Exodus (The Ravenhood)

“I’ve got a wife I don’t deserve and two beautiful kids I never, ever thought I’d be capable of loving the way I do. I named my boy after Dominic, and the little bastard acts just like him. It’s a curse, but I’ll always have a piece of him,” he drawls, his voice laced with regret, and longing. “Just like I’ll always have a piece of you,” he strokes my back in the soothing way I’ve missed for so long, “And you will always have a piece of me.” He pulls back and cradles my face in his hands.

“But I can see it. You still haven’t let go. You have to let go so you can get your happiness too. You were never to blame. Never. And I know if Dominic could, he would tell you the same. It was his decision. And he loved you.” I nod and nod as he wipes my never-ending tears. “I regret a lot of shit from back then, a lot, but I don’t regret you. I loved you then and now, and I always will.”

Our eyes lock as a part of me rips while a larger part of me heals. I feel the first stitch and the sweet relief that comes with it. He leans in and presses his forehead to mine, our pained breaths mingling. “Deep down, even though I have everything I’ll ever want, more than I could have ever expected for myself, some part will always wish it was me.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as tears coat my lips as I gaze up at him. “I sometimes wish I would never have met him, never laid eyes on him.”

“Don’t be. It played out the way it was meant to. You were always supposed to be his secret to keep.”

It’s the first time I’ve hated his honesty, hated the truth. “You know I’ll always love you, too.”

He lifts his chin, eyes shimmering with our mistakes. “Yeah, I do. Go.”

He releases me, his gentle gaze probing, begging me to do the same. I nod and step away as he widens the door, and I slip into the car.

In the next breath, I’m turning over the engine as he stands outside the window. I don’t look at him, but I know he’s peering into the car, stuck in the past with me, where I brought him, remembering me, remembering us, regret as heavy as his hand that lays flat on the window. It’s when I put the car into gear and check the rearview that I see the glint of something familiar, something that once belonged to me. Lifting my hand, I pinch the symbol between my fingertips, tempted to ask the question but deciding it’s better left unanswered. I release the necklace hanging from the rearview just as Sean steps away. I refuse to look at him, for fear any resentment slips back into place. I’m taking his love, all that he could spare me as I pull away, hopeful he recognizes the piece of me he will forever own.

It was a decision to come and face the ghosts of my past, to free my truths, and I’ve done it, I’ve slain it all, and yet the relief is heavy. Gripping the steering wheel, I sit idle at the highway mulling over a direction.

My eyes lift to the grey mist smoking through the mountains in the distance when a thought occurs to me. I click the signal and floor the gas, every mile I tread getting a little easier, every thread of wind whipping through my hair filled with bittersweet release. I lift my phone and hit play. The opening lyrics to “Keep on Smilin’” by Wet Willie, lulling me into a state of peace I haven’t felt in years. I may be leaving, but I’m taking all of them with me. Gunning the car, I shoot toward the highway thankful, thankful to have felt, and experienced love in every degree, for the gift of knowing it, for every memory I’m taking with me. For the love I had and lost, and the burning reminders surrounding me, charred into me, telling me that no, I’ll never be that woman who can let go of the past, but I can take it with me.

With Sean’s music filling the air, Dominic’s buzz at my fingertips and feet, I pick up speed over the county line, just as the sun peeks back through the clouds. And then I’m flying. The wings on my back, I decide belong to me. And with them, I free myself.

Eight months later…

“What’s he going on about now?” Marissa asks, sliding the register closed with her hip. I glance over my shoulder to see she’s looking up at the TV before turning to warm up the coffee of the man sitting at the counter. “Will there be anything else?”

“No. Thank you,” he says, failing to catch my eye as I lay down his check. It’s his third time coming in this week. He’s handsome, but I know better. I’m nowhere near ready—one day.

One day.

Maybe.

The second time I left Triple Falls, I gained something I never thought I’d have again, faith.

It’s contradictory to love in the way it doesn’t destroy you. You can have a little of it or a lot, but it can’t tie you up in knots. Faith is a healer, and it gives birth to hope. And hope is my next step, but I rest easy in faith.

“Cee, two sunny,” Travis, our short order cook calls as I retrieve the plate and deliver it to the older man propped on the stool. He nods toward the television unwrapping his silverware. “Turn that up, will you?”

I glance at the TV to see it’s another presidential address. The second in the last week from our new elect last fall. He was sworn in as the youngest president ever to take office.

“Jesus, it’s like two thousand eight all over again, our money isn’t safe anywhere,” the man says, shaking his head. I grab the remote and turn up the TV before I cash Mr. Handsome out, laying his change and receipt on the counter. Briefly, I think of Selma, and a smile crosses my face. Except I don’t bother to steal from this owner, it’s my name on the paychecks.

Oh, the irony.

“Just more bullshit. More promises that won’t be kept.”

Billy, a grumpy regular who’s tapping ketchup on his scrambled eggs, grunts out his agreement. “I don’t like the look of him. I can tell he’s a crook.”

Laughter erupts from me. “Is it his suit, his haircut?”

Billy looks at me like I’ve grown an extra head, and I shake my laughter away and refill his coffee as he thumps his sugar packet with his finger, one, two, three times. I swallow the sting it causes and speak up as I pour, “You know, we’re still a young country, as in two-hundred-and forty-plus years young versus others a thousand or more years old. Maybe, one day, we’ll get it together.”

Mr. Handsome nods, eyeing me reflectively. “Never thought of it like that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just a messenger,” I whisper, mostly to myself.