Page 31 of Ravaged and Ruined
My heart skips a beat. My breath catches in my throat, but I play it cool even though hope flickers to life in my chest, fragile but real. Maybe that’s why Aero left this morning, and not because he regretted last night. That thought alone lets me breathe a little easier.
The clubhouse door swings shut behind us with a clang, and the midday sun nearly blinds me. Emery’s already striding ahead. I tug the knot in my hair tighter and follow her, the heat rising off the blacktop like steam.
Emery’s beat-up old Bronco sits crooked in its usual spot. It’s dusty, dented, and rattles when you hit forty. She hates the damn thing, only bought it dirt cheap because unlike California, you can’t ride year-round out here.
“Want me to drive?” I ask. My Subaru Outback is parked a few spots down. It’s not showy, but it’s practical, dependable. It’s the one thing in my life I refuse to let go to shit.
She shakes her head, tossing her bag in the backseat, half-zipped, its contents spilling out. “Nah. You navigate.”
I nod and slide into the passenger seat. It smells like old fast food and lavender air freshener. Emery hands me a sheetof paper, its corner crumpled from her grip. I scan it, find the address, and plug it into the GPS on my phone.
The Bronco rattles as Emery pulls out of the lot, her sunglasses sliding down her nose. She pushes them back up with one finger, eyes on the road.
“You remember that time we broke down on the 405 in your mom’s minivan?” she asks, a grin tugging at her lips.
I snort. “Broke down? Emery, it caught fire.”
She laughs, the sound sharp and familiar, like a match strike. “Right. You were crying over your heels in the backseat.”
“They were Jimmy Choos knockoffs, and they melted.”
“You still wore them for a week.”
I grin, “They matched the trauma.”
We fall into a comfortable silence, the kind that only comes from years of surviving everything from heartbreak to engine failure together.
The Bronco wheezes through town, suspension groaning over potholes like it’s begging for mercy. Emery hums along to some old alt-rock station and I roll down the window to let in some air. Her hand flicks the turn signal. Mine rests on the open window frame. By the time we cross into the east side the shopping center creeps into view.
It’s a half-dead strip mall where the parking lot’s cracked and overgrown with weeds. A payday loan place anchors one end, a boarded-up vape shop on the other. In the middle sits what used to be a diner with peeling red letters above the door and windows smeared with grime.
Emery slows as we pull in, the Bronco bumping over a pothole the size of a sinkhole. She parks crooked in front of the diner.
“Quinn said it’s been empty for two years,” Emery says, already hopping out and slamming the door. “Last tenant got caught running oxy out the back.”
I rush to catch up, the heat bouncing off the pavement and baking through the soles of my boots.
“Of course they did,” I mutter under my breath, not loud enough to kill her buzz. She’s too damn excited, and I’m not about to be the storm cloud today.
Emery snatches the paper with the code from my hand, already moving toward the rusted lockbox bolted beside the door. It’s half-hidden behind a busted planter overflowing with dead weeds. She crouches, punching in the numbers with zero hesitation. The box pops open and she fishes out a tarnished key.
I hang back, watching as she stands and jams it into the door’s crusted lock. It sticks, of course. Everything about this place screams neglect, but the windows are still intact. That’s a win in this neighborhood.
Nothing about it deters her one bit. She puts her weight into it and twists until it gives. The door creaks open, and stale air spills out. It’s thick with dust, old grease, and something faintly sour that clings to the back of my throat.
Emery turns to me with a spark in her eye. “Are you ready to see it?”
I nod and follow her in, the door dragging shut behind us with a heavy, echoing thud.
We step first into a wide-open dining room that stretches out in front of us. Booths are torn out, leaving ghost marks on the linoleum floors. Dust motes drift in shafts of sunlight slicing through the grime-streaked windows. The old serving counter still stands, and behind it, the industrial kitchen looms with rows of long-forgotten stainless-steel appliances that probably haven’t seen a deep clean since the early 2000s.
“It’s got space,” I murmur. “A lot of it.”
I picture Emery in her element serving hot meals to women with nothing left, a play area in the corner for kids, quietcounseling rooms with locked doors and safe arms. “It could work.”
“It will work,” she says. “But not without you.”
“Emery, I don’t know if I belong here any more. Everything with Aero is a mess. I’m a mess.”
