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Still, as that thought settles in my mind, I know life doesn’t work like that. Once someone’s rotten to the core, it’s hard to change. And Fairhope is filled to the brim with the most toxic people I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.
“Okay, Max. You’ve got this.” I grip the steering wheel tighter. “In and out.”
Wade was right on one account though. I don’t have to stay for the whole event. Just long enough to prove I’m not that girl anymore. To prove that nothing they did to me broke me. That I’m still here. That they didn’t win. That she didn’t win. Though my panic attacks would beg to differ, she did not win. I’m still here.
I focus on that feeling and let a sense of calm settle over me. It’s enough to make me turn the key in the ignition and finally pull away. As I drive into town, I focus on the road ahead, making a point of not looking at the few drivers I pass.
I’m a woman on a mission. I just need to get to the old Alder House turned bed-and-breakfast. I can do that. Just drive straight there. Then take it from there.
But when I finally turn off the engine, I’m not parked outside Alder House. No. I’m parked on Maple Road—the same place I called home until I left at nineteen.
I glance toward the house I grew up in, now almost unrecognizable. The new owners have renovated so beautifully that I would’ve driven right past it if I didn’t know this place by heart.
Still, there’s no mistaking this is my childhood home. Because directly across from it is Milo Fletcher’s house. Unlike mine, it looks exactly the same.
However, the memory that immediately surfaces isn’t of the last time I was here.
It’s of another one. Years earlier.
A night also lit by Halloween pumpkins lining the street, and ghost decorations swaying from the trees.
However, that year, neither my house nor Milo’s celebrated Halloween.
And neither ever would again.
Because that was the day Milo and I buried our mothers.
Chapter 2
Fairhope, October 31st, 2008
I wipe my tears away as I wrestle the pot off the stove, gripping the handle with an oven mitt before carefully lowering it onto the kitchen table. My father remains mute as I move around the kitchen. He just stares at the wall with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, his eyes bloodshot and swollen.
After dragging a chair over to the counter so I can reach the cabinet, I take down two bowls, then push the chair back where it belongs. Returning to the pot, I ladle mac and cheese into a bowl before setting it in front of my father.
When he doesn’t so much as blink, I pluck the cigarette from between his lips and stub it out in the already overflowing ashtray.
“You need to eat, Dad. Not smoke.”
The sound of my voice finally pulls him from his catatonic state.
“You made dinner?” he asks, staring down at the bowl.
Instead of picking up his fork, he buries his face in his hands and starts to cry.
“Dad,” I whisper, fresh tears threatening to spill. “Please… stop.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He wipes his nose with the sleeve of his flannel shirt before pushing himself away from the table. “I can’t do this. I can’t be here.” His panicked gaze darts around the kitchen as if the walls were closing in. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I just… I need to go.”
That’s all he says before grabbing his jacket and rushing out of the kitchen into the living room, and out the front door.
I don’t even try to stop him. What would be the point?
I sit down instead, pull his untouched bowl toward me, and force myself to take a bite. But all I taste is the salt of my tears.
With a howling cry, I shove the bowl away. It sails off the table and smashes against the floor, splattering the food across the linoleum.
If I lived in any other house, one of my parents would’ve grounded me for a stunt like that. But I don’t live in one of those houses. I live in one where the only responsible grown-up seems to be me—the eleven-year-old who still needs a chair just to reach the kitchen cabinet.
