Each of these people carried on, as if nothing else existed. There was a great big world outside the boundaries of Wellsburg, West Virginia, but no one seemed particularly eager to see it. And my friends and I fit right into this stagnant purgatory. Here I was, drunk and hating it. Sneering disparagingly but unwilling to turn that judgment on myself.
I turned away from the party and headed toward the thick growth of trees at the edge of the field. I could barely stand upright and fell down several times but I kept moving forward.
I disappeared into the brush and headed north. I knew these woods like the back of my hand and if I continued for a half a mile, I’d find the road. I would walk back to town. In my fuzzy, alcohol soaked mind, trekking the ten miles back to Wellsburg beat hanging out with the high school rejects.
Branches snagged at my clothes and my legs were getting scratched raw by brambles. A gnat flew into my mouth and lodged itself in the back of my throat, making me gag.
The farther I walked, the clearer my head became. The weed had started to wear off and my head was throbbing.
I broke through the trees expecting to find the main road and was surprised to find myself at the edge of a very familiar piece of property.
The moon was full and lit up the manicured yard in front of me. A house stood off in the distance, surrounded by a group of out buildings that I remembered all too well.
I blinked at the uneasy sense of déjà vu. In my mind’s eye I didn’t see the freshly painted structure with bright blue shutters. I didn’t see the repaired shed at the edge of the long driveway.
I flashed back in time and all I could see was smoke and flames.
I felt dizzy and my eyes filled with sudden tears that took me by surprise.
Not being able to stop myself, I started walking across the lawn. I was like a woman possessed and I felt like I was trapped in a time warp, marching the same path I had done on that particular night all those years ago.
I could swear I still smelled the scent of burning wood and I thought I was going to be sick again.
The grass tickled my feet by my thin flip-flops. I wanted to leave. I wanted to run far, far away. But my traitorous legs kept on going.
I stopped at the steps leading up to the house. I ran my hand along the obviously new bannister, recalling when I had watched it crumble into ash. My hands shook as I touched the new wood, cool beneath my fingers.
I looked up at the dark windows and wondered who lived there now. I wondered if they loved it as much as I had. For a brief moment in time this had been my sanctuary. I had been happy here. Well, as happy as a girl like me ever could be.
I heard a noise behind me and I dropped my hand from the banister as I stumbled backwards. I was trespassing and the last thing I needed was another run in with the local police department.
I hurried around the side of the house and hid behind one of the buildings that like the house had been recently painted. I could still smell the fumes heavy in the humid air.
“I can see you.” A voice rose up out of the darkness and I jumped. I couldn’t help my reaction. His sudden appearance freaked me out.
I pressed myself against the side of the building, feeling foolish for being there in the first place. Why hadn’t I left as soon as I had realized where I was? What had compelled me to venture onto the property in the first place?
“What are you doing here?” he asked me and I could barely make out the black silhouette in the moonlight.
“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to find the road,” I excused, annoyed that my voice sounded breathless and weak in my ears.
Being here after all this time was doing crazy things to my head and my heart. And seeing him now, when my memories of this place were making me feel uncharacteristically vulnerable, was almost too much.
Flynn walked into a swath of light that filtered out from the back of the house and regarded me steadily.
“The road is over there,” he pointed back toward the trees in the direction I had just come from.
I laughed nervously. “Yeah I know. I had forgotten this place was here,” I answered lamely. It was a lie of course. Maybe subconsciously this is where I had been heading all along. Maybe I wanted to come here.
Because I could never forget this place, no matter how much I wanted to.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded roughly, trying to hide my growing sense of unease.
Flynn’s hands clenched together in front of him as he looked up at the large, white farmhouse. “I live here,” he said shortly.
My stomach dropped to my feet at his statement. He was living here?
“I thought it had been sold…” I began.
“No, I took it off the market last year after my mom died,” Flynn said and I heard emotion in his voice for the first time.
Then I registered what he had said and I felt an uncomfortable familiar crush of feeling.
“I’m sorry, Flynn,” I told him sincerely. Because I was. I recognized the look of grief on his face as surely as if it had been my own. I wasn’t one to empathize. It was almost impossible for me to identify with the emotions of others, but it had always been different with Flynn.
And for the first time in six years I identified and felt someone else’s feelings as if they were my own.
It scared me shitless.
Flynn’s eyes that had been shadowed and dark flickered my way and met mine for an instant. A flash of understanding arched out between us. Awareness that I had thought dead and buried under the mountain of our past.
“Thanks,” Flynn responded, his voice cracking on the one, simple word.
We stood silent. Locked in place by the weight of a thousand memories and words unspoken.
I wasn’t quite sober enough for the heaviness of the moment. It was overwhelming me. I thought I would suffocate in the tension.
“Did you do the work on the house?” I asked him, not knowing what else to say. I should probably just leave but for some reason, I couldn’t make my feet travel back the way they had come.
I didn’t want to go backwards.
Flynn nodded and looked back up at the house. I remembered that the shutters had once been yellow. I recalled flowerbeds overrun with blossoms and an apple tree laden down with fruit. His mother’s banana bread and hot cider on a cold fall night.
These memories slammed into me with the force of a wrecking ball. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about any of this in years.
But being here, with Flynn, it came flooding back whether I wanted it to or not.
“Do you want to come inside?” Flynn asked me and I shook my head. I couldn’t go in there. Definitely not now.