A Homecoming to Forget

by Emily Camp

  I almost didn’t recognize her. She wore her long hair in a ponytail, and it wasn’t a vibrant auburn, chestnut or platinum or whatever color she’d asked the hair dresser to give her, but it was a flat, mousy brown. What was even more shocking was the plainness of her clothes. She had on a simple white tee that hung on her with no shape, no vee neck, no design. On top of that was a muted brown zip-up sweatshirt. On her lower half she wore a faded black maxi skirt. Which might have looked cute if it was paired with something else and not faded. This was so not my mom’s style. One of the things I’d loved about her was how she had the most amazing clothes, hair, and makeup. Now she wore none.

  When she spotted us, she shuffled toward our table, looking over her shoulder as she did. I stood up to greet her thinking we were going to have one of those barely-there-hugs, but she surprised me by wrapping her arms around me and squeezing tight.

  “You remember Benji?” I’m not sure how much my mom had been around since Janice married my dad, I’m sure there weren’t any more overnight visits.

  “Good to see you again.” She nodded toward him as she sat down.

  “You too.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It made me wonder if my mom had caused any drama when my dad married. Even though they’d been divorced for years it was like she still had a hold on him.

  The waitress came over and took my mom’s order. Two more tables were filled now, one had a big man with a burly beard and the other held five loud twenty-somethings. My mom quietly ordered her coffee. I never remembered my mom being soft-spoken before. Everything about my mom had been loud and vibrant. She’d demanded everyone’s attention wherever she went. Now, it was like she wanted to be invisible.

  She leaned forward, her plain lips pale and cracked. She didn’t even have on lip gloss. She took my hands between hers, they were rough and calloused, her nails short and stubby with a little bit of dirt under them. This made me sad. She was always the one to tell me to quit biting my nails to grow them out pretty like hers.

  “How are you doing, Honey?” She tilted her head and blinked. Her lashes barely visible. I remembered how long and dark they used to be. I’m sure because of mascara, but still this woman in front of me was not the mom I remembered. Like everything else in my life, she’d changed into a distorted version of herself.

  “Other than my broken brain, I’m okay.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.” I almost didn’t hear her because when she spoke the college-aged table roared with laughter.

  “Did I talk to you the day I came here?” Not that I didn’t want to sit here and visit with her with small talk about my life, but I needed some answers.

  She looked out the window which showed nothing but the lit-up parking lot and empty gas pumps. Then she picked at her fingers.

  “Mom, is everything okay?”

  Benji’s arm fell across the back of my chair. I may not have even noticed, but my mom lifted an eyebrow when he did it. It was a flash of the mom I knew before.

  “What happened that day?” Benji asked.

  She fidgeted. The waitress sat the coffee in front of her. She smiled like a kid at Christmas and slurped on it without adding sugar or creamer.

  “Umm.” She closed her eyes as she sat the mug down. Benji and I looked at one another. This coffee was horrid with cream and twenty packets of sugar, I didn’t even want to think about what it tasted like black.

  “I really need to know,” I said.

  She looked from Benji to me. “The reason you came to see me, you were going to help me get out.” Again, she looked over her shoulder.

  “You want to leave the commune?”

  She nodded, eyes wide, holding the coffee to her mouth.

  “You can’t just walk away?” I said.

  She had no problem walking away from me and my dad.

  “I met a man. He promised me utopia, living off the grid and it sounded wonderful at the time.”

  “You’re in a cult?” I said, but what I really wanted to say was, ‘why didn’t living with dad and me sound wonderful?’ Why weren’t we enough?

  “Kind of.” She sipped her coffee. “I mean, I thought it was just going to be a group of people helping one another. I didn’t know we’d have a leader dictating our every move or, that I wouldn’t be able to leave if I wanted.”

  “What will happen if you try to leave?” Benji asked.

  She tapped her stubby finger nail on the table. I used to love the click clack sound that made when she had her long, fake, bright nails on. Now her nails barely made a sound. “Some very bad things. They won’t let me bring Clover.”

  I still didn’t like that name, but she didn’t have a problem leaving me.

  “Do you think if they found out about Sawyer helping you maybe they’re the ones who tried to kill her that night?” Benji leaned closer.

  The memory of being chased flashed through my mind again.

  “I thought that at first.” She brought the mug to her lips. “But they wouldn’t be that sloppy. If she disappeared, she would be dead and never found.”

  The words sent a chill through me.

  “Plus, they would have let me know about it.” She lifted her mug as the waitress came by. The woman refilled her. “Things have gotten bad lately, Clover never wants to leave my sight. He doesn’t like it. No one is supposed to be more important than him.” She looked out her window and her eyes widened.

  “Who’s he?” Benji said.

  Before she could answer, I turned to see what she was looking at. There were three guys that didn’t look much older than me, maybe Benji’s age, wearing plain, faded, shirts and black jeans. Was that like their uniform or something?

  “I have to go.” Her face paled.

  “Do you need us to hide you?” Benji asked.

  “No. I have to go back. Clover’s there.”

  I didn’t bother pointing out that she left me. But I knew it was selfish of me to think that way. She’d left me in a home with a good dad, not with some creepy cult in the mountains of West Virginia.

  “What will they do?”

  “It will be worse if I don’t go back willingly.” She said, not really answering my question.

  “Heather.” One of the guys walked up to our table, smiling and placing a hand on my mom’s shoulder. I noticed her wince. She never took crap from anybody.

  I realized as I thought that, those were the exact same words that Nadia used to describe me.

  “You’ve met my daughter, Sawyer.” My mom said pointing toward me. “And this is her step-brother, Benji.”

  When the guy’s dark eyes met mine, I had another memory flash. I was shaking his hand nervously. We were in this same spot. Clover on my mom’s lap. I wanted to take them home with me, my mom and my brother. Clover had sat contently jabbering his toddler gibberish. His chubby hands sticky with syrup, his light blond hair wispy and all over the place.

  “Sawyer?” The guy said after shaking my hand, with his clammy palm. “Is that after Tom Sawyer?”

  “Peyton Sawyer from a television show.” I still couldn’t get used to how quiet my mom spoke and now that the body guards showed up she barely looked at me.

  I looked over at Henry, who glared at the guys with my mom.

  “Time’s up, Heather.” The guy who’d just shook my hand said.

  The guy nodded toward me, then said, “Are you ready to go,” to my mom.

  “Yes.” Because it wasn’t stated like a question but more of a demand. She turned to me. “It was good seeing you again.” As if I was just an acquaintance and not her own flesh and blood.

  “You too.” I said.

  Then she surprised me when she leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. She then whispered in my ear. “I hope you find the bastard that did this to you.”

  My stomach turned as I watched her walk off with her cult bodyguards. Just like the last time.

  Chapter 22

  “Can you believe it? He’s getting married.” I leaned my he
ad back on the soft sand. My hands were folded on my bare stomach. “He barely knows her, what if my mom comes back?”

  “Do you want your dad to sit around and wait his entire life?”

  I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked toward Henry. He sat with his knees pulled to him. His hair was bleached out from the sun and his skin tanned. We both looked like we’d spent the last few weeks at the ocean.

  “Not really,” I sighed. For some reason Henry always said the right thing. “She does have a son and I’ve always wanted a brother, even though I always thought of you like one.”

  His eyebrow peeked up from behind his aviator shades. “A brother you make out with?”

  I smirked, “I don’t think that anymore, obviously.”

  My phone buzzed, taking my attention to my beach bag. I shifted through until I found it glowing at the bottom under my clothes and sunscreen. It was Trey’s face. My stomach fell.

  “Trey?” Henry’s voice was curt.

  I nodded, then shoved it back in my bag. “It can wait.”

  Henry became quiet, watching the water.

  I propped up on my elbows. “Hey.” My hair fell in my face when I tilted my head.

  “Are you going to tell him?” Henry asked. “About us?” He motioned around him. “About this summer.”

  “Yeah.” I said without hesitation. “But, I’m not doing it over the phone, I already told you that.” I leaned up and reached for him, but he scooted away.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should … maybe we should take a break until you can tell him.”

  “But he’s not going to be home for a few more days.” To be honest I tried not to think about what was going to happen when he got back. I’d had fun with Henry, I cared about him. I still cared about Trey and I dreaded breaking his heart.

  Chapter 23

  I don’t know why I was doing this to myself. I stood on the other side of the street. I wore one of Benji’s hoodies. I was sure he wouldn’t mind me borrowing it. It was black. I kept the hood up and cinched it so it stayed over my face. My eyes were covered with sunglasses. I leaned against a tree, feeling incognito as I watched his house and held my phone in front of my face.

  Henry was the only person I wanted to talk to. Sure, Benji had been a little bit of comfort after the encounter with my mom. A few more memories had returned, like when I held my baby brother for the first time. I do remember being jealous of him, but yet wanted to protect him. That was something, right? The biggest thing about that memory, was I looked up from Clover’s wrinkly pink face to see Henry’s eyes staring at me.

  “Who’s the creeper again?” Henry’s voice made me jump, almost dropping my phone.

  “How’d you know it was me?” I straightened my shoulders.

  “You stand bow-legged and you tilt your head to the side when you’re thinking.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Just like that.”

  “I do not.” I shuffled my feet to prove my point and looked down. “I’m not bow-legged.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  I slid my phone in my sweatshirt’s pouch.

  “At least don’t wear the hoodie of the college your stepbrother attends.”

  I adjusted my hood. I guess I wasn’t as incognito as I thought. “You went with me to see my baby brother when he was born.”

  Henry looked down at his boots, pulled the vape out of his pocket.

  “Why didn’t I have Trey do that? He’s my boyfriend.”

  “I’d be interested in knowing that myself.”

  I shoved my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie and stared up at the grey, sunless sky. “It seems like to me, you were the boyfriend. You were the one I came and talked to and you were the one I went to when I needed something.”

  “This is correct.”

  I looked at him, removing my ridiculous sunglasses since I didn’t need them today anyway. “Why did you put up with me going back and forth between you and Trey?”

  “I wonder that very same thing.” He placed a hand on the tree beside me, took a hit off his vape.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking, but I do know this now. It’s you that I miss. It’s you that I … want.” I whispered that last word, not even sure if he heard it.

  “You don’t know how badly I wanted to hear that.”

  My heart swelled then he said, “Before.”

  I pulled on the strings of the hoodie. “Now I’m too late, and I don’t even remember.” I tried to keep my voice from cracking as I spoke. There was a heavy brick on my chest. I hated myself for the things that I did and I didn’t even know who I was. We stood there saying nothing. Me staring at my tennis shoes. The bitter wind slapping my cheeks.

  “Hey,” he finally said, “You wanna go to the treehouse?”

  “Sure.” My voice was soft, I barely even recognized it.

  I followed him across the yard, still in my disguise.

  “You really do look ridiculous.” He motioned for me to climb first.

  When I reached the top, my heart hammered and not out of fear.

  Henry hovered above me, his hair hanging to the side of his face. The slats beneath us, cool on my skin.

  “Are you sure?” He whispered.

  I breathed out a “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I jumped, forgetting that his actual physical body was with me and not just in my mind.

  “Yeah?” My face felt flush and it wasn’t just because walls weren’t blocking the wind. How could I look him in the eyes? That memory was way too vivid not to be real. “I just remembered something.”

  “Really?” When I didn’t respond, looking at the walls, he said, “Well, what was it?”

  I put my arms across my stomach and said, “Did we …”

  “Have sex? Which time?”

  “We did it more than once?” I gasped. How could I do that and forget about it?

  He chuckled and puffed out his chest. “You couldn’t help but come back for more.”

  When he saw I wasn’t laughing, his smirk faded.

  “I feel like I should remember that. All of it.”

  “From what I hear, you took a bad hit to the head. It’s not your fault.”

  I released a growl of frustration and buried my face in my hands. “Why … how could I be sleeping with two guys and not remember why I was doing it?”

  “I don’t know.” He pulled his vape out of his pocket.

  “Like how could I break your heart like that?” Tears were streaming out of my eyes. I couldn’t fight them.

  Henry took in a long breath and ran his hand over his head. “Look, I haven’t … I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  My heart fell to my stomach. Like I could feel any worse right now. I remembered only bits and pieces and couldn’t afford to have someone lie to me.

  “You weren’t … you weren’t the only reason why our relationship was so messed up.”

  I sniffed and wiped my eyes with the sleeves of my shirt. Was this where he was going to tell me he was the one who tried to kill me that night?

  “What do you mean?” I took a step backward feeling behind me for the wall.

  “You could say I’m kind of a player with other girls.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Other girls?”

  Now I didn’t seem as bad if he was doing the same to me.

  “Look you came here wanting me to fix all your problems. You made out with me, had sex with me, then the next day you were with him at that party. It ticked me off, so I took the first girl that would have me. You came here flipping out like some raging jealous girlfriend, saying that you were going to break up with Trey, but now you’re not. Next thing I know, I overheard Trey talking about how he finally sealed the deal with you. That you were all over him? Could you imagine how I felt?” Henry began to pace only making my anxiety worse.

  I looked out the small window wondering if I would survive if I jumped. I’m sure I could. It wasn’t that h
igh. “Then when you saw me with another girl you freaked out even worse, though you did throw yourself at me afterwards.”

  What was I doing throwing myself at all these guys?

  “You’ve … we both have issues, Montgomery, but the most messed up thing you did was pretend I was stalking you.”

  “I didn’t.” Tears poured now as I pressed myself into the corner of the room.

  “Geez, Sawyer, you really believe I stalked you? Or that I would hurt you?”

  “Sounds like you hurt me plenty.”

  “Not physically, besides you were the one who hurt me first. Talking about how great Trey is. Trey this, Trey that …” He made a hand puppet as he mocked my voice in a high-pitched tone.

  I regretted my decision to come here. I should have told someone, Benji, Trey, Nadia, my dad? What if Henry tried to kill me then wait until dark before hauling my body away.

  “Sawyer.”

  I screamed just as he touched me.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Do you want my mom to come out here?”

  “It’s better than dying.”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” He said then he wrapped his arms around me tight, my voice muffled by his leather jacket. The smell, the smell of leather and sandalwood made another flash in my head.

  Wrapped in Henry’s arms, hearing his heartbeat against my ear, made me feel like everything was going to be alright.

  “I love you, Sawyer.” Wait was that the memory … or was that now? I think it was both, because in real-time he said, “I never stopped loving you. Not through any of it. Though, I tried.”

  He leaned his head back just enough to look at my face.

  “I know you can’t remember, but we have done some pretty messed up stuff to each other.”

  “But why would I do something that there was no chance of forgiveness, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why would I keep a box of creepy stuff when I had the real thing?”

  To be honest, neither scenario was adding up to me. I really wish I knew where my journals were.

  “Before all this happened, you told me you loved me. Is there any inkling that you remember loving me? Or did you just make it up because you wanted my attention?”