Part 52 (1/2)

Chapter 22.

I started coffee, went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth before calling Drew back. I know, I shouldn't have been calling either one of them, but I just couldn't help myself. I missed him. I walked out to the deck with my coffee and cellphone.

”Hey gorgeous,” Drew answered.

”Hey,” I smiled.

”So? What do you think?”

”You already know what I think. It's amazing. I can't wait to take off in it.”

”I knew you would love it. When are you leaving?”

”I was going to wait until Friday, but I think I need to go now.”

”I met your boyfriend last night,” he stated.

”Yeah, I heard. I'm kind of stunned by that. I would have loved to have been a fly on the dash of that car.”

”It's f.u.c.king dark in Maine. I mean spooky a.s.s dark. I was scared s.h.i.+tless. I was thankful to take the ride offer.”

I laughed. I could just see Drew walking down my road looking over his shoulder for something to jump out at him.

”Where did you go?” I asked.

”To the airport. So let me guess. He came right to your house as soon as he dropped me off, didn't he?”

I ran my fingers through my long hair and looked up to the sun with closed eyes. Of course we were going to go there. I give the f.u.c.k up. ”Yeah, he stopped by,” I tried.

”Did he spend the night or just stop by?”

”Does it really matter? You told me that you were going to step out of the picture so that I could see if it was him that I wanted. How am I supposed to do that if I'm not around him?”

”So he did spend the night. You f.u.c.ked him too, didn't you?”

”Really Drew?”

”Yeah, that's what I thought. I won't bother you anymore. You drive safe, okay.”

”Drew,” was all that I was able to get out before I heard the silence and looked to see his name blinking on my phone.

f.u.c.k...

I wasn't going to have to worry about choosing.

They were both p.i.s.sed off now. Fine, I was better off. I could go anywhere I wanted to go. I wouldn't live in Misty Bay or Vegas. They could both go to h.e.l.l.

I went straight to my room, packed a bag, and got into my new car and headed south. I stopped at the coffee shop, had a cup of coffee and a pastry with Starlight before heading out.

”I wish there was something that I could do to help. I hate it that you are going through this, Ry,” Star said, sympathetically.

”I'll be fine, Star. I have had a life that tends to make you pretty strong. I'll get through it, one way or another.”

Star hugged me and told me that if I needed anything to call.

I put in the address for Rodanthe, North Carolina. I didn't even groan when the robotic voice told me that I would be driving for almost fifteen hours. I was actually looking forward to it. I hoped that neither Drew nor Dawson called. I listened to Lauren and Levi on my satellite radio all the way until they signed off, and then changed it to an oldies rock station. It brought back memories of living in West Virginia.

I thought about my cousins that I hadn't seen in years, my dad, who wasn't my dad after all, and my grandma who pa.s.sed away when I was only sixteen. I thought about my friends from school, which was really only Julie Waybright. She was as poor as me, and was just as much of an outcast as I was. She got herself pregnant when she was fifteen and had two kids living on welfare by the time she was eighteen. I wondered how she was, and hoped that she wasn't another statistic, popping out kids and living with an alcoholic.

For some stupid reason, I reprogrammed my GPS and headed right to my old hometown. I wasn't sure why.

It was going to add eight hours to my destination, but what the h.e.l.l. I had time. I wouldn't stay. I just wanted to drive through, just for old times' sake, not that the old times were pleasant but still.

I stopped and got a hotel in New York around nine at night, taking a pizza with me. I know I said that I hoped that Drew or Dawson didn't call, but I was surprised that either of them hadn't. Weren't they worried about me or wondered where I was? Of course, they both did think that I wasn't leaving until the next day. I still couldn't believe that one of them hadn't called. They didn't, and when I checked my phone at seven the next morning, there was nothing from either of them. I know, I know, that's what I wanted. Whatever.

It only took me four hours to make it to my old roots. Not a lot had changed. It looked as poor and rundown as it had the day I was forced to leave. It almost made me happy that Drew had bought me. I bought me. I laughed, saying that out loud. I turned down the old dirt road to the trailer. It was abandoned. The aluminum had been ripped off, probably for sc.r.a.p, and the windows were all broken out. I'm not sure why, but I parked my expensive car in the drive. I looked around, nervously.

This wasn't the place for a female in a fancy car to be poking around. The closest house was barely visible from our old trailer. I didn't see anything that warned me not to go in, so I got out, locked the door with the two beeps, and walked up the old steps.

”f.u.c.k,” I called out when my foot went through the rotten plywood on the little porch. It hurt. I felt the burn up my calf from the wood sc.r.a.pe. Of course my shoe had to fall underneath when I tried to pull it out of the hole. That should have been enough of a warning to get back in my car and get the h.e.l.l out of there, but determined me had to go in. Once I retrieved my shoe, I walked along the edge of the porch so that I didn't fall through again.

I pushed the door. It was hard to push because it was weathered and warped. It looked like some local kids had been using it for a party pad, but not recently, I didn't think. There were ashtrays running over, beer bottles, liquor bottles, decomposed food, and empty packs of condoms strung about.

The same table, couch, and wood stove were still there from when had I lived there. I walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinets. Our mismatched dishes were still in the cupboards. It was like my dad had just left and left everything behind. I wondered where he was. Did he die? Did he move? I walked back to mine and Justin's bedroom, and it too still had the same old mattress thrown on the floor. My old dresser that wasn't much of a dresser when I used it was still in the corner. I got excited when I saw it.

A couple of days before I was to leave with Drew Kelly, I placed a square tin in the back, underneath the bottom drawer. It was one of those tins that you get cookies in at Christmas. I think the local church had dropped it off for my brother and me one year. I slid the dresser out and screamed to the top of my lungs. A hiding cat jumped out with a squeal and darted right under my legs out the door.

Jesus H Christ...

My heart was now beating out of my chest. I swear it was. I held my hand on the corner of the nasty old dresser and held my chest, trying to regain my bearings.

What the h.e.l.l was I doing there? I pulled the thin sheet of wood from behind the dresser and there it was, just where I had left it. I picked it up and beat it on top of the dresser to knock the mice s.h.i.+t off of it.

”What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?”

”Aplete lie, and with my cut off jean shorts and my ace of spades t-s.h.i.+rt, I thought that I could pull it off.

”It's sweet as h.e.l.l,” he exclaimed. ”How long you in town for?”

”Just pa.s.sing through, I'm not sure why I even came here to tell you the truth.”