Page 28 of Welcome Home to Ivy Falls

Chapter Nine

PIPER

The Uncomfortable Pause

I did not have to say a word. Barb and Susan rushed behind me into the kitchen and helped loosen the ties on my apron.

‘Now don’t get in the way,’ Barb started. ‘When you get to the clinic, stay in the reception area until they come out.’

‘She knows, Barbie. Piper can’t go in anyway cause old Mrs V won’t hear of it. She loves getting into everyone else’s business, but when it come to her own privacy that woman is Fort Knox.’ Susan grabbed the apron once it was over my head.

‘Fine.’ Barb sagged against the counter. ‘Just be sure to tell Mrs V we’re here if she needs anything.’

‘Of course.’ I grabbed my purse from under the counter and raced out of the café. Tourists took their time ambling along the sidewalks and I quickly skirted around them.

The sun cooked the top of my head as I rushed along the block it took to get to the clinic. My heart shouldn’t have been racing, but the minute I saw Mrs Vanderpool go whiter than the half-and-half on the table, slump down like a wet blanket, a breath caught in my chest. She acted like a cranky old bird, but she loved this community with her whole soul. Her getting sick, possibly losing her, would change Ivy Falls forever.

I pushed away the darkness crowding my head. After years in therapy, I’d learned to recognize that even though my mind always went to the worst-case scenario, it was not the only outcome possible.

At the edge of the brick-paved path that led to the clinic’s front door, my thoughts went to Ford. When we locked eyes across the café, it was like he could see all the dire endings playing out in my head. As if he knew that I might crumble if Mrs Vanderpool didn’t get help. Once he was beside me, he was as calm as a morning ocean. The gentle tone of his voice stilling the panic that zipped through my veins.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad to have him around.

When I reached the clinic’s door it wouldn’t open. Crap. Ford probably locked it behind them. The clinic was closed on Saturdays and I was sure he didn’t want anyone wandering in.

I sat on a wrought-iron bench beneath a massive magnolia tree and waited. Cars buzzed through the town’s only stoplight. Red, white and blue streamers dangled from light poles. The city workers hadn’t taken down the decorations from the town’s Fourth of July celebration yet, and they resembled old, tattered flags floating on the breeze.

My nails dug into my palms leaving half-moon shapes.

Two years.

Over 740 days since that awful night.

At one time, I would have let the memory overwhelm me. Drag me down into a dark and foreboding hole, but now I viewed the day I destroyed the Huckleberry Lane house like a rope drop at the beginning of a marathon. It was the start of my new life. A path out of a dark and sinister chapter in my short existence.

I’d been to enough recovery meetings to know that I should take it one day at a time, but I saw the broader picture. It wasn’t about forgetting the past but embracing it. Remembering how my heart disintegrated when I woke to find Beck at my hospital bedside. How he explained the destruction at the house caused by the partiers I hardly knew. The deep purple smudges beneath his eyes sinking deeper as he told me about the pain I’d caused Torran and Manny. That part of my life was a hell of my own making. In that moment I swore I was never going back, and so far I’d made good on that promise.

As I waited, the wet heat of a Tennessee summer snaked its way around my bare neck, twisting the loose hairs at my shoulders into waves. I closed my eyes. Spoke my short mantra in my head until it was interrupted by the sound of repeated thuds.

Dex rode his skateboard in my direction. When he noticed me, he did a skidding maneuver, coming to a stop a few feet away.

‘Hey, Miss Piper. Whatcha doing here?’

Not wanting to add to the Ivy Falls gossip train, I replied, ‘Enjoying the morning. How about you?’

He stomped down on the back of his skateboard and caught the tip in his hand. ‘My mom was still sleeping when I woke up. Thought I’d let her have some quiet. She’s been working a lot lately.’

‘Have you been practicing your lines? The choreography for “Step in Time”?’

A flicker of worry flashed behind his eyes. ‘Uh. Yeah. Sure.’

‘The dance routine can be tricky at first. Do you need more help?’

‘No,’ he said too quickly.

‘All right, but if you need extra practice I’m happy to stay late at the theater any night you want.’

He scrubbed at his messy tangle of brown hair. ‘Like I said, I’m good.’