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“If there’s someone out there you’re trespassing on private property, so I suggest you get going before I call the cops.” As soon as the words have left my mouth, I hear a car engine start from the direction of the front of the house and I turn to run toward it when Maya shouts, “Nate, are you coming?” from the main room.
I pull the front door open, watching the taillights at the end of the driveway. How did I not hear someone pull up?
I shake my head as I close the door. It must’ve just been some kids thinking they could make use of the lake. It’s not the first time I’ve caught them trying to sneak onto my land and I’m sure it won’t be the last, which reminds me, I really need to get some fences or something put up.
But a little voice in the back of my mind tells me that maybe, just maybe, it was Amelia. Had she come after she said she missed me and then got scared off because Maya is here? Is she worried how I’d react to her not answering my calls? Because I’m pissed and I want answers, but most of all I just want her back in my arms.
I collect my carry-on, shuffling along with the other passengers on the airplane before walking off it and through the tunnel into the main airport as I think about the last few days.
I’d been sitting inside my apartment for three days, surrounded by my boxes of stuff. I don’t intend to stay there long so I saw no point in unpacking.
It was only last night I was searching on the internet trying to find any little thing on them, but it’s like they disappeared off the face of the earth when I moved away. After hours of fruitless searching, I clicked the tab closed and typed in the website for the airline, booking a flight to come home.
The only way I felt like I could confront them was coming back to where it all began.
It’s a smaller airport than the one I flew out of, but the amount of passengers departing the plane is the same. I can tell who the tourists are, who the people are who are visiting home, and who are the ones here for business.
Ignoring all of them, I walk outside and into a waiting cab, reeling off the address of the house I grew up in.
Neither my mom nor dad know I’m coming home because I know what they would say if they knew—more specifically my dad.
As the airport gets smaller in the rearview mirror, a sense of ease washes over me. It’s been so long since I’ve been home, the last time I was here I was being driven to the airport not away from it.
I stare out of the window, hoping after being here for a few days it will solve everything. It’s wishful thinking, but the thought of not seeing Nate for much longer kills something inside of me.
It’s been seven days since I last saw him and I’ve thought about him for every single one of those. I’ve dreamed about turning up at his house, knocking on his door and letting him hold me close.
When I close my eyes I’m almost sure I can smell his cologne and feel his hands on my skin, his breath against my neck.
I can’t help wondering if I was wrong: maybe I should have told him everything the day he came to the pool house and saw the first box on the coffee table? I could have stopped all of this then—right at the start. Instead, I kept it inside and now I have to try and fix it.
I shake my head when I think about the message I stupidly sent him last night.
I should have left it well enough alone, at least until it’s all over.
Opening my eyes back up, I shake the thoughts from my head and look around at the familiar houses and streets. The nerves flow through me at higher speeds the closer I get to my childhood home.
My parents tried to do everything they could to help after “the incident.” My father being the sheriff and my mother a nurse, they knew things like that happened. But it didn’t matter what they said, I still blamed myself—I did then, and to an extent, I still do now.
Being from a small town made things even worse and I couldn’t get away from it—couldn’t escape it.
As the cab drives down my childhood road, the memories slam into me. The calls in the middle of the night, the name calling, the harassment, the prickling feeling that someone was watching me—just like I’ve been feeling since the first package came.
When he pulls up outside of the house, I can’t move as my gaze swings to the house opposite. I can see it all so clearly: the flashing lights of the ambulance in front of the house, the neighbors all gathered around. Hearing the gut-wrenching sobs that played as a soundtrack that night.
My hand flutters to my neck, moving as I swallow against the dryness. I’ll never forget it.
Tearing my gaze away from the house that’s encased in a dark cloud, I stare at my childhood home. The front yard is still the same: grassed with an apple tree sitting in the middle. The light-blue siding covering the whole outside is freshly painted, ready for the summer months ahead, the same as the white window frames.
Nothing has changed; yet everything has. I’m not the same eighteen-year-old girl who just graduated from high school. Now I’m a twenty-four-year-old woman who wants answers and to confront her. The person who has destroyed everything I’ve built in the last six years.
Handing the cab driver a few bills, I push the door open and bring my bag with me, standing on the sidewalk as I continue to stare at the house.
My dad’s police cruiser is in the driveway with my mom’s car behind it. As I’m about to move forward, the front door opens and my dad appears, dressed in his uniform, the sheriff's badge attached to his chest.
He stalls when he glances my way and I’m staring into the same eyes I see in the mirror every morning. His salt-and-pepper hair is short on the sides and longer on top, more gray in it since the last time I saw him.
“What are you doing back?”
