Shop was empty. Just like everything else in my life, the spot where my dad and I had spent hours mulling over which model car sets to buy was now pitch-black.

After a few more turns, I pulled into the driveway of 2227 Huckleberry Lane. Built in 1895, the once stunning two-story Colonial Revival home now had a gabled roof that sagged like a frail old man. Cream-colored paint flaked off the wide center pillars. Inky-black oil stains dotted the cracked concrete driveway. The lawn my dad had mowed with precision every weekend was now a rocky pile of dirt and weeds.

I didn’t blame my grandpa for selling it after my parents died, but it would’ve been nice if someone had cared for the house the way my mom and dad did when we lived here. Diego told me the house had had several owners over the last few years until a property management company bought it and began renting it out. When the company defaulted on their loan, the bank contacted him about selling it at the auction today.

Wet, sticky heat clung to my forehead and dripped down the back of my neck. I shrugged off my suit jacket and laid it across the back seat. Forcing my feet forward, I climbed the rotting wood stairs until I stopped on the wraparound porch. The old swing my parents loved hung on by a single rusty chain. I cupped my hands around my eyes and looked through the big bay window. Piles of empty beer cans and fast-food wrappers littered the living room floor. Like some avant-garde art show, swaths of colorful graffiti covered every inch of the walls.

The place was a mess. All the floors would have to be replaced, as well as the windows and front door. I could only imagine what kind of shape the rest of the house was in if the living room was that big of a disaster. Maybe someone should put a wrecking ball to it.

‘No,’ I said more to myself than the house. I’d been back in Tennessee two years and had managed to stay away from Ivy Falls. I couldn’t reopen that chapter of my life no matter how much it killed me that the home my parents had taken such loving care of now looked like the scene of a bad horror movie.

The porch groaned under my feet. Another warning sign to run and never look back.

I sped down the crumbling stairs and back to my car. Once I was behind the wheel, I floored it out of the driveway. My condo was only forty-five minutes away. Forty, if I pushed the speed limit. I pictured a cold beer defrosting in my hand as I reviewed the proposal for the new account my team was pitching in eight short weeks.

I did a quick U-turn and headed back through town. A flash of my little sister, Piper, running in the front yard filled my head. She’d loved that house. The way she could dance around the wide-open kitchen. Play her beloved piano in the front room with the natural light streaming in through the big bay window. She cried all the way to the state line when we left.

What if I bought it? Restored it and brought her home? It could be a reminder of how things could be good and simple again.

Thankfully reality took hold of my muddied brain. I knew nothing about restoring a house, and with everything else I had going on in my life buying it would be a supremely bad idea.

I stopped at the next light and an old Ford truck with sky-blue paint rumbled up beside me. In the driver’s seat a woman belted out a Moon Taxi song at the top of her lungs. Her blonde ponytail swung behind her as she tapped the wheel in rhythm to the beat. The windows of my car vibrated as the music grew louder. Her sweet voice moved through my car like it’d found a way in through the air vents.

There was only one person who loved the soulful beats of the Nashville indie band as much as I did.

Torran.

It felt like a sign – if you believed in that shit.

Panic quickly filled my chest.

Should I ease down the window?

Call to her?

Give a casual wave hello?

No. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d already decided I was going back to Nashville because there was nothing left for me in Ivy Falls.

The truck’s engine revved. When the light turned green, she sped through the intersection.

My foot stayed on the brake. There was too much pain here. Too much of my parents in every corner of this town. But I hadn’t seen Torran in a decade, and as much as I did not want to admit it, things hadn’t changed since we were kids. She was the sun and I was the Earth unable to resist her gravitational pull.

I hit the gas and was quickly behind her. A burst of laughter escaped my lips as her truck (which I’d nicknamed Sally Mae because it matched Torran’s sassy personality) hugged the curve near the Dairy Dip like she was gunning for Turn 4 at Daytona.

I stayed on her tail as she sped past the Pool and Brew on the corner of Main Street, its rickety steel sign declaring: Serving Drinks Colder Than Your Ex’s Last Text.

Ouch.

Further down the road, the sign for Mimi’s Pizza read: We’ll Give You A Cheesy Grin.

What was going on with the signs in this town?

Torran took one too many sharp turns. The back passenger wheel careened over several curbs. The truck finally slowed and bumped into the parking lot of Diego’s business, Gold Star Properties.