Authors: Jettie Woodruff
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 fuck 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 fucked 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.
Fuck…
I wasn’t going to have to worry about choosing.
They were both pissed 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 hell.
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 passed 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 hell. 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 scrap, 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.
“Fuck,” 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 scrape. 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 hell 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 hell 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 shit off of it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Awwww,” I let out a blood curdling scream.
There went my heart again. I turned to see a big burly man
with a beard clear down his chest. His head was wrapped
in a rebel flag do-wrap, and I could tell that he had long
hair in a ponytail hanging down his back. His arms were
covered in raunchy girl tattoos that were clearly
unprofessional.
“ Bobby?” I asked.
“Morgan?” my first cousin, Bobby said, and then
grabbed me up into a big bear hug.
“Where the hell you been chica?” he asked,
grinning his missing teeth smile.
“Oh, around,” I replied. “How the hell are you?
You grew up,” I stated. Bobbie must have been about
fifteen when I had left. He was a scrawny little, pimpled
face kid the last time that I had seen him.
“Is that your fancy ass car out there?”
“No. I just borrowed it for a few days. I drive a
1993 piece of shit.” It wasn’t a complete lie, and with my
cut off jean shorts and my ace of spades t-shirt, I thought
that I could pull it off.
“It’s sweet as hell,” he exclaimed. “How long you
in town for?”
“Just passing through, I’m not sure why I even
came here to tell you the truth.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” he smiled.
I talked to my cousin who really was no relation at
all now that I knew that my dad wasn’t my dad, but I
wasn’t about to tell him that. I hadn’t been around him in
years. I didn’t trust him at all. We walked around the
trailer poking around. There wasn’t really anything there
that I wanted. It was all pretty much trash. I did find a
couple of pictures that had seen their better day. I took
them and placed them on top of my tin box. I didn’t open
the box yet. I decided to wait until I was alone for that. I
really couldn’t even remember what was in it.
“Do you know where my dad is Bobby?” I asked,
plundering through a drawer in my parent’s room. There
was nothing there, some old bills, a penknife, and a
container of KY.
“He lives in town now, over top of the
Laundromat. He married Connie Patterson, you remember
her?”
“Yeah, she worked with my mom,” I replied. I
knew exactly who she was. She was the truck stop whore.
She’d broken the record for the most times being in the
bunk of a semi-truck.
“Where’s your mama?”
“She lives in North Carolina now. I don’t talk to
her much anymore.” That wasn’t a complete lie either.
Okay, I was a liar.
“You gonna go see your pop?” Bobbie asked.
Fuck no…bastard sold me.
“Nah, we didn’t really split on good terms,” I
smiled.
Bobby walked me out to my car, carrying my
treasures.
“You sure you don’t want stay the night. We’ll
probably end up over at Booner’s later on.”
I had no clue who Booner even was, and there was
no way in hell I was staying there.
“I’m meeting a friend. I can’t, but thanks for the
offer. It was good seeing you.”
Please don’t hug me.
“You come back and see me now, hear?” Bobby
said with a big brawny hug.
“I will. You take care.”
I had decided before I backed out of my old drive
that I wouldn’t go all the way that day. I didn’t think I
would go far at all. I felt dirty, and was kind of grossed
out from walking around my abandoned, childhood home.
My head itched, too. I knew I was just being paranoid, but
I wanted a shower. I was hungry and wasn’t about to touch
food until I had one.
I drove for eight hours. Not what I had planned on
doing at all. I was so hungry I almost perished. I drove all
the way to Point Harbor. All I needed to do was take the
ferry to I-165, and I would be at my mother’s. I got a room
at a rather expensive hotel. There was no reason for it to
be that expensive, except for the fact that it was a tourist
trap. I knew I didn’t need to be concerned with a hundred
and seventy five dollars. I could drop that all day long and
never put a dent in how much money I had. That part
would probably never change. When you grow up on
dented cans of donated baked beans, you tend to ration a
little.
I used lots of antibacterial soap and washed the
nastiness away from the tin. I smiled remembering the
scene on the top and around the sides. I had sat on the
couch with Justin when he was probably three or so. We
were alone and trying to stay warm. We sat on the couch
and ate the stale cookies as we observed the Norman
Rockwell painting.
“And we’ll live in this house, and play in the barn,
and walk along the dirt road by the stream.”
“And go pishen in dat pond,” Justin explained,
pointing his little finger to the painted pond.
I smiled running my fingers over the scene, the
scene that his little fingers had touched. I could hear his
little voice as plain as day. God, I missed that little man. I
still hadn’t opened the tin, and decided to shower and find
some food before I really did perish.
I walked along the sidewalks and tourist trap
vendors. I laughed when I saw the abundant amount of
jewelry hanging from hooks from one of the street
vendors. It was necklaces, bracelets, key chains, you name
it, and anything that could be hung from a chain, this guy
had it.
“Would you like a cheap piece of history,” the guy
asked.
“History?” I smirked.
“The finest sea glass around,” he smiled.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to do it. “Buddy, there
is not one thing here that is real sea glass.”
His expression changed. He knew that I knew my
shit. “Well, it was found on the beach,” he assured me.
“Yeah, from a spring break party maybe,” I
replied, and kept walking. I heard him ask the next naïve