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23
TEDDY
PRESENT DAY
It feels strange, returning to familiarity. I became accustomed tounfamiliarity. To different hotel rooms and constant activity and always having somewhere to be or to go.
I drop my bag inside the door and step deeper into the house I’ve lived in since I was fourteen, inhaling the musty scent of a house that hasn’t been lived in for a while. I go around, opening the windows one by one, letting the late summer breeze sweep stagnancy away.
Unpacking and laundry should happen. Or I could clean.
My growling stomach and an empty fridge shift priorities. After a quick shower, I climb into my car and head toward Dave’s Grocery.
Brookfield hasn’t changed. The same sleepy surroundings pass me by as I drive toward downtown. It feels nice, reassuring. The way coming home should always feel—like a warm hug and a soft blanket. There’s a hum beneath my skin, though, that feels like bouncing a knee. That sees familiar surroundings as more boring than reassuring. There’s a part of me that misses the commotion I just left—almost as much as I miss her.
It’s only a few minutes until I’m pulling into the asphalt lot and then walking inside the store. The first aisle is the cereal one. I stare at the colorful boxes for a few minutes before I keep walking.
Would it have mattered, if I hadn’t seen her standing here that day? If our story had a different start? My gut says no. That you can meet the wrong person in a million different ways and it will only matter when you met the right one, no matter where that might be.
I turn the corner of the next aisle. Jett is standing there. I smile automatically when I see him. I feel a kinship with the kid. Like me, he moved here in high school without any strong parental role model. I helped him get a job here and at the Everetts’ dairy farm—the same two places where I worked in high school.
I glance between Jett and the teenage girl he’s talking to with a smile. I don’t recognize her, so I’m guessing she’s one of the summertime tourists visiting the lake.
“Working hard, Jett?”
Jett flashes me an easy grin. “Always, Mr. Owens.” His smile widens. “Saw some pretty sick footage of you on tour.”
I’m guessing it’s the first of many comments I’ll hear about my summer activities.
“Yeah, it was fun,” I say as neutrally as I can muster.
Jett’s smile edges into more of a smirk before he nods to the girl next to him. “This is Delaney. Her family just moved here…yesterday?” He looks to her for confirmation of a detail they’ve obviously already discussed.
The girl’s dark head of hair bobs. I recognize the look she’s giving Jett—a little shy and a whole lot interested.
“Actually, you two will be neighbors,” Jett continues, turning back to me. “Delaney’s family bought the Everett farm.”
“Oh.” That’s the best—and only—response I can manage as Jett turns back to Delaney and tells her how I live next door to her and teach at the high school.
I think he calls me a “chill dude,” which would make me grin under different circumstances. High praise, coming from a teenage boy.
I’m preoccupied—literally watching history repeat itself. Remembering standing in this very store, meeting the new girl and trying to act cool.
What would I go back and change? Anything?
Walking up to Sutton all those years ago, I toppled a domino. And they’ve been falling ever since, some faster than others. In a steady succession that ended with me back here. I wonder when I’ll finally feel closure.
If I ever will.
Jett and Delaney are far more interested in talking to each other than to me. I say goodbye and leave them to chat as I stroll through the remaining few aisles and pull the essentials off the shelves. I’m still lost in my own thoughts as I check out and load up the trunk with my purchases.
I thought I made it clear to Sutton where I stood on us. But looking back on the whirlwind I just left, I think of all the ways I could have been more explicit.
I accepted temporary, thinking she might want more when we expired.
Hoping I’d work her out of my system by then.
Knowing I would always regret not taking any scrap she offered me.
