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“Well, I’ll miss having you around for movie nights.”
I snort and roll my eyes at August. “You mean you’ll miss invading my bed on movie nights.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault your bed was the couch.”
Tapping the table twice, I offer to bring back fresh beers for both of them, but they decline, saying they’re about to head out. With that, I bid them both a wonderful evening and head back to the bar, though not before I catch the look on Colton’s face.
Still irritated. Still angry. But something was different. A kind of, I don’t know, furrow to his brow, or…I’m not sure. But it makes me feel like I’ll be hearing about whatever was on his mind when I show up on Monday morning.
The rest of the night moves fast enough, and I’m able to dip out before things get too rowdy with a pretty nice stack of tips. Then I make the quick walk back to Leighton’s to pack up the rest of my things for my move tomorrow.
“It all just feels strange,” she tells me, her arms crossed as she leans up against the doorway.
Leo is already outside smoking, the scent of marijuana traveling with the ocean breeze up and into the apartment, but for whatever reason, Leighton hasn’t followed after him. She’s fully dressed in a pair of adorable jean shorts with a high waist and an off-the-shoulder crop top that fits her long, willowy figure perfectly, the two of them heading out to meet up with some of Leo’s friends at a party in Santa Barbara.
“Like, wouldn’t you think it was strange if I moved somewhere and wouldn’t tell you where it was?”
I laugh, trying to play it off. “Leighton, you’re being ridiculous. I told you, I’m—”
“Yeah, I know, you tell me the same thing every time I ask. You’re moving in with a friend of yours but moving in is technically breaking the rules so he asked you to keep it to yourself to make sure the landlord doesn’t find out.” She spreads her arms wide. “It doesn’t sound any less weird than the first time you said it.”
Letting out a sigh, I gently set my freshly laundered and folded shirts into my suitcase.
“Can’t you just accept it for now and I promise to explain it to you later?” I ask her, biting my tongue to cut off the tail end of what I want to say.
What I want to tell her is I’m doing this weird motel arrangement because I know your boyfriend wants me off your couch. It isn’t ideal. It isn’t comfortable. But it’s a clean bed and no fear that the roof is going to cave in in the middle of the night, and that’s enough for me.
It isn’t enough for other people, though, plus I know that sounds kind of accusatory to the person who very kindly gave me her couch for almost two months, so I keep that part to myself.
Leighton lets out her own long sigh then glances at her watch. I know she needs to go. Leo is probably pacing with irritation downstairs.
“I’m not letting this go, Em. Okay? We’re going to talk about this at some point.”
I nod. “Sure.”
She crosses the room and plants a kiss on the top of my head before heading out, giving me a quick wave before she walks out the door, the screen shutting behind her.
Then I’m alone, left to pile up the small trinkets and items I’ve decided are worth holding on to over the years so I can move them, yet again, to somewhere new. It feels like moving gets easier and easier each time I do it, because I hold on to less and less rather than accruing more and more like others do.
But at the same time, moving gets harder because each time is just another reminder that I’m still not to my goal, to the point in my life where I don’t have to be afraid of not having a bed and a safe place to live. A permanent home for myself, the one thing I always wished for as a child but never had.
Eternity Sands Trailer Park wasn’t an ideal place to grow up. At one point, it probably did okay for itself, back when it first opened—presumably in the 60s if the design and decor are any kind of indication. But the way it looked when I lived there was shabby and broken down at best.
The lot was mostly dirt and rocks and patches of waist-high bushes that had lost their green years ago and were more a bundle of sticks than a bush. As far as I knew, the pool at the back of the complex had sustained some sort of piping problem in the late 90s and never reopened, instead filling shallowly with rainwater and growing green slime we used to chuck rocks into when I was a kid.
Our trailer wasn’t half as bad as some of the ones closer to the main highway, but it was still a trailer. A single-wide with a bedroom in the back for my mom and a small room that barely fit our bunk bed for me and my sister. The kitchen cabinets and counter were wood veneer, and the couch we got for free from my Uncle Rod when I was in junior high reeked of cigarette smoke. My mom kept it because she said it was nicer than any couch she could have bought, so everything in our house smelled like a casino.
I wish I could say my mom was just a hard worker who did her best to give me and Ella a chance, but the reality is that she spent her entire adult life waiting for a man to sweep her away and solve her problems. She made minimum wage working 30 hours a week at the gas station and spent almost all of it on herself even though she had two daughters to take care of, so Ella and I learned fairly young that we either needed to figure out how to take care of ourselves or find someone else who would.
Unfortunately, Ella decided to take after our mother, dropping out of high school at 17 and moving to Hollywood with her boyfriend at the time. He was a 25-year-old who always gave me the creeps, but he promised her he could make her dreams come true and offered to whisk her away to the city of stars.
I couldn’t be more different from the two of them if I’d been born in a different family altogether.
I busted my ass in school, racked up a few scholarships that helped pay for part of my education, then worked hard all through college. I lived on campus at UCSB and then with the Keifers once I graduated, wanting the security of a live-in nanny job and salary rather than the paycheck-to-paycheck life my sister and mother had always lived.
I was truly able to put Eternity Sands in my rearview mirror. I paid off the last of my student debt, and now, it’s just about saving as aggressively as possible until I can buy a little house for myself. Something that belongs to me. Then, I’ll start my own business. A daycare. And the home that is warm and safe for me will feel that way for other children, too.
But now, I feel like I’m taking a step backward. Especially with the…lack of certainty around this motel situation and the deal I’m making with Kirby.
