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Skye
Myparentscouldn’twaitto get rid of me. So much so, that they couldn’t even be bothered to drive me all the way up to the house. They just left me at the end of the long gravel driveway to my cousin’s house, bags piled on either side of me.
It doesn’t take long, as the light fades with the setting sun, for the country silence to start eating away at my brain.
Okay… There’s plenty of noise. It’s just not the kind of noise I’m used to. I’m a city girl, through and through. I like the noise a city makes. The rush of tires on the road. Buzz of people’s voices echoing off the tall buildings. I’m not sure I like the noises the country makes. Maybe I’ll grow to like them. The rustling leaves and chattering birds… A hundred horror movie scenes flash in my head when they suddenly stop.
A chill runs up my spine thinking about what could be lurking in the trees across the gravel road. I have the urge to leave my stuff and run up the driveway. Just before my flight response takes hold, the rumble of an engine and crunching of tires on the driveway behind me shakes me out of it.
“Hey, little cuz,” Boone says, stopping his ATV a few feet in front of me.
“Hey, Boone.”
Boone’s a good-looking guy. Late twenties, super fit, and just over six feet tall. He didn’t get his looks and height from our shared side of the family. Our mothers are sisters and I could be their clone. Short, plump, blond. I couldn’t be so lucky as to get the tall, slim features of my father’s side like Boone got from his father. While it does give me a little hope that I might find a guy into short and stubby, knowing my mom and aunt both found such men, I’m not holding my breath.
“You didn’t bring much,” Boones says, loading the two medium-sized suitcases—speckled with paint because I can’t stand a blank canvas—on the luggage rack on the back of the ATV.
“I don’t need much. As long as I’ve got my paint and brushes, I’m good.” That’s one of the reasons I’m here. The only thing I’ve ever aspired to is art. Not that I’m super talented. Not that it would matter if I was. I’m willing to bet that even if I was and talent paid the bills, my parents still would have kicked me out. As soon as they found out I lost my job at the museum’s gift shop and I didn’t plan on going to college but instead wanted to spend a year painting to try and get a gallery show, they flipped out. They thought, I’m sure, that I was going to become a deadbeat artist and wind up mooching off of them my whole life living in their basement. Or whatever the penthouse equivalent of a basement is.
It’s not like they couldn’t afford to let me take my time but to be honest, I’m pretty sure they’ve been waiting to get me out of the house since the day I was born. That’s why I have a sizable sum in my bank account and am riding on the back of an ATV to a house in the middle of nowhere to live with family members I barely know.
“Here we are.” Boone pulls up to the door on the side of the house with just a small concrete step up to it, instead of the big front porch, complete with a weatherworn porch swing.
As I climb off, I take in my new surroundings. The white, two-story farmhouse in front of me and the barn behind me on the other side of the driveway. It isn’t in the best shape but the roof must be in decent enough condition for vehicle storage. Through the big sliding barn door, I glimpse another 4-wheeler and the back corner of a truck bed.
“Hi, Skye.” Boone’s sister, Marta, throws open the door with her greeting. “Come in. Come in. Boone can get your luggage.”
I turn to Boone to tell him I can get it. He just rolls his eyes and says, “Go on,” as he gives me a gentle shove before he turns back to unhook the bungee straps holding my bags to the rack.
“Thank you,” I tell him and follow Marta into the house.
The first thing I notice when I step inside is the overwhelming amount of apple and cinnamon in the air.
Marta opens the refrigerator just a few steps from the door. She pulls out two bottles of orange pop, twists off the tops and hands me one. “How was the drive?”
“Quiet.”
Marta stops halfway through taking a swig of her drink when Boone bursts through the door behind her.
“You could have at least opened the door for me,” Boone says, holding one of my suitcases under each of his arms like it’s a real struggle.
“Oh, please. Don’t be such a drama queen,” Marta says.
Boone straightens up, drops the act, and kicks his sister’s leg as he passes. “Come on.” Boone pulls his head gesturing for me to follow him. “We’ll show you your room.”
Around the corner from the kitchen, through an arched opening in the wall, we walk on the edge of the living room to the stairs just inside the front door.
Upstairs, Boone turns right and then opens the first door on the left.
Marta tugs on my arm. “The bathroom’s there.” She points to the door on the same wall as my room but to the left of the stairs. “My room’s downstairs,” she goes on. “As well as another bathroom.”
I wait for her to tell me where Boone’s room is. When I turn a quizzical eye to him, he answers, “I live in the barn.”
“What? By choice?” I ask.
Marta and Boone crack up.
