Page 5 of The Afterthought

Chapter 2

Avalynn

One day later, and here I am sitting in my car in front of the house I grew up in, as I try to muster up the courage to go inside. The house is mine. It's been mine for several months now, but I'm really struggling with facing all the memories waiting for me once I cross the threshold.

Time has a way of changing how we see things. As we change and learn through experiences, our thoughts tend to change according to any new information we learn along the way. I find myself thinking not only about my mother, my father, and my childhood but also about Greyson.

When I met him, I thought he was it. I thought he would be the be-all, end-all that you read about in books or see in movies. He wasn't. He left me alone without a care in the world to try and pick up the pieces of my shattered heart. The worst part about it is that he chose to end things. He made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Feeling something like that is a pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Hurt and pain have a distinct way of making a person grow. It's not always the most positive growth, but it's growth, nonetheless. I wouldn't change a single part of my experience that led me to this point. What he did shaped me into the strong woman I pride myself on being today. That doesn’t mean I’ll ever forgive him, though.

It's been seven years since I stepped foot in this town, but it hasn't changed one bit. I would have never even considered coming back if it weren't for Chloe, the mysterious new sister I'm now responsible for. I'm still not sure how I never knew about her, considering I spent ten years living two streets over from her. As much as I love my father, I can't help but feel disappointed in him. If he was still alive, I would give him a piece of my mind.

I am definitely not ready to take care of a seventeen-year-old girl, but I couldn't say no. She is my sister, after all. That simple fact alone is enough motivation for me to put forth every ounce of effort to try my best with her. I want to get to know her.

I know it's only a matter of time before Greyson and I run into each other since Dune Valley isn’t exactly the biggest town, and I dread it. I have no desire to reconcile things with him, and I'm not the kind of person who needs closure. I got everything I needed all those years ago when he turned his back and walked away from me.

I've heard small bits and pieces about him over the years. When I check in with Wrenly, my childhood best friend, she always makes sure to give me an unsolicited update. Not long after I left, he joined the Crimson Rose, a gang in town. I've tried to tell her countless times to keep the updates about him to herself, but she is convinced we will end up back together one day. She's delusional. Greyson Hayes is the last person on earth I will ever trust my heart with again.

I hear a few screaming kids down the road playing at the park around the corner, and I take a breath to pull myself from my thoughts. The only way through this is to get it over with, so I push open the door and step out of the car. A strange sensation of someone watching me overcomes me, and I glance up and down the street to see if I can locate the watchful eyes. I don't find anything, but people are always watching in this neighborhood. I shake my head and open the back door to grab my bags before making my way to the front of the house.

The grass is overgrown, reaching just below my knees. I'm not the tallest, but at my five-foot height, that would make the grass roughly a foot tall. I'll have to see if I can find someone to cut it for me because I highly doubt my mother left a working lawn mower here.

I make my way up the creaky wooden steps and brace myself for what awaits me inside. My key slides into the lock, and I have to jiggle it a little bit to get it to disengage. Slowly, I push the door open and step inside.

I take in the sight of the old house filled with stale air. Just like the town, the house is completely the same. The puke-green-colored cabinets hang above the cream countertops in the kitchen. The old rust-colored floral couch still sits in the center of the living room next to the burnt orange lazy boy recliner. It's all the same.

I walk into the living room and run my fingers along the familiar cigarette burns filling the armrests of the chair. These were courtesy of one of my mother's boyfriends, who, looking back, I'm not sure was actually her boyfriend. Now that I'm older, I'm fairly sure he was her dealer.

I take a deep breath and make my way down the small hallway at the back of the living room that leads to the bathroom and two bedrooms. Turning to the left, I push open the door to my mother's old room. Piles of clothing lay on the floor, and small nick-nacks line her dresser. The small desk she has in the corner of the room seems to be the only thing that has changed since I left. I leave her room, making my way across the hall to my old bedroom, and hesitate for a moment before opening the door.

When I walk inside, my eyes fall on the full-length mirror in the corner. I'm unable to take my eyes off of myself. I've become a ghost of the girl who used to live here. Tears well up in my deep brown eyes at the realization that nothing here has changed at all except for me.

The room is the same, the house is the same, the town is the same, but the person in the mirror is vastly different. I used to have soft brown hair falling just above my shoulders. Now, I sport long, bright orange hair. The soft waves flow down and fall just below my chest. My skin has a soft tan to it compared to the general, pale look I used to have.

I used to let people in and give them a chance to prove they could be a decent person, but at the end of the day, it was all for nothing. Everyone always ended up hurting me. It took Greyson leaving me to accept that painful fact. The truth is people are who they are, and it's just a matter of whether or not you can accept them for it. My mom was an addict, my father was a cheater, and the love of my life was a disappointment. It's fine. I'm better off alone.

I turn to the small desk in the corner of my room where I used to do all my schoolwork. Making sure I got good grades was always important to me. I wanted to ensure I had an opportunity to escape this house. The irony of me being back here to live for at least the next few months does not slip past me.

All of the various crystals I used to collect still sit in perfect rows on top of the desk. Greyson used to buy them for me every now and then, even though he had no clue what they meant. I grab a carnelian flame and hold it for a moment before setting it back down. My chest tightens when I pull open the top drawer, and a sorrowful feeling consumes me. In the corner of the drawer sits all the ticket stubs from when Greyson and I used to go on our movie dates.

This town offers little entertainment outside of the small drive-in movie theater and the few baseball fields with overgrown grass. I'm not sure how Greyson was ever able to afford to take me to the movies so often, but it became our thing.

I reach in to pull out the tickets and sit down in the old chair in front of my desk. I flip through them one by one, letting the memories of our date nights ravage my thoughts. The back of each ticket stub has a short little note. The first one I read says, "Grey held my hand.” I can't stop the tears from filling in my eyes. I flip over another, and it says, "Grey whispered in my ear, and it gave me the chills.” I was so young and innocent.

It's all too much right now, and my emotions are all over the place. Coming back to this town is so much harder than I originally thought it would be. Seeing the house and feeling all the things I'm feeling about my mom and Grey have me wanting to pack up my car and get the fuck out of here.

The alarm on my phone goes off, reminding me why I'm here in the first place. Chloe. I only have to be here until she graduates, I remind myself as I pull out my phone to get in touch with Sheriff Wolfe.

Chapter 3

Greyson

Isit at my desk, bouncing my knee while staring off into the distance. I've been on edge since hearing through the grapevine that Ava was back in town. I don't regret leaving her behind all those years ago, but I was banking on the fact that she would never come back.

I run my hand through my hair, holding the back of my head, before slamming my fist down on the desk. I don't have time to think about her. I have other things I need to be focused on, and quite frankly, I'm not even sure why she's on my mind. She was nothing more than a high school fling. That’s what I have to tell myself. Those relationships never withstand the day-to-day struggles of life anyway. We would have never made things work when I told her I was part of the Crimson Rose. I walked away from her, and for good reason.

I've spent the last seven years making a name for myself with the most prominent gang in Dune Valley. We run this town. It hasn't been easy, but I've done a fairly good job of earning the respect and fear I deserve from most people here. Our boss, Knox, may be my brother, but I continuously make sure people know why he has me as his right-hand man.

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