I toss in a few books, some lotions and cuticle oil, and a candle from my night stand. I addRenting a Moving Truckto my mental list. I can’t keep packing up backpacks as if I’m on an extended sleepover. I have shelves of books, boxes with old keepsakes, and I’m sure my parents would let me have my bedroom set. I’ll ask before I take it, though.
Digging in my drawer, I pull out a handful of underwear and some silky sleep shorts, stuffing them in the pack. He drifts back a couple of steps, but looms like a giant in my periphery. Orange and vanilla swirls into the air from his body.My bodywash.He used my bodywash. Something tightens between my thighs, and I whip around, gathering more clothes.
“That place could use a lot of renovations,” he points out. “Might be a good idea to stay at home till it’s more livable.”
I tell him softly, “I like it how it is.”
“What’s it like?”
He looks amused, like I’m telling him about a croissant again, but I don’t know…
I don’t know how to describe it. The house is bare, raw, and a little dirty, completely unlike me.
“Quinn?”
Joy lifts the corners of my mouth, possibility the only thing coming to mind when I think of 01 Knock Hill. Possibility.
“Like things are going to happen to me there,” I tell him.
That’s what it’s like. Stormy nights and misty mornings, and maybe I won’t be alone for all of them.
His eyebrows nosedive, his voice sounding curt, and I almost snort. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.
“What does that mean?” he asks.
I lift up the pack and slide my arms in, strapping it to my back. “See you in a couple days,” I reply, keeping my secrets to myself that I seem to have trouble containing.
Leaving him in my room, I exit the house, climb on my bike, and start pedaling for home as thunder cracks across the sky.
The air grows thick, the clouds bearing down, and the wind whips over my body.
There are a million reasons that I’m scared about buying a house I can barely afford in an area where I’m not sure I’m safe, but it’s like every minute that takes me deeper into this mistake, the better I feel about myself. I’ve never done anything on my own, except the bakery. I don’t have my own friends. I don’t travel without my family. I don’t have a past. Hell, Dylan has more of a past than I do.
My parents will have every right to be concerned, but I’m starting to understand that it’s okay. My brothers canfight and yell as much as they want. In the end, though, I’m an adult.
And I can’t believe I just left Lucas—again—when we could be in my parents’ house alone together. If it were the Lucas from eight or ten years ago, I would’ve stayed. He’s changed.
The only part that’s an immediate concern is the car situation.
I’m miles away now, Uber doesn’t come to Weston, and it’s not a good look to still bum rides off family if I’m trying to maintain that I’m an independent adult. It’s time to invest in a company vehicle.
I roll my shoulders, the weight of the pack getting heavier every mile as I cross the bridge. I pat my leg, but I think I stuffed my purse in the backpack, and I don’t have any spare change in my pocket.
I grunt, breezing by the sunken car far underneath me. “I’ll get you next time,” I mutter.
Riding through the warehouse district, I look up at empty windows, darkened doorways, and abandoned alleys, but I feel the eyes all the same. As if the ghosts never ran from the flood.
There are still people residing in Weston. Enough to keep the schools running. It was the poorer neighborhoods that proved the most resilient.
The river flows from a higher elevation, and Knock Hill—the more affluent area that looks like it’s modeled after the Upper West Side of New York City—took the hardest hit. The streets were consumed, businesses ruined, and most of those who evacuated never came back. Thankfully, the main living areas of the brownstones—which are more black than brown now—were salvaged, only the basement levels really flooding.
I cruise up to my house, taking the sidewalk, because cars block both ends of the street. Tables line the curbs on both sides as Farrow stacks cinderblocks, placing a grate on top. It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s doing, but it looks like a homemade barbecue pit.
“What are you up to?” I call out to him as I park my bike.
People surround him—some men I haven’t met, and a few familiar-looking faces among the girls. Friends of Dylan’s.
He jogs over. “Block party. You coming?”
