He stroked my cheek one last time. “If you want me to.” Forsythe leaned down and kissed the top of my head. His smell washed over me, and I shut my eyes, basking in its comfort. “See you later, little viper.” He stepped back and walked away, stepping back outside and onto the porch, leaving me there with flushed cheeks.
I looked back down at the old photo of him and smiled. “I guess he’s always been attractive.” I tucked the photo back into the shoe box and moved it aside. “Alright, what’s next?”
Mom eventually came back inside and worked on a handful of random tasks, cleaning and reorganizing as I worked on the old closet. There was so much stuffed into it that it took forever to pull it all out and sort. More than half the closet ended up being trash or boxed up to put in storage. I had maybe three boxes left to go through and was excited to finally be finished.
“Alright.” I grabbed an old, large, taped box with the letters ‘F.C.’ written on it. “F.C.?” My fingertips traced the faded ink along the top of the box. I debated opening it, feeling an odd sense of anxiety as it sat before me. “Oh, chill out.” I used the box cutter to cut the tape along the top. “There’s nothing in here that could hurt me. It’s probably just another box of old baby clothes or something.” My fingers curled along the edges as I carefully opened it up. It was filled with a bunch of old newspapers, stacked on top of each other. There was a small photo album and then, just beneath it, was a folded leather vest. It appeared to have a bunch of patches sewn into it, and as I lifted it up, I realized it was a biker vest. “What the—” I flipped the vest over and on the back were even more patches. I read the large letters across the top aloud. “Cryptids?” I saw the word Texas across the button of the vest, but what made me freeze in horror was the giant center patch.
This look likes…no. It can’t be.
I stood and accidentally kicked the box hearing something heavy move around. “What else is in here?” I bent down and searched the rest of the box, finding more patches, photos, and at the very bottom, wrapped in an old handkerchief, was a pistol.
This can’t be real. It can’t be.
I carefully wrapped the gun and returned it to the box, feeling sick at the sight of it. My fingers touched the vest, noticing thename patch had been ripped off. “No name.” I found myself relieved, but still needing to confirm my suspicions. “Maybe the answer is in here.” I picked up the small photo album, and as soon as I flipped to the first page, I realized this wasn’t just a biker jacket. It was a gang jacket. And in these photos were the faces of members, ranging from kids to full-grown adults. There were photos of families in the same vests, kids running around while the adults held meetings…it was as if I found a piece of their world, hidden right here in this box. “But why is it here?” I looked through a few more pages to find a particular photo that stuck out to me.
What the?—
“Mom?” I pulled the photo from the album and jumped to my feet, leaving the vest behind. “Mom!”
“Yes, baby?” I ran through the house and found her in the living room, standing on a ladder and dusting the ceiling fan. “What is Lucille? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I approached her, holding the photo out for her to see. “Technically, I have.” I tapped the photo. “I found this really weird box in the closet, andthiswas inside it.” My nail tapped the photo of my parents hugging a young woman in a matching vest like the one in the box. “Were you and dad in a gang?”
“What?” My mother laughed at the question. “Lucille, baby. Come on now, a gang? Really?” She continued to dust the blades of the ceiling fan. “What in heaven's name would make you ask such a ridiculous thing?”
I shook the photograph up at her. “This!”
“Oh let me see that!” Mom plucked the image from my fingers and examined it closely. Her smile fell as the color in her face drained. “Lucille, where did you find this?” Her entire demeanor changed from her usual cheerful tone to one more serious.
“In a box in the closet. There was a bunch of other stuff in it. But?—”
Mom waved the photo for me to take it. “Putthisback in the box. Now. You need to just leave that box alone.”
“But why?” I asked. She didn’t answer. “Mom…if you’re not in a gang, then why are you in this photo? And who is that woman?” I tapped the unknown face. “You and Dad look pretty comfortable with her. And the vest?—”
“Enough, Lucille!” Her temper startled me. “I’m sorry…Oh. I’m sorry, baby.” She slowly descended the ladder and walked over to me. Her hands gently cupped my face, and she looked at me with dark, saddened eyes. “Yes, your daddy and I knew that woman. But no, we were never a part of the Cryptids.”
She spoke as if she were familiar with that world. “Then what’s with the box in the closet?” I didn’t want to think I was right about the real owner of the box, but I needed to hear the truth. “Who’s vest did I find?”
My mother’s eyes began to water. “Baby, everyone has a past. And some of them are meant to stay tucked away.” She patted my cheek softly.
“That doesn’t answer my question. Whose is it?” My stomach twisted in worrisome anticipation. I desperately wanted to know, but I was terrified of what I might have just unearthed.
She sighed. “It’s not my story to tell. It’s?—”
My heart nearly stopped at the name that fell from her lips.
No.
I sat on my bed,wearing my usual pajamas, thinking about what my mother had said. After hearing his name, I returned to the closet and repacked the box before finishing my chore. I spent the rest of the day working in silence, trying to grasp what I had learned. By the time I finished, the sun had fully disappeared and the moon had come out to play. My mom left to spend Boone’s last night in the hospital with him, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It wasn’t exactly the best time for me to be alone, but it gave me a chance to find my own answers directly from the person who owned the items in the box, just as my mom said.
I heard his footsteps walk across the front porch and near the front door. He knocked a few times without speaking a word. “Come in!” I shouted across the house, listening to the door squeak open and slam shut. “I’m back here.” The footsteps carried through the house, echoing in the silence until they stopped in my open doorway. And I felt so damn nervous.
“Lucille.” He stepped into the room and walked over to me. The man crouched in front of me and tipped his hat before tipping my chin. “What’s wrong?”
I stared into his vibrant green eyes and felt a mix of emotions. I wasn’t sure if it was from the chores, the work I’d been doing around the ranch, or the mental load I carried daily since coming back, but…I was drained. And I didn’t have the energy to fight, but I needed answers. I’d spent all this time back, diving headfirst into whatever was going on between us, and never once stopped to think about the facts. And the facts were that in spite of being raised on the same ranch by the same people, I didn’t know anything about Forsythe. I didn’t know his past before he came here, or when his birthday was. I didn’t know what the story was with his birth parents, or if Creed was really his last name. And the more I sat on those realities, the more I came to understand that I didn’t know this man at all.The man, who had somehow found a way past my walls and saw the real me I kept hidden deep inside, was a complete stranger. But the worst part of this internal suffering and these suffocating thoughts was that I realized everything was about to change. And it frightened me.
“I’m just…” I picked at my fingers nervously.
