Page 70 of Pretty Heartache

I was about to step out and demand to know why he was here when I heard Micah’s car pull into the driveway.

He’d barely asked him what he was doing here when I’d decided I couldn’t, no wouldn’t, stick around long enough to risk being seen, or hear what they were saying.

My breath caught in my chest when I gathered the strength to turn my head to my right. The door leading to the butler’s pantry was beside me.

Panic set in. I needed to leave. I swung the door open and ran up the stairs as fast as my feet could carry me.

And now, before I give myself a chance to rethink my decision to leave, I’m breathlessly racing through the door to my bedroom. The wooden plank creaks under my step as I race across my room. I reach up to the top shelf of my closet and pull out my duffel bag. I’m on my toes, unable to fully wrap my hand around it. It slips from the shelf, and I duck my head as it falls to the floor. Picking it up, I carry it back to my bed.

Tears line my eyes as I drop it on the foot of my bed. As quickly as I can, I cross my room again and pull as many shirts as I’m able to fit in my arms out of my dresser.

Flashbacks to months ago crash into my mind with unrelenting force. The vision of me storming out of my work trailer, with only the clothes on my back and this very duffel bag, plays like a movie on repeat. A movie I don’t want to rewatch.

I swallow the bile in my throat and take a breath.

When I close my eyes, a river of tears flow down my cheeks. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I can’t stay here.

I chance another look out the window, hoping my father is truly gone.

He knows I’m here.

Maybe it was a foolish notion to believe I could have come back here without running into him or my mother. But Boston isn’t exactly a small town. Even though Micah’s house is in Cambridge, a neighboring suburb, technically, it’s all a part of the same ecosystem. Cambridge can’t exist without Boston. With hundreds and thousands of people here, I didn’t think I’d see my father.

Especially not out in this backyard.

With Micah.

I shove the rest of my clothes and toiletries into my duffel bag and zip it shut. Leaving my room, I shove my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt and jog down the stairs.

“Hey,” Micah says, catching me before I make it halfway down the stairs. His eyes fall to the strap of my duffel bag before swinging back up to mine. “Where are you going?”

I open my mouth, counting the breaths I take.

I know I’m panicking, possibly overreacting, but the ghosts of my past haven’t afforded me the luxury of remaining calm when it comes to my father, nor anyone else who’s burned me in the past.

Sniffing, I look down at my feet.

Micah places two fingers under my chin, pulling me to look up at him. Through my watery gaze, I see his eyes soften, panic etched into his forehead.

“Why are you leaving?” he wearily asks.

I swallow thickly and breathe in a shallow, pain-stricken breath. “I heard you talking to Lachlan outside.”

“You heard us?”

“Only a little. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out why he was here. After Ray dropped me off, I thought I’d getstarted on replanting the garden box out back. I saw my father climbing over the back fence. I was going to confront him until I heard you, then I ran up here.”

His eyes widen as he takes a step back, and my heart fractures. I don’t know the depth of his relationship with my father.

Are they friends? Associates?

For years, I watched my father pop pills and snort cocaine, sometimes finishing a line before he barged into my room in the middle of the night to remind me of what a disappointment I was. From what I’ve also heard over the past few years as I’ve gotten older, Micah isn’t unfamiliar with my father’s type. He had a father like mine.

And knowing Micah went to prison for drug possession and drug addiction, it’s all starting to click into place.

I told Micah I haven’t judged him for his past addictions or his time served in prison, and I haven’t. Everyone makes mistakes, and I know it doesn’t define him. But with my father in the mix, I’m not sure it’s a fact I’m willing to overlook.

Anything involving him is something I’m not willing to be a part of. A pain too great.

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