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I just shake my head and keep walking. Fawn Creek is great for a visit, but moving back here will never happen.
Chapter 4
At 6:00 am, my eyes shoot open to the sound of my screaming alarm clock.
“Shit,” I whisper, as I spring from the couch and dive for my phone in an attempt to silence it before it wakes Avery. I pause to listen for movement upstairs, and I am met with silence. Thankfully, I was successful.
“I can’t believe I forgot to turn that off.” I mutter to no one in particular as I crawl back on to the couch and rub the sleep from my eyes. Usually, I never have to set an alarm for before eight in the morning, but I did yesterday, so I could leave early for Hazel’s service. I must have put it on a repeating schedule instead of a one time use, resulting in this rude awakening. In an attempt to not lose any more of my sleepiness, I lay back down on the couch and pull the blanket over my head, but it’s a lost cause. Thanks to that dose of adrenaline, I’m up for the day, like it or not.
Since Avery will be in bed for at least another hour, I decide to seize the opportunity and get in an early morning walk before I head home. Maybe I’ll even pop in for another latte at Drip for the drive home.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I get dressed and slip out the front door and into the fresh morning air. Immediately, the nostalgia of this neighborhood takes me back in time. My entire childhood happened on this very street. Avery and I grew up just a few blocks from here. We were neighbors, with just one house between ours, Cassidy’s. Avery moved to Fawn Creek just before kindergarten started. We met for the first time on the playground at school and became fast friends. Once we found out we were neighbors, though, we were inseparable. Memories suddenly rush back to those days, causing my heart to swell. Memories filled with roller skating, back yard sprinklers, mud pies and playing in the rain in the middle of the street. Those were the very best days. We had a great life on Elm Street.
For a second, I feel a small wave of sadness wash over me. I admit, I hate the fact that my future children will never know about small town life. Don’t get me wrong, I love the city, but there is just something comforting about raising kids in a small town. Mainly, I wish they could experience the safety and security that comes with small town living. I hate that they won’t grow up knowing that everyone in town will look out for them, whether or not they like it. Sure, they will have a life of their own with friends in our neighborhood, but the city will just never be the same.
Fawn Creek is your typical small town in Kansas. It’s the kind of place that you merely drive through on your way to somewhere new and exciting. People say that you can easily miss this place if you blink while driving through, and they aren’t wrong. With a town this size, it’s not a surprise that most have never heard of Fawn Creek. However, for those of us who are from here, this place is so much more than just a map dot. What I told Avery is true. I have no intention of ever moving back here, but there are definitely parts of Fawn Creek that will always hold my heart.
As a teenager in Fawn Creek, I couldn’t wait to get out of this town. I think that’s the general consensus among small town kids. We grow up within these tight city limits and we want nothing more than to just get out and see what else is out there. Like the rest of them, I dreamt of city lights, restaurants, shopping and the ability to leave my house without running into people I knew. More than anything, I yearned to put distance between myself and my parents. I love my mother and father deeply, but putting space between myself and them was a pivotal moment in my life. So, that’s exactly what I have maintained for all these years. Thankfully, only a few hours’ distance has been enough to put a barrier around my life.
Honestly, living in Oklahoma City might be the best of both worlds. I live close enough that I can drive down for a day and see my family, but I live far enough away that my family doesn’t just pop in on me unexpectedly, nor do they know every detail about what I’m doing. Perhaps whenever I do have babies, I can bring them here to visit to get a taste of the small town life before we flee back to the city.
The one person I do miss is Avery. Even after all these years, it’s hard to do life without her. I tried to get her to go to college with me, and dozens of times since then I’ve tried to get her to join me, but every attempt has been a failure. She just loves it here. On more than one occasion, she has told me she can’t imagine living anywhere else, and it’s always been hard for me to understand what keeps her here. We’ve made it work, though. Thanks to technology, we stay connected with regular phone calls and face times. It’s just not quite the same.
Nearly nine months ago, Avery FaceTime’d me to say that she was headed to the hospital to give birth to Juliet, her baby girl. I squealed with excitement and immediately jumped into my car before racing to the hospital. To this day, I am so grateful that I could be there for her that day. Living so far away definitely complicates things, and I could have easily missed it. Being in that delivery room with her was one of the most important days of my life. I never understood the deep, unending love that you can feel towards another human being until I met Juliet. There was just something about her squishy little face and the scent that newborns give off, that made it clear to me I’d always love her as if she was one of my own. It was nothing short of miraculous. Watching Avery raise Juliet from a distance has been difficult, to say the least. Since I’m an only child, she’s the closest I’ll ever have to a niece and I love her like she’s my blood relation. It sucks watching her grow from so far away.
I continue my walk down Main Street, checking out window displays as I pass through the business district. Most of the businesses are still closed, except for Drip, of course. As soon as the building comes into my field of vision, the scent of brewing coffee reaches my nose. I promise myself that I’ll stop in there on the way back to Avery’s house.
After passing the coffee shop, I find myself in front of the little brick building with a For Sale sign once again. My stomach flutters and sadness washes over me. Is it possible to feel an emotional connection to a piece of property? One that I have never even come close to owning? I’m not sure, but I kind of feel like that’s exactly what is happening here. I’ve watched this building house many things over the years. But, despite the best efforts of the citizens of Fawn Creek, nothing has stuck. It’s been a thrift store more than once, a gun store, a boutique and a children’s consignment store. I always loved going inside to look around and dream of what I would do with it if it were mine. It’s the perfect size for a used bookstore and with Drip next door, the location is perfect.
No one in my life took me seriously when I told them my dream. Well, no one but Hazel, of course. She loved to read as much as I do. When I told her my dream, she beamed and squealed excitedly, as if I told her I’d won the lottery. She said she couldn’t wait to be my first customer and from there always encouraged me to make the book store happen. A part of me has always struggled with the fact that I never saw the plan through. Not only did it feel as though I let myself down, but I felt like I let Hazel down as well. It’s not like she could still be my first customer now that she’s gone. Still, here I am, feeling sappy over an empty shell of a store and the path I didn’t explore. Pathetic.
Elliott knows this is something I’ve always wanted, but like others, he has always dismissed it pretty quickly. Even with us living in a bigger city, it’s just seemed impossible. It would just be so hard to compete with major book retailers. They have the upper hand and they always will. They can sell things for so much cheaper than I ever could. Why would the average person spend money at my store when they could travel up the street and save twenty percent by shopping with a major retailer? Plus, Elliott has no interest in taking on debt for a business that may not make it. I understand his reasoning. Money is and always has been a top priority to him. I know he’s right, but it’s still a hard dream to just let go of. I shake my head, as if attempting to clear the ideas from my brain, but it’s no use.
Obviously, that’s just not the life that was meant for me. In a few hours, I’ll be back in Oklahoma City with Elliott, where I belong. I’ll be back in our cutesy little house with our tiny yard. I’ll be back to living the life I wished for all those years ago. Perhaps it’s time to give up and focus on other dreams.
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and glance down to check the time. It’s 7:00 on the dot, and I imagine Avery is probably up and getting ready for work. Time for one last coffee stop before I head back to reality.
Chapter 5
Just as I enter through the automatic doors of Whole Foods, I’m interrupted by my ringing phone. I retrieve my cell from my purse and roll my eyes at the caller screen. My mother. After lunch with my parents, the rest of our visit was about as pleasant as a root canal. We made small talk over a pan of tuna casserole to the best of our ability, and I snuck out of there as early as I could.
“Hi, Mom. Everything okay?” I ask into the phone, balancing it between my ear and shoulder while I retrieve a shopping cart.
“Well, yes.” She answers, already sounding annoyed. “I just wanted to check on you, to make sure you made it home. You never called me last night.”
“Oh crap, I’m sorry.” I say, raising the palm of my hand to my forehead. She told me to call her when I got home and it completely slipped my mind. I was so ready to escape, I completely forgot to say anything about staying with Avery. “Last night I spent the night at Avery’s and just got back this morning. I actually just stopped at the store on the way home.”
“I was just worried that you were dead in a ditch somewhere.” She says with a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
“I know. I really am sorry, and I didn’t mean to make you worry.” I won’t question why she didn’t call me yesterday when she didn’t hear from me, instead of waiting until today. I would have been very dead in a ditch by now.
“You could have stayed here last night. We have more than enough casserole in the fridge. I could have sent some home to feed you, Elliott, and Avery for a week.”
I laugh. “Sorry mom. Throw it in the freezer. You and dad will be set until Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, you mean the next time I’ll see you?” She asks dryly. My mother rarely misses an opportunity to point out the fact that she doesn’t see me nearly as often as she would like to.
Unless someone else dies between now and then, I think. I would not dare say that, of course. I would be the next one to die and my mother would drive up here to do the job herself. Well, she would make my dad drive her. She’s not a fan of driving in the city.
