Page 10 of Under Locke & Key
My headlights flick off, hands gripped around the steering wheel so tight for so long they’ve gone a little numb, same as my ass. The motion detector by the back door floods the yard as my dad slips out of the kitchen door to let me into the garage. His little wave sends a twinge through my chest and although his smile is balm on my soul the lines sweeping out beside his eyes and mouth at the motion are less familiar.
He’s older than I pictured him in my mind. I forget how that happens. The years don’t just affect me but them as well. My father’s forehead creases when he catches sight of me, bushy salt and pepper brows fixing down over the quiet brown eyes I inherited from him.
I shut the car door. The garage still smells vaguely of oil and engine even though he keeps it pristine. My father gathers me into a huge hug and ushers me into the house as if I’m a stray animal he’s decided to keep, one he’s worried will strike out at any moment.
My mom’s in pajamas. If I know them at all they’ve been sitting on the sofa trying to stay awake past their 8 p.m. bedtime, and just listening for the sound of my car turning up into the drive. Her kiss is kind on my scruffy cheek and I’ll need to shave soon. Steph always preferred me clean-shaven so I’ve been letting it go until it starts to irritate me and then trimming it, but not clean. Not anymore.
“We’ve turned your room into a guest room/sewing room since you were last here, and you can sleep there as long as you like. But we have the garage apartment set up for you to settle your things in whenever you’re ready.” My mom looks like she has more to say but thinks better of it.
I’m weary. My body aches in a way it hasn’t before. Fatigue leaves me feeling far older than I should and apathy hardens like cement in my veins, sapping me even further. But I can’t let the day end like this. Thirty looming ahead of me—a milestone that was supposed to mean I had it all together—and all I have to show for it is me falling apart.
“Thanks.”
I trudge up the stairs, my hand on the wooden bannister to help hold me up when all I want is to sleep for a week straight. It smells the same, welcome and forgotten, and everything I never needed until right now.
My mom’s perfume and her scented tea candles follow me up the stairs. The bedding in the guest room smells like the detergent they’ve used all my life and I want to breathe it in until my chest loosens around my stone heart. Instead, I stare up at the ceiling still fully dressed. Night washes over the room, only the barest of impressions of furniture around me in the dark. A golden sliver breaks up the black from under the door. The hall light is on and my parents putter through their evening routine. With the threat of an entire existential crisis looming, I check my phone.
Logan
Come out with us tonight! It’s half-off draft night. You’re home.
You deserve to get away from it for a bit.
I can’t sleep. It’s too early anyway, even though I haven’t slept well in months. So although I don’t feel like it and the idea of having to recap my failed marriage to my high school best friend fills me with dread, lying here is worse.
Where and when?
It’s barely a few minutes before I get a response.
I’ll pick you up and play DD so you can actually loosen up. Be ready.
The prudent part of me that’s ruled my life the last decade says this is a very bad idea. The angry and heartbroken part of me just wants it to stop for a little while. So I agree to Logan’s plan despite knowing none of it and he’s at my parents’ front door in under ten minutes.
I jog down the stairs, shoving my wallet into the back pocket of my jeans and my house keys in the front with my phone. My dad’s drinking orange juice straight from the carton in the white light of the fridge and he stops mid-sip to glance at me behind his own owlish glasses.
“I’m heading out for a bit. Logan wanted to catch up now that I’m back.”
“Be safe, you two.” It’s as serious as he can look and I give him a ghost of a smile and a nod before I’m out of there.
Logan’s truck is still running, and he waits leaned up against it.
“Well, shit. If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes!” His accent is thicker than mine, the twinge of a Baltimore twist to it since he grew up near the city before they moved to Dulaney in our sophomore year.
He gathers me up in a back-slapping hug, eyes assessing me before he nods to himself.
“Definitely due a night out. You look like you haven’t left your house in months.”
Logan isn’t wrong, except for having left for work, but I’m not about to admit to it. I just grunt and we climb into the truck, my hand wrapped around the grab handle as he peels away from the driveway and out of the development.
“You sure Gabrielle is okay with this?” I ask.
“She’s just excited to get a chance to binge more Grey’s Anatomy. That shit is too bloody for me. Plus, she knows how bad you need to get out for a bit.”
I’m a little surprised she’s not joining but then again, they’re the thoughtful kind of people that might have decided seeing a disgustingly-in-love couple wasn’t the best way to help me deal with my divorce.
“So, where are you kidnapping me to?”
“It’s kind of like a Dave & Buster’s thing between Rockville and Silver Spring but instead of an arcade it’s an escape room-type experience.”
