Izoned out for the half hour it took to drive to my house, muscle memory leading me back while my mind spun out. I couldn’t seem to force away the anxiety about Theo being back and the talk I needed to have with my dad.
Once I turned onto the long driveway to my childhood home, I was thankfully distracted by the sight of my sister Danielle attempting to wrangle her pet goat Stella in the front yard. Back in high school, she had rescued the scraggly creature from one of the neighbors down the road who had sold their land and left her behind.
I can fucking relate...
She’d cracked my dad in under a minute to let her keep it. Mom was the tougher sell, but even she broke and let her keep the wretched thing. It was definitely on brand for my sister. Not many people said no to her. Once Dani left for Baylor two years ago, it came down to my parents to take care of the animal, but even they fell in love with her before long. As for me, I gave goatzilla a wide berth after the furry demon nearly took my balls off during feeding time the first month we had her.
I heard Dani shrieking at the fast little fucker as I pulled up and climbed out of my truck, the goat darting around her quicker than she could keep up.
“You come here right now! Don’t you—oh for the love of...I swear, if you think I’m feeding you after this—agh,stopit! STELLAAA!”
The goat screamed in response, the sound drowning out Dani’s frustrated ranting. Dani let out an indignant squawk and stomped her foot like a child instead of the twenty-year-old she was.
“Don’t you scream at me! I haven’t seen you in months andthisis the welcome I get?”
“That’s because she’s a Longhorns fan. We’ll have to cleanse the house now that you’ve tainted it with your Baylor stench,” I called out.
Dani whipped around and flipped me the bird. “Cleanse this, bitch!”
“Language,” I grasped my metaphorical pearls. “Do you kiss our mother with that mouth?”
She rolled her eyes even as she broke into a grin and charged, my arms wide open to catch her as she barreled into me.
“I missed you, loser! It’s about time you showed your ugly face,” She said, hugging me with a stranglehold around my neck while her five foot three frame had me bending down uncomfortably.
“Yeah yeah, I missed you too, gremlin,” I said affectionately. I ruffled her hair before playfully shoving her away. “Also FYI, Stella is making a break for the back acre over there.”
Dani cursed before chasing after the animal yet again. I took a second to drink in the view of my family home. It sat on fifteen acres mostly made up of dense woods that were common around the Barton Creek Greenbelt outside Austin. It had been the main selling point for Dad when he and Mom bought it.
I had practically grown up in those woods. They were the landscape of most of my childhood adventures after moving here. I’d lose myself for hours in the foliage, hiding from the world and enjoying the solitude it provided. It was also within those woods that I first met the curious, kind boy who became my best friend.
The boy who became my everything.
In my frantic desire to escape the city and where I knew he would be, I hadn’t thought about how much of our shared history was on this very land. Pieces of us were sunk into the earth, carved into the trees, floating on the wind. There was no place I could go where memories of us couldn’t reach me.
I shook off the painful nostalgia, unwilling to let more thoughts of him invade and headed inside. The smell of my mom’s barbecue greeted me and my stomach gurgled on cue. Coleslaw and baked beans were laid out on the island as I rounded the corner into the empty kitchen.
“Uhh, hello? Mom? Dad?” I called out into the house.
A flash of brown and white flew out at me, tangling in between my legs. I dropped to my knees and was immediately assaulted by a wet tongue and needy whines.
“There’s my Penny girl! How are you, sweet baby? I missed you so much. Did you miss me?” I cooed at our Springer Spaniel. The dog relentlessly tried to fit all sixty pounds of her lean body onto my lap to no avail.
“Ah, I see where your priorities are. The dog gets top billing over your mother.”
I stood and made my way over to Mom, giving her an indulgent smile. She pulled me into a long hug, her familiar cloves and honey scent hitting my nose. When she pulled back, she looked me over as she always did, as if to check I was still in one piece.
“Well, you don’t look any worse for wear. You have my good genes to thank for that,” she winked at me.
The back door swung open with athunkand Dani strode in with twigs in her hair and grass stains up and down her front.
“Too bad you can’t say the same for her,” I smirked. Dani smacked me on the back of the head as she plodded into the kitchen with us.
“I almost took an eye out trying to get Stella back in her pen. It was like corralling the Flash,” she growled. “What the hell have you been feeding her, Mom?”
“Nothing but the usual, sweetie. Her pellets, some hay, a little cocaine to give her some pep. Why? Was that not right?” Mom blinked innocently.
“Okay, the sarcasm can go take a long walk off a short cliff, thank you,” Dani groused. “Next time you give me grief about my sass, I’ll remind you of this moment, woman.”
