Page 21 of Ewan

She searches for her words, eyes darting back and forth, panic flashing across her face before she removes my fingers from her arm.

They must’ve felt like iron claws.

“Seriously. You need to see for yourself. Something is off, but it might only be me.”

I wish I could be as collected as she is, but I’m crawling out of my skin. It’s been a long night, week, year.

Decade?

Yes, the rollercoaster started the day I celebrated my 18th birthday.

Three days later I lost my mother to a car accident.

I inherited her house. The house I didn’t want to call my home. Too many memories, not a good environment to mature in and come into myself.

Despite my great relationship with my mother, that was my childhood home, and I wanted to leave it behind so badly.

I wanted to live in the city, experience life, and explore all the possibilities and options an eighteen-year-old could have at their disposition.

I wanted so many things.

Very few happened, tough.

I explored a lot, just not in the way I had envisioned it.

Her place became my place. And needless to say, the house came with a mortgage. A hefty one at that.

I pondered whether to sell it and forget about it, but some nice lady at the realtor's office––she was about my mother’s age––had told me the market would get bad, and I’d face an uphill battle if I wanted to buy another place.

And then my finances weren’t great. I lacked a solid credit and work history, and I had plans to go to school.

And oh, my God. The woman opened my eyes but also put me on the bus to crazy town.

I was terrified at the prospect of selling my mother’s house, not pocketing much money, not being able to buy anything new anytime soon, and squandering the money on some crazily expensive rental that would get me nowhere.

Only toward an uncertain future, perhaps.

So, I learned a precious lesson that day. My life took a turn and has never been the same.

I kept the house, took over the mortgage, worked three jobs to make it work, put myself through school, and did everything right––I thought––before meeting my future husband, Joachim Jensen, two years back.

Throughout this time, I renovated my mother’s place twice––now, I can finally call it my own––and I swore I’d never use it as a family house.

I even told Joachim when he popped the question that we’d need to buy a different place.

He agreed to everything I said.

Joachim was––still is––a math teacher, a great one at that, but he sucked at solving real life problems.

Nevertheless, he fooled me with his safe talk, reasonable view of life, and love for kids, but he was all talk and no follow through.

Nice looking guy, a little shy in bed––at least, he was with me; I had to draw him maps to find my sensitive spots––but overall, he was all right.

Not much taller than me, but he kept himself in shape.

We saved up some money to buy a new place, and in the meantime, we lived at my house. It made sense, although I hated it.

I hated it even more after divorcing him.

---