Page 7 of Secrets That Bind Us
Yeah.Thesepeople. Another reason we’re skipping town as soon as we can after the wedding. Even Zoey doesn’t live here anymore – she’s twenty miles away, closer to the city.
“So I’ll have to win over some hearts.”
“Mend them,’ feels more appropriate here. Your mama was loved here, Ver. After your father disappeared and you left, she really did make a better life here for herself till she got sick.”
I nod.
I wouldn’t know that. I wouldn’t know any of that. After I left I saw my mother twice. Each time was for the birth of my children. She stayed for exactly three days and then went back. Once my books really started selling, I sent her enough money to live comfortably every month. Although when she passed and the lawyers read me her will, it was all there and accounted for. Save the hundred and fifty grand she donated to the church. The rest of it was put into college funds for the kids.
When my mother and I spoke on the phone, it was short. Simple. Then she got sick, and she became a ghost of herself. Mumbling. Paranoid. About what, I’m not sure.Then she stopped taking my calls altogether. Her hospice nurse telling me it “wasn’t a good day.”
“So I got hearts to mend.” I reply, even though I don't feel like the right person to do all of that. I also won’t be here long enough to fix every single broken heart when I really only have one in mind. Well two, if I'm counting my own.
“You know, the nearest bookshop is over thirty miles away... you could… open a bookstore with a café and host book clubs and-"
I snort. “In a town with a population of seven hundred? It would tank.”
“Population:two-thousand and twelve.” Evan says matter-of-factly. “Prices in the city have gone way up due to inflation. They’re all coming down to these parts and really helping out the economy. Zoey's even been able to hire two new apprentices at her tattoo parlor.”
Zoey nods enthusiastically with a smile on her heart-shaped face so wide her dimples show and her eyes twinkle. God, my best friend is gorgeous. Our friendship was one I always made sure to include in my books. Growing up, she drew, I read and as we grew, she still drew, and I wrote. She even illustrated the cover art for my books and still does.
We’re still walking around the place I once called home when I hear the roar of engines coming up the drive, telling me Will & Jay’s crew is here. I can feel my metaphorical mask pulling over my face as I take a deep breath and ready myself to face them.
“Let’s put a pin in this.” I offer as we make our way outside to greet the contractors.
Chapter Five
Dean
Present Day
Summer days in the cruiser weren't bad– until I had to pull someone over and stand in the sweltering sun. So, I did what I usually do– making sure the newly graduated, rambunctious teenagers of Adelaide High, a town with a population of just over two thousand and counting, knew Sheriff Carson was on patrol.
Ipatrolled.
I patrolled through the narrow, two-lane streets and intersections. I patrolled through the tiny town with historical red-brick buildings and City Hall. I patrolled through the large town square, past the small wooden kiosk where small weddings were sometimes held or where the high school's string quartet played during events and festivals.
The changes new tax dollars were bringing in both made me happy but also made me nostalgic. The differences were becoming noticeable. All the upgrades are too modern and a little out of place in this old farming town, sticking out like a sore thumb.
So many years. So many years willingly trapped here.
I kept on patrolling, watching as large construction trucks stuck to the forty-mile-per-hour speed limit signs. I usually didn't pull anyone over unless they went above sixty around these parts– if I'm honest. Since that's the speed limit that almost killed me. One wrong turn, or too sharp at that speed... I knew how well those sharp turns could change a life.Twolives, to be exact.
Something tells me to follow the truck carrying materials I know haven't been approved by City Hall for new construction.
I follow past the Baptist church, down the long strips of two-lane asphalt, past the old graveyard, down the hill, and past... My heartbeat rises; my insides twist as I pass by the Abernathy and Hicks properties– the cows and horses grazing in the pastures behind the white picket fences. Once a year, some of Abernathy's cows find a way to get loose and hold up traffic, and now the large truck carrying materials signals its turn to the left...
I almost come to a screeching halt. If there weren't a car behind me, I would have stopped completely in the middle of the road. A familiar head of teal hair pops out of the front door followed by – I pull over – panic in my chest rising, as tidal wave after tidal wave of memories flood me, like an unrelenting tsunami.
Memories of stolen kisses beneath a weeping willow, a Ferris Wheel on the Fourth of July, running through fields of sunflowers. Of brown eyes and light brown hair tipped gold at the ends from our days in the sun. Of full pink lips that tasted like honey and strawberries, small hands in mine. A candlelit loft in a barn during a rainstorm. Whispers under bright full moons. Counting stars and fireflies with a quiet, nervous girl that stole my heart and kept it in those small hands of hers. Of a girl who disappeared, and broken promises. Leaving me behind with nothing but a shattered heart– and the scars to prove it.
Sure, my tattoos hide themnow, but for a long time, they didn’t. For a long time I stared at the scars– and out of a hospital window– at the airplanes scissoring across the skies,hatingthem because I knew one of them took her away, leaving me behind. And now she’s back after thirteen years.
But it had been my fault, hadn’t it?
If I had just listened to her-
I jolt out of my thoughts when there's a tapping at my window. I look over to see Jason Hicks– the fire chief and my best friend of almost ten years.
