Lucas
Lucas was walking, but he wasn’t quite sure where. The evening had turned colder and sharper, and a breeze was whipping around him like an unwanted embrace. He wasn’t sure where his anger had come from, but now it filled his bones like a heavy weight, and it was making it difficult for him to walk freely. He fought against it, pushing forward. He just needed to get away. The loudness of the bar and the heat inside had become unbearable and he didn’t want to answer the inevitable questions that Greg and Rachel would have thrown at him if he’d stayed.
It wasn’t just that. He couldn’t stay there with her.
Why did Willow do this to him? She seemed to get into his head and bury herself in there like a mite. It had been like this for years – except when she hadn’t been here, he could at least try to pretend that she didn’t exist anymore. Having her back was hard. All those complex, twisted emotions were resurfacing and Lucas didn’t like it. How could he love and detest someone so strongly? How could he wish somebody would go away, and yet yearn for them to come closer so badly? None of it made any sense, and Lucas hated things that didn’t make sense.
He loved logic. Clear, defined emotions. Lines drawn in the sand.
He wished he didn’t have these feelings for her. They burned so deep inside him, it felt like his entire body was aflame. He needed her to go back to Seattle. He couldn’t be at peace while she was here stirring things up again. Perhaps that was why he snapped. It was difficult keeping everything in.
It probably didn’t help that he had downed two beers on an empty stomach. Lucas shook his head sadly, trying to settle his thoughts. He had never been a good drinker. Everything felt bigger and more urgent now. He needed some time to calm down.
But Willow had made a big mistake contacting that influencer.
Because that was what she was going to do – create a total mess.
Just look what happened before, when that YouTuber had visited. They were still picking up the pieces now. The last thing this town needed was to be splashed all over social media. And Lucas was cursed; he shouldn’t go anywhere near it.
Lucas stopped walking. He was standing by the benches lining the small pond that faced the church and town hall. He took a deep, shaky breath and then sat down. His head was spinning. He hadn’t planned this, but it had been his first evening off in ages.
Lucas leaned back on the hard seat, suddenly realizing just how tired he was. He was always tired. He hated being like this.
He shouldn’t have snapped at Willow. He assumed she would’ve known about those crappy posts from earlier lastyear, but maybe she didn’t. At the time, it had felt like the whole world knew.
He needed to speak to her. He needed to apologize. To explain properly.
But not yet. First, he needed to cool down, sober up and be calm.
Lucas pulled himself back up and prepared for a long walk.
The posts had appeared this time last year, almost to the date. The influencer hadn’t been a well-known one, but his content had gained traction. He was commenting on the ‘dullest towns in the US’ and unfortunately, Honey Springs had slipped into his top ten.
Lucas blamed himself for most of what happened next. He should have realized that the shady guy taking notes in the corner of The Diner was up to something. He should have switched on his charm (it was still there somewhere, surely) and attempted to woo the guy with his specials menu. Instead, he snapped at him, said something sarcastic about ‘writing a stupid novel’ and asked him to ‘hurry his ass along because they wanted to close early’.
To be fair to Lucas, the man had been sitting there, sipping the same coffee for over two hours and it was nearly closing time. The anniversary of his mother’s death had only been a few days before and was still fresh in his mind. He wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to be dealing with stragglers.
The guy later posted that The Diner had the atmosphere of a funeral parlor and that he would have preferred to be served by the Grim Reaper than Lucas. It wasn’t a particularly glowing review.
It didn’t help that he chose to stay at the Parkers’s inn. The pictures of the shabby interior and dated décor did nothing to improve the town’s image. Nor did the fact that both Parker sisters were extremely rude to him, refused to accept his credit card (because it was a brand they didn’t recognize) and alluded to the fact that he might be a serial killer because of his ‘shifty eyes’.
Greg didn’t help matters either by deciding to shut the bar and spend the night at the gaming room, so when the reviewer decided he wanted to sample a local brew, he only found a locked door.
In fact, none of the shops or attractions came off well. They were reviewed as too dull or old-fashioned and the influencer seemed to allude to the fact that the town was in some kind of time warp that it hadn’t escaped from. Even the great waterfall came off badly (though Lucas couldn’t see how). It had been a rainy day, and the guy had simply decided that it was overrated and not particularly big anyway.
‘Only come if you like mountains,’ the reviewer stated in the end. ‘They are wonderful. But you can go to other towns like Westpine Ridge to appreciate them. Not this deadbeat nightmare.’
Deadbeat nightmare.
Those words had stung. Really stung, and Lucas knew he wasn’t the only one in town to feel personally slammed by it.
Lucas had once read that bad publicity was better than no publicity, but he couldn’t believe anyone who’s been dissected online would ever say that. The whole experience had left its mark on the town, and none of it was good. The Parkers struggled with future bookings. Lucas found that customers were choosing to eat elsewhere, and the townthat was already struggling to find its way was slowly being buried by its own poor behavior.
It wasn’t long after that when Lucas handed his keys over to Janice and legged it to New York, thinking that it would be better, that he could escape his demons. That being with Mia would help him to find his direction.
Only he learned that you can’t run from your demons. They follow you.
As does bad press.
