I take a drink of my tea, the ice crashing around the glass, then reply, “No need to worry. Just stopping by on my way through.”
“Through to where?”
“Not sure. I don’t have plans right now.”
Reaching over, she pats my leg. “Then stay a while.”
“I might. Not sure yet.”
She sits back with her glass, staring at the TV. “Aurora borealis.”
“What?”
“The puzzle,” she answers with an all-knowing grin. “It’s aurora borealis.”
I smile. “Sure is. Good job.” She always was underestimated in this miserable town.
An hour passes with ease, but my body is starting to give up the fight to stay awake. I’m weary from being on the road, and the thought of that bed in the other room is heaven. I gather our dishes and clean up the trash. I refill Mom’s glass and get her the blanket from the couch, helping her settle in for the night.
“You staying up?” I ask.
“There’s an old Cary Grant movie coming on that I want to watch, and I’m halfway through a very intriguing book. Are you going to bed?”
“I am. I’m tired.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“I want to help out. Anything I can do around here for you?”
“I appreciate that. I have a list we can start on if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” I reply, walking toward the hall.
“Maybe we can talk about the subject you’re so eager to avoid, too.”
Maybe not. I’m not used to having anyone care about my thoughts. That probably won’t or shouldn’t change while I’m here. “Yeah, maybe. Night, Ma.”
“Good night, Jase.”
After readying for bed, I climb under the covers and let my body sink into the mattress. It’s a cheap bed, but it’s worn in all the right spots to fit my body. Delilah used to complain about rolling into the middle. Secretly, I loved it. I loved holding her close like that, my lips against the back of her neck, my nose full of her scent—like a citrus summer and a warm vanilla winter—and my arms cradled around her with no space left between us.
I didn’t expect to have such a visceral reaction to being home again, especially while lying in this bed alone. It almost feels like I never left.
Almost. Until I remember what I’ve been doing the past four years, what I’ve done . . . It’s a life I can never drag anyone into much less my mom or Delilah. Not like she’s an option anyway, considering she’s married.
Why the fuck do I keep having to remind myself of that fact? I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it.
I get up and squat down next to the mattress. Lifting it, I dig around a few dirty magazines until I find what I’m looking for. The blinds are cracked enough to let a little moonlight drift inside the small room. I lie back down and hold the photo above me. Those little summer dresses Delilah wore back then drove me wild.
Easy access is the term that comes to mind, but it wasn’t like that with us. She was never easy in my eyes . . . I’m not sure how our relationship got out of hand so fast. After four years of dating, almost to the day, we were breaking up. Junior year in high school to junior year in college.
Football season.
One minute, we were fighting about me getting a full-ride scholarship to a university on the other side of the state and transferring the next semester. Then she was walking back to town with me driving behind her, begging her to get back in the truck.
She never did.
That whole situation was a clusterfuck. It didn’t matter how many times I called her, texted, or stopped by her house; she shut me out. As a last resort, I poured my heart into a letter I never had the fucking nerve to send. Billy brought the beers. The letter became a part of the night when I threw a match on top. I watched it burn as though I was watching my heart catch fire. The ashes floated toward the sky, and I wished the pain I felt inside would go along with it.
I was almost convinced I could move on from loving her, but four years isn’t easily forgotten, especially in a small town where everything held a memory of happier times.
On a cold day just before New Year’s Eve, almost three months after the worst day of my life, I detoured by her daddy’s farm in one last sad attempt to talk to her.
I then realized why my best friend had been too busy to hang out. Cole Cutler’s truck was parked proudly in front of her house. I’d been wondering why he hadn’t returned my calls, and why he wasn’t hanging out with the guys when we went out. He stopped showing up for our Sunday fishing trips. Cutler also got called out in football practice for unnecessary roughness against the quarterback—aka me.