“Sorry. It was kind of a last-minute trip.” I should have called him, but I couldn’t risk having him tell my brothers I’d be here. “I won’t stay long. Kelsey’s getting married in New Orleans in two weeks.”
I look toward the ceiling, garnished with brown stains from water damage.I can’t imagine Kevin getting the money for the roof or caring enough about my dad to spend it, but he’s the only possibility.
“Did Kevin help you with the roof?”
Dad stills, as if caught at something. “Yes.”
He’s lying. I assume that means I don’t want to know whatactuallywent on to acquire that roof. If he or my brothers now owe someone a favor, I need to be far away when it gets called in.
I decide to let it drop. There will be other conversations to have...whether he’s taking his meds, when he follows up with the cardiologist, and I know better than to push a man who’s had six or seven beers by noon.
He sucks down half of the beer in his meaty grip. “How’sHarvard?”
It’s always emphasized that way when he says it.Harvard.Snidely, as if it’s a euphemism for something worse. I choose to ignore this too, but as always, inside, I’m askingWhat did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?
I’ve only been in this house for five minutes, and I already can’t get enough air. “It’s good. I’m gonna run into town forgroceries.” I grab the keys off the table. There are always at least six banged up cars sitting outside—he used to spend all his free time working on them when I was younger and even talked about opening a shop. Eventually, drinking became his prevailing interest, and then his only one. “Text if you want anything.”
“Buy more beer!” he shouts after me.
“I’m not buying you beer,” I reply as I walk out the door.
What crushesyou in adulthood isn’t the bills or the stress. It’s realizing that you aren’t going to get everything you want, and that if youdoget it, it won’t feel the way you’d hoped.
That’s what’s so bittersweet about returning home: I remember all the things I wanted, and how I wanted them with a fervor they didn’t deserve. And just as I pull up in front of the Stop-n-Shop, the thing I wanted most exits the store.
Elijah ducks slightly as he walks under the doorframe, a reflex when you’re as tall as he is.
He’s far too tall for me. It’s definitely for the best that he wasn’t interested, because how would I ever have given birth to his monstrous children? I’m fairly familiar with how human anatomy works, having gone through med school, and I’m positive that no onemysize was meant to procreate with someone ofhis.
I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. My makeup has somehow remained in place despite the South Carolina heat, so I take a deep breath and step from the car.
His eyes widen when he sees me, a breath of uncertainty there, as there should be. The last time he saw me, he said, “Hey stranger,” and I said, “Go fuck yourself, Elijah.”
I usually handle myself better in those situations. I’m not sure why I slipped up that time.
Any wariness is gone in the blink of an eye, however, buried deep beneath his trademark smirk, the one that lifts high on one side.
My jaw grinds in response.
Humans are hardwired to prefer symmetry because it indicates stronger, healthier genetic material. Evenbabiesprefer a symmetrical face to the face of their own mother.
That fucking lopsided smile of Elijah’s should be a major red flag, but is instead a dimpled mating call, one all females respond to.
For the better part of two decades, it was all I could see.
He strides toward me. He’s the same kid he was, in some ways—all cheekbones and soft lips, perfect jawline and thick, slightly rumpled hair. Now, however, his lankiness is absent. He’s got the broad shoulders he always wanted—maybe it’s the build he was destined to attain, or maybe it’s because he works in construction, but either way it’s grossly unfair. He should be hideous now—hideous and looking at me with stars in his eyes, the kind that say,“Easton, you’re the one who got away.”Instead, he’s smiling his asymmetrical smile and blocking the sun with his unnecessary height, and my heart wants to hammer the way it did, back when I was a dumb teenager.
Some of my adolescent stupidity lives on indefinitely, it would seem, like a dormant virus.
“Well, if it isn’t Oak Bluff’s favorite villain,” I say as he approaches. I’m not the only girl Elijah screwed over. I’m just the only one I care about.
His mouth works its way upward. “Favorite? I had no idea. Do I get some kind of plaque?”
“Oak Bluff can’t afford plaques, and don’t get too flattered. It’s a town of five hundred. You’re a big villain in a small pond. In Boston, you’d be run of the mill.”
“I suspect I’d still bebig, though,” he replies with his lashes lowered, unmistakably suggestive. And how dare he? How dare he be suggestive and flirty with me after the shit he pulled?
I force a laugh. “Big?You should get some more life experience.” I toss my keys in the air and catch them. “I certainly have.”
