Page 95 of Every Thought Taken

With those wounds healed, it is time to work on the others.

While she steps out to find the perfect bush, I slip out of bed and tug on shorts. I fill the kettle with water, light one of the burners, and go about prepping for breakfast. Fetching the last two eggs from the fridge and oats from the cabinet, I retrieve cookware from the overhead compartment next. By the time Helena returns, I have oatmeal with diced apples on the stove and am whipping the eggs with cheese.

I point to the mug on the table between the driver and passenger seat. “Green tea. Should be steeped enough.”

A faint blush colors her cheeks. “Thank you.” After giving Smoky another head scratch, she sits down, hikes a leg up in the chair, and cradles her tea in both hands.

After a quick trip to relieve myself, I serve up breakfast and join Helena at the table. We sit in comfortable silence, Smoky weaving between our legs and hopeful for scraps. When our dishes are empty, Helena takes them to the sink and cleans up. I sip the last of my coffee and simply watch her in my space.

Since the day I hit the road all those years ago, I’ve loved van life. Well, initially, it was car life, but I still loved it. The peace and freedom and solitude. The ability to live life on my own terms. My vehicle registration may have said I lived in Lake Lavender, but the open road had been my home.

Now, I love everything about the open road except the solitude.

The first eighteen years of my life, I existed under my mother’s thumb. It took almost six years to want to mend things with her. To explain why I acted how I did years ago. My lack of respect for her and partial respect for my father. Why I evaded the crowds during parties or gatherings. The days I spent locked in my room, the cutting, the pills.

It took deeper explanations from therapists to understand my brain chemistry and why it flips on occasion. But it didn’t take much clarification for me to understand that toxic people, whether a loved one or stranger, should be let go. I simply had to bide my time. Wait until my eighteenth birthday and the guidance counselor’s written letter saying I’d officially graduated high school.

I left Lake Lavender in my rearview mirror before my diploma hit the mailbox.

After years of healing and rediscovery, I want to mend the past and move forward with my life. And if repairing the remaining scars leads to never speaking with my parents again, so be it. In time, I will forgive them on my own.

Shaking away the path of my thoughts, I watch Helena wipe dry the last of the dishes and stow them in the cabinet. She spins to face me, tossing the towel over her shoulder and resting her hip on the counter.

“What’s the plan for today?” She checks her watch. “We have three to four hours before we hit the road.”

Rising from the chair, I drain the last of my coffee from my mug and set it in the sink. I inch past the table and step into Helena’s space. Band my arms around her middle and hug her to my chest. Breathe her in a moment before resting my cheek on her crown.

This. This is all I need.

“Anything you’d like to see? Here or on the way back?”

Cheek pressed to my bare shoulder, one of her arms unwinds from our embrace as her fingers go to my tattoo. She discovered it our first night here when I stripped my shirt off before bed. A compass on the inside of my bicep, covering dozens upon dozens of small thin scars. The only direction inked on my skin… North.Her.

Helena Williams will always be my true North. The one star in an inky-black sky. To lead me in the right direction. To ease my anxiety. To brighten the darkness. Even apart, she was still with me. Even when it hurt, she still guided me.

“Don’t want to leave,” she says, fingers gently caressing the black ink. “But maybe let’s do some sightseeing on the way back. Stop somewhere for lunch. Drag out our return.”

I crush her to my chest, close my eyes, and kiss her hair. “Sounds like the perfect plan.”

Slowly, silently, we clean up. Put everything exactly as it was before we arrived. In less than an hour, I drive us away from the sliver of paradise we called ours for the past week. I guide us out of the park and south toward Lake Lavender.

And as I peek at her from the corner of my eye, I vow to drag this four hour drive out to six or more. Because I am not ready for the week to end. Not yet.

CHAPTER53

HELENA

Life is equal parts bliss and torture. Our happiness occasionally defined and judged by those not in our shoes.

Three days have come and gone since Anderson and I passed the Lake Lavender welcome sign. And during those three days, countless eyes have been on us. Watching our every move as we eat dinner at the cantina. Whispering as we pass on the sidewalk, hand in hand. Passing gossip from one townie to another faster than an STD.

Since early childhood, I’ve loved living in Lake Lavender. I love the tight-knit community and helping hands. Love the camaraderie and sense of security in knowing so many faces, names, and people. Love the slow and simple life within the town’s borders not found in big cities.

But as the eyes and ears and mouths turn their attention toward me and Anderson, I lose an ounce of that familiar comfort each day. They stare and listen and blather as if we aren’t real people with actual feelings. They talk about our lives as if what we do is their business, as if their exploitation shouldn’t be bothersome.

The disgust I feel is unsettling. Gossip has my love for this town diminishing while my distrust flares to life.

I hate it.

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