Lane
Six months later
I’d gone for a run in my neighborhood rather than driving down to the beach. I was learning to be at home without panic and nightmares, and sticking around my house was part of my therapy.
The house in Florida had never been a hot button for me until everything went to hell. Before Bess came into my life, my past remained in the Northeast. Now it was a frequent flyer, following me wherever I went.
It was fall, but the Florida heat didn’t get the memo. Although it was the end of the day, the air clung to the warmth from the sun earlier in the day, and I was sweating quicker than I’d expected.
Rounding the bend, I wondered if the leaves were changing back home. By home, I wondered if it was cold where Bess was—in Pennsylvania.
Of course it was.
A chill wormed its way through me despite the pace I was pushing in eighty-plus degrees. The street was clear and bright in Miami, but in Pennsylvania—and Ohio—they were slick and littered with leaves. An accident waiting to happen. Like my parents.
Except with them, it wasn’t the leaves.
I arrived at the end of my driveway at the same time a cab pulled up to the gate, not allowing me to dwell on that awful day so many years ago. Coming to a quick stop, I brought my hand to my face, wiping the sweat out of my eyes, curious about who was going to step out. My beard bristled under my hand. Another change I’d made—I wore a beard and jeans now instead of my suit of armor.
Was it her?No, she wouldn’t come back here.
Then dispelling any hope that it was Bess, a large form similar to mine opened the back door of the cab.
“Jake, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, I decided two months of my brother being MIA was enough,” he said, wrapping his big arm around my sweaty body.
I shrugged his arm off. “I’m fine, and you know it. I told you I was getting better but needed space, and yet here the fuck you are.”
Jake shot me a quizzical look. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
I didn’t want to. The last time I invited someone in from the bottom of the driveway, it went catastrophically bad.
“Come on,” I said, punching the code in the gate.
After opening the front door, I showed Jake the kitchen and excused myself for a shower, more so I could gather myself than get clean.
Standing under the spray in the guest bath—I didn’t use my master one anymore—I closed my eyes and fought back the emotions of my past. Calling forward my newfound strength, I took deep breaths, allowing the water to wash the sweat away.
Rubbing shampoo through my new beard and the hair I’d kept long, I thought about that night like I did every time I showered.
I’d watched the town car with Bess tucked in the backseat pull away like I’d watched the ambulance drive away so many years ago. Except this time, I’d been the one who needed help, screaming inside for someone to rescue me. And Bess had been trying to be strong enough, sticking around, letting me use her, giving and not taking.
Unlike me, who had run away or literally pushed her out of my life. It made me hate myself even more for my past transgressions.
I’d stared into the night until the taillights became tiny pinpricks, hating myself more with each passing second. When they were gone, I didn’t go back inside. I’d laid down on the concrete driveway and looked at the sky, enamored with the universe, its largeness. It was all consuming and I was nothing but a small chess piece in its game of life.
Even if life hadn’t been manipulated or altered in the way I knew it was all those years ago, maybe the outcome would have been the same.
What ruled our existence, I thought. Fate? Or our own decisions?
This line of thinking was too existential for me. My world was one of cause and effect. Clients paid me, then I installed my systems at their hotel and they made better money. That was all I knew, like Bess knew waitressing and collecting tips on the morning shift, going to meetings, and walking her dog. It was how we survived, lugging around the burdens of our youth, and we each had our own ways of dealing with it.
But Bess was growing out of it. I didn’t know how or when, but she was. She was strong and I was weak.
When I’d stood up with the intention of going back into my big, empty house as dawn broke, I’d decided I wanted to be strong. Not just a facade of strength, but complete. Whole.
And I’d called a number I hadn’t used in a few years.
