Chapter Twenty-four
-Ellie-
There were times when I found myself driving the familiar road out to the Hendrick’s old house.
I would stop my car and get out and walk into the woods that bordered the property.
But I would never go any farther. I wouldn’t let myself actually see the house that I had spent so much time in.
I would pick the Black-eyed Susans and I would twine the stems together like I had done so many times before.
Then I’d leave the safety of the trees and go back to my car. I’d drive to town and I would force myself to forget all over again.
But my heart never would.
Because a heart didn’t lie. It would always know the truth.
I could bury my feelings under a mountain of hate, but the warm glow of what I used to feel in that house, in those woods, with that boy, was still there.
Though the more that time separated me from that girl I had once been, the harder it was for me to remember.
Until the day came and the only thing that left was rage.
That was the legacy of our relationship.
Hate.
Antipathy.
Guilt and blame.
I had lost that girl just as I had lost the boy.
To the heat of fire and unrelenting time.
**
Flynn never texted me back.
He didn’t call either.
I got up early the next morning just as Nadine stirred out of bed. She had insisted on taking me out for breakfast.
“We haven’t even gotten to see the good stuff,” she playfully pouted.
“Another time, I’m sure,” I said.
She didn’t pester me with questions about when I was going to join her in the city because this time she knew the answer.
I belonged elsewhere.
The drive home was arduous and long. I stopped once for gas and to grab a sandwich, but otherwise I kept going.
I arrived back in Wellston a little after five in the evening.
Pulling up in front of the house I was hit by a wave of déjà vu.
Of another time I had come back to this place after a self-imposed separation. Flynn had welcomed me back into his life so easily back then.
