And the last time I saw this place, I was stumbling toward my dad’s car, ready to steal it so I could put this place behind me. Which is exactly what I thought I’d done. Yet here I am. Once again, with nowhere else to go.
“You’ll never be anything else, Tessa. You’ll always end up back here.” His words are damaging even after all these years. Like an anvil dropped on my head over and over again.
Considering that lying low here in town is no longer an option, I really should have left town once I’d gotten out of the hospital, but this is business left unfinished. I need to prove to myself that this broken shell doesn’t hold any power over me. Not anymore. Maybe once I face it, the nightmares will stop, and I can finally truly move forward.
With a deep breath, I limp forward and grip the wooden banister of the porch. The rotting wood bites into my hand just enough that I know I’ll probably end up with a few splinters. Unfortunately, climbing the steps without it right now just isn’t an option, so I ignore the pain.
It’s only fitting that the place leaves one final mark on me, anyway.
The door is unlocked, so I shove it open and remain outside as the putrid stench of stale beer and urine assaults me. There were days he’d just urinate all over himself because he was too drunk to even walk to the bathroom.
I’d given up on trying to wash the couch cushions and just started avoiding the living room at all costs.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes as panic rises in my chest.
He’s not here, Tessa. He’s dead. Long gone.
This place does not hold power over me.
With one arm over my nose and mouth, I move into the room.
There’s no electricity in here anymore, so I use my free hand to retrieve the pen light I always have in my pocket. After one too many times locked in the dark, I know to always be prepared.
The thin beam shines over the stained carpet, or rather, what’s left of the pieces of it that haven’t been completely worn away.
The couch sags, its stained grey fabric a reminder of all the times I found him passed out on it. There were nights I’d even checked his pulse because I was sure he was dead. I hated the disappointment I’d often feel when I felt the steady thumping against my fingertips.
No, I couldn’t be that lucky. He wasn’t done tormenting me yet.
The recliner he spent most of his time in—when he wasn’t passed out on the couch—is gone. Which is honestly surprising. Either someone stole it, it was thrown out after he died, or he got rid of it before death claimed him.
There are empty beer cans all over the dust-covered kitchen. Even a plate of rotted food still sits on a TV tray beside the couch.
I know he’s gone, but as I stand here, I can all but picture him rushing toward me, fist raised, screaming because I’d done something in his eyes worthy of a beating. After angrily wiping away tears, I move down the hall and toward my bedroom.
The door is closed, so I shove it open. Since the curtains are wide open and the solar-powered light on the top of the electric post is just outside my window, there’s enough light in here that I can turn the pen light off as I study the room.
Everything is the same.
The stench in here is a lot less than out there, though the air is stale, and my bed is still made from the last morning I’d stayed here. Posters are pinned to the wall, and there’s a shelf of worn books I’d bought with spare quarters during one of the library’s clean-out sales.
This was the place I’d rest my head, but it was never home.
Because home was never a place for me. It was always a person.
“I thought you’d come here.”
As if my thoughts brought him here, a masculine voice behind me has me lunging forward. I nearly fall over, but a large hand steadies me by gripping my forearm. Heat spreads through me at the contact, warming me from the outside in.
Zane.
He releases me, so I turn to face him, doing what I can to keep my walls firmly in place. I’d slipped out of the hospital room even before they’d given me discharge instructions because I didn’t want to have to turn his mother down on the ride I knew she was about to offer me.
The Knox family has already done too much for me, and I don’t deserve any of it. The last thing I want to do is add anything else to the invoice.
“I thought I told you that I didn’t want to see you.” My tone has lost all sting as I stand here in my childhood bedroom with the man who promised to save me from the nightmare that was my life. He was the one ray of sunshine in the otherwise pitch-black darkness I couldn’t escape.
“You did.”
