Ilower my window as I stop at the first four-way intersection in town. My tires grind against the pavement as I press the accelerator again, making a right turn onto Oceanside Boulevard. The sun is just beginning to kiss the horizon to my left, a direct ray of light blasting my cheek as seagulls sing and wind whips through my hair.
I breathe deeply, centering myself in the sights and sounds of home—my favorite place in the world—though the nerves in my gut continue the familiar somersaults I’ve been experiencing for the duration of my seven-hour drive.
Since I got off the Interstate 5 exit ramp, I’ve been running on pure instinct. I don’t need to make a conscious thought about the first left turn or the three stoplights I pass through before I reach the four-way intersection at the center of Pacific Shores. Just as I don’t need to pay attention to where I’m going before my car is suddenly parked in front of the pale yellow, two-story Craftsman-style home with honeysuckle vines framing the front bay window, the white wraparound porch, and the twin rocking chairs beside the front door.
They repainted the house a few years ago, and my mom picked the color. Her favorite.
I know this town well enough to find my way home without much thought, which allows all that extra brain function to filter right to those pent-up nerves inside my stomach and shove them up my throat. I inhale again, giving myself three deep breaths before I’ll force myself out of the car. The cameras out front would’ve already sent an alert about my presence in the driveway, and both cars are here which means they’re home. They’ll be expecting me now.
I take those three breaths, counting with each one, and on the final exhale, I throw open my door. Stepping out into the California sun, my legs wobble as I stretch. I tremble with each step I take up the path that leads to the front door, past the hydrangeas and wildflowers. I climb the three porch stairs, passing the hanging baskets of violets and calliopes, until I reach the front door.
I lift my fist to knock, but the handle turns before I have the chance to make contact with the door. As it creaks open, I see her hair first—shoulder length and golden, the same color as mine besides the few silver highlights within her strands. I meet my mother’s kind hazel eyes and freckled cheeks. She lights up with the warm, familiar smile that feels like home, but the expression on my face must hold something different because her grin quickly fades, replaced by knit brows and a worried frown.
“Willow?” she asks, and I don’t know what it is about the sound of her voice that does it to me, but I break down.
The nerves in my throat wrench free in a sob, my trembling limbs finally give out, and my eyes flood with all the emotion I’ve been holding back. I crumble, collapsing in on myself like a demolished building—breaking from the inside out.
My mother catches me, hooking her arms beneath my shoulders and stopping me from falling to the ground. “Willow,” she gasps. “Baby.”
I realize she’s struggling to hold me up, and I summon all of the strength I can muster to step into the house. Mom helps, hauling me in before slamming the door with her foot.
“Come on, baby,” she whispers, keeping her grip on me as she leads me through the foyer and around the staircase into the living room. “Leo!”
It’s bright, the sun glittering off the Pacific beyond the paneled windows that line the far wall, and the double doors that lead to the back porch and the cliffside beyond. She helps me onto the plush, cream-colored couch before laying a navy throw blanket over my lap and sitting down beside me, taking me into her arms.
She smells like floral and vanilla, the same body lotion she’s worn my entire life.
Footsteps echo from the hallway past the kitchen—the direction of my parents’ bedroom. “He’ll do great here, don’t worry. And bring Penelope down with you, we’ll make a night out of it.” My dad laughs, the sound a familiar song. “Okay, see you in the—” The moment he enters the room, the words die on his tongue, and I look up to find him frozen, blinking at me.
It only takes a moment for him to scan my face—my tears and my presence, because I’m not supposed to be here to begin with—before he launches into hyperdrive, hanging up his phone and tossing it onto a side table before reaching me in two quick strides and kneeling in front of the couch, leveling our faces.
“Sugar?” he asks, strain in his tone.
I open my mouth, but only another sob bubbles out the moment the nickname leaves his lips. His eyes dart to my mom’s, etched with confusion and concern. He rises on his knees, grabbing my face as he brings me into his chest beforewrapping one arm around my back and the other around my mother’s, cocooning us in a three-way hug that smells like my entire childhood.
“It’s okay, Willow,” he whispers against my temple. “You’re home.”
I don’t know how long we stay like that, but I’m grateful. Grateful they don’t press me immediately for information, grateful I have a place to run—a place to call home. My parents give me time to calm myself and collect my thoughts, because it took all my energy and strength to keep myself going this morning—to hold myself back until he left for class, to pack as much as I could fit into one duffel bag, and sneak out of our apartment before he returned. The composure it took to make the drive, to get back home, exhausted me.
The moment my mother said my name, it hit me like a freight train. Not only the fact that I made it here—that I could finally take a breath, that I could uncoil the knot of anxiety at the center of my being and let my emotions run free—but also what I had escaped. What I had endured that led me here, and the fact that I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do about it.
Once my breathing evens out, my father finally pulls away. He tilts his head, studying me with piercing blue eyes that match my own, keeping a steady hand on my cheek. “What happened, Sugar? Tell me so I can fix it.”
My mom grabs my hand where it rests at my side, squeezing it four times. “You’re safe, Willow. You can tell us anything.”
My eyes sting, and the composure I just spent our long embrace regaining crumbles as tears spill freely down my cheeks. Though I try to swallow the emotion clogging my throat, the words that leave my mouth are nothing more than a fractured whisper.
“He hurt me.”
CHAPTER 3
WILLOW
Five Weeks Later
“Hey,” I say to my mom as I round the doorway that leads from the dining room to the kitchen.
She’s standing over the island, the counter littered with stems and petals as she trims a massive bundle of flowers. Irises, roses, and peonies burst with bright shades of lavender, yellow, and pink, accented with baby’s breath and white foxglove. All spring blooms from her garden out back.
