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“I never expected him to,” I nodded.
“What’s your plan, Zack?” Mom asked, but I knew what she was really asking.
“I want to come back to the Fallen Angels… I mean, I want to re-join,” I said.
“You’ll have to start from the beginning,” Mom replied. “As a pledge.”
“I know.”
“He’s not going to make the initiation process easy for you.”
“I know that, too.”
Mom nodded, and she looked like she was proud of me. “It’s good to have you back, son,” she said.
“It’s good to be back, Mom,” I nodded.
I snapped out of the memory as I came to a stop outside the clubhouse. I looked towards the trees in the distance. The house I had grown up on was just over the ridge, part of the same property but abandoned and unused since my mother’s death. Dad had moved into the clubhouse right after her funeral because he couldn’t stand staying there after she was gone.
Sometimes it seemed like his premature death was a relief because it meant he didn’t have to keep enduring without Mom. It was an unconventional love story, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was a love story. I had just never thought about it like this before. It wasn’t like I ever had a reason. I had never been drawn to a woman the way my father had been drawn to my mother.
I had fucked dozens and dozens of women, but I had never loved one. Nor had I ever really wanted to. Love felt like weakness to me. It felt like a crutch that slowed you down. I wasn’t interested in being slowed down. But I had always assumed I would have the choice to fall in love or not.
But now… I realized I had assumed wrong my entire life. It wasn’t a choice. It never had been.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mila
“Where are we going?” I asked.
We had left the clubhouse down below, and we were walking towards the trees. We had already passed the point where we’d had sex, and the gentle slope was getting a little steeper.
“You’ll see,” Zack told me cryptically.
Frowning, I followed behind me until the slope reached its peak. I looked down and saw a tiny house a short distance away. It was obvious that no one had lived in it for quite some time. I could see that the windows were sealed shut, and there was a nice layer of dust that covered them over. The paint had been scraped off, and the roof looked battered and bruised.
Still, there was a certain charm about it. It was extremely simple and very small, but I could almost picture what it would have looked like in better days.
“I didn’t even know there was a house down here,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought to explore a little more.
“It’s mine,” Zack replied.
“What?” I asked, turning to him.
“Well it was my parents’,” Zack replied. “But since their deaths, it passed to me. That is where I grew up.”
“Wow,” I said, feeling new interest overtake me. “I can’t believe I didn’t know it was here.”
“No one comes here,” I said. “Out of deference to me, I suppose. I think they assume it would piss me off.”
“Would it?” I asked.
Zack smiled. “It might have…”
“When’s the last time you came here?”
“Umm… a few weeks before you came to the clubhouse,” Zack admitted. “I come to the house every few months. I just sit in front of it and stare at it and remember my parents. I haven’t ever gone back to their gravestones since they were buried. I do my mourning here… in front of this house.”
