by Claire Raye
I wouldn’t dare ask him what he’s been through or ask him to share what happened, because saying it out loud makes it far too real. We’re too young to know how to deal with any of this and too poor to do anything about it even if we did.
“I’ll get my clothes but that’s it. Let the bank take anything that’s left. It’s all crap anyway,” he mumbles.
“I don’t want the bank to take anything that’s left,” I growl back, bitter and angry at his lack of interest and even more so at his inability to understand that despite our shitty upbringing, Caleb and I still have memories in that house. I don’t ever want to romanticize our life or our parents, but someday we will have kids and they will ask about their grandparents. I would like any pictures that may be left in the house, something to remind us.
“Then you deal with, Sienna,” he bites back. “You weren’t the one left here when all your fucking memories were tainted and destroyed. You were off pretending you didn’t grow up in this nightmare, that you didn’t have shitty parents and that our bar wasn’t going to shit.”
I gasp out loud, stepping back, my hands now on my hips ready to battle with him over this, but when I look over at Reid, he slowly shakes his head. He isn’t on my side with this and the way he looks between Caleb and me tells me I don’t need his help, but Caleb does.
“Not today, Sie,” Reid says, but there’s nothing shaming in his words. They’re a warning and I take them in immediately, quieting as I reflect on how I need to speak to Caleb now.
I don’t respond because nothing I can say will make any of this better; it won’t fix anything. This is our new normal and I need to learn that Caleb will cycle between okay and not okay, and he definitely doesn’t need me arguing with him over things.
“I’m going to bed,” I say, again I know neither of them are listening to me. I have no idea what happened to the day; it slowly disappeared without me even realizing it.
Maybe tomorrow will be the start of the rest of our lives, but even I know this isn’t true.
I wake early, the house is quiet and I slip out of the bed. I don’t want to be here any longer. Not just in this house, but in Providence. There’s an antsy feeling that crawls under my skin, making me long for California, the anonymity of it, making me want my normal life back. Whatever normal is now.
I begin to pack my things as quietly as possible. I drop my bag on the floor and Reid shifts in bed, taking in a long breath, but he just rolls over, still sleeping soundly. I exit the room, my legs feeling like they need to move so I pace the small living room, letting my thoughts continue to consume me.
I worry about Caleb and his ability to cope. I worry about leaving Providence and how he’ll adjust. I stress about money and how we’ll support ourselves. My school loan money barely covers my expenses, which means we’ll both need to find jobs in California. My house is small, but Caleb could live with Reid, although given Caleb’s current mental state, that house is not the place for him. It could make even the calmest person lose their shit.
I switch on the TV needing a distraction from my own thoughts, but as soon as I do, I regret it instantly. The early morning news is blaring a story all about Ray Bowen and how his kid sold him out. While the story paints Ray in exactly the light he should be, they don’t bother to talk about how Reid risked his life or what it all means. And before I can grow even more indignant over the story, it switches over, a picture of our now defunct bar appearing on the screen.
“Longtime watering hole of Providence finds its doors shuttered,” the reporter starts and I cringe at her words. “Once owned by the self-made millionaire David Parker, the bar slowly fell into disarray after his passing. Eventually succumbing to money troubles after being taken over by his grandson Caleb Parker.”
“What the fuck!” I call out, far too loudly in the quiet confines of the small house. “Bullshit,” I now mutter, my word softer this time. I’m so bothered by this that I want to hunt this reporter down and call her out. That’s not what happened, but that’s what people want to hear, what they want to believe. No one wants the real story because that makes for shitty news.
I turn the TV off, not wanting to hear anymore and instead of going back into the room to pack, I storm into the bedroom and wake up Reid.
“Get up,” I say, swatting at his butt under the sheets. “I want to go to the house and start packing and then I want to leave. I want to be in the truck on the way back to Hawthorn by three o’clock.” I sound demanding, but I can’t be here any longer. The longer we stay the easier it will be for all of this gossipy bullshit to reach Caleb. I can handle it, but I don’t want anything compromising his ability to move on from this.
“What?” Reid says, groggy and hoarse as he rubs at his eyes and rolls his body over, now looking away from me.
“I want to leave,” I repeat, sounding a bit harsher this time as I now frantically finish packing my things. “Get up and start packing because I can’t stay here another second.”
“Whoa, settle down, babe,” Reid says, obviously now aware of my unease.
“Don’t you dare tell me to settle down. That’s not the right thing to say, trust me,” I hiss, narrowing my eyes at him and without saying anything more, he gets up and starts packing.
“I’m sorry I told you to settle down. I can tell you’re having a hard time and that was the wrong thing to say,” he admits, a hand reaching out to me.
I take it and he pulls me against him, my head falling into the crook of his shoulder. His skin is warm and comforting, and I nuzzle against him, taking in his smell. There’s no way I could’ve done this without him and I should be thanking him rather than bitching at him. We’re all going to need each other more than ever before.
“Why don’t we head over to your house…your old house,” he says, correcting himself, “and see what we can get done? We can try to meet your schedule, but you know, sometimes things don’t go as planned.” He smiles at me, being a little cheeky at my need to control everything.
“Thank you,” I respond, my lips trailing up his neck to meet his mouth. “You know just what to say to me. I’m one lucky girl.”
“Obviously,” he quips back and I shake my head at his still oversized ego.
“I’m going to go wake Caleb up and see if I can get him moving,” I tell Reid and he nods his head in agreement.
“Be chill about it, Sie,” he says, wagging a finger at me. “I would suggest not storming in there and smacking him on the ass.”
“Obviously,” I respond back, mocking the word he just said to me as I roll my eyes.
Caleb is having a good day today and is packed and ready within a half an hour after I woke him up. The three of us are now in Reid’s truck driving over to our old house and I’ve gone over the schedule I want to keep three times already.
But I can’t help myself and remind them once again as we exit the truck. “Three o’clock. I know you said you don’t want anything so it should be quick then.”
“I’ll be quick, Sie. Reid, you wanna help me pack up my clothes?” Caleb asks and Reid nods. It seems like I’m not the only one who wants to get the fuck out of here.
We push open the front door, and I instantly realize what walking into the house after being away is going to do to the three of us. This is where we found Caleb. This is where Caleb was left beaten and dying on the floor. And even though everything has long since been cleaned up, the house still holds the metallic scent of old blood, the images still seared into my brain.
I look over at Caleb, quiet and wide-eyed and I want to ask if he’s reliving every second of what happened. There’s no way he isn’t. It’s the reason we need to leave and why we will not spend any more time in this house.
Clearing my throat, I give Caleb a gentle push. “Go,” I say. “Go pack your things.”
He glances at me, nodding once as though he understands what’s going on here and then he and Reid disappear up the stairs and down the dark hallway to his room at the end of
the hall.
I move toward the door off the entryway and take the rickety old stairs down to the basement. It smells of mustiness and mold, like over the years it’s taken on water and for a split second I worry that what I’m looking for could’ve been damaged, the boxes wet and possibly moldy.
But I spy the boxes stacked up in the far corner right where they were when I found them years ago. I walk over and pull open the flaps, revealing exactly what I hoped would be in there—my mom’s CDs. Every last one of them and even though I was never close to her or even really knew her, something about this box makes me hopeful that she wasn’t always such a mess, that maybe there is hope for Caleb and me.
I heave the box off the top of the other boxes and push it off to the side, looking for what else I know is down here. Family pictures and I don’t mean pictures of us beyond age six. I look for the ones that showed the happy family, the ones that had us cradled in our parents’ arms, hopeful and full of promise and even though I know the ending to this story, I want my future children to see that maybe it wasn’t always bad.
I come across some old albums and stacks of prints, some from when Caleb and I were born and some that must have belonged to our grandfather. I gather the two boxes, stacking them up on top of each other; I lug them out to Reid’s truck.
All that’s left is an old radio and the box of CDs, which I begin to root through, looking for something specific. I pull out one CD in particular, opening it and finding a certain song circled on the paper insert. I rest the radio and CD on top as I carry the box out to the truck, dropping it in the back with the rest of the stuff, but I make sure to take the items on top with me..
I climb the stairs and meet Reid and Caleb in his bedroom as they are knee deep in a ton of Caleb’s crap.
“How’s it going?” I ask, looking over at the small alarm clock on Caleb’s nightstand.
“Not bad,” Caleb answers, but then glares at me. “Are you asking because you sincerely want to know or are you just asking because you’re keeping time?”
“Shut up,” I respond back, flopping down on Caleb’s bed as I lean over and plug in the radio. I pop the CD in and listen to it spin as it finds the song and when Candlebox’s “Far Behind” starts playing Caleb groans out loud.
“Seriously, Sie? Nineties? Always nineties.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Reid
I chuckle as Sie starts to quietly sing the words, rolling my eyes when Caleb glares at me, as if to signal my solidarity with his complaint about his sister’s weird music tastes.
“Just so you know, I will be picking the music for the trip back to Hawthorn,” she states, tucking her hands behind her head as she leans back on the pillow.
I burst out laughing now, punching Caleb in the arm. “Now you’ll get to experience what I had to put up with.”
Sienna’s bare foot flies out from the bed, kicking me in the butt. “Hey!” she says, scowling at me.
I’m still laughing as I turn to her, my hands on my hips. “What?”
“You,” she says, pointing a finger at me now. “Like my music tastes, remember. You liked everything I played coming over here.”
I raise a brow at her, a huge grin on my face as I say, “I did, babe, just like I liked the highway blow jobs too, but I’m not getting that on the trip back now, am I?”
“Oh my fucking god,” Caleb mutters at the same time as Sienna yells out, “Reid!”
I can’t help laughing, leaning down to plant a sloppy kiss on her lips even as she squirms away from me.
“I think I should just fly back,” Caleb says, straightening as he throws some more clothes into a bag. “Seriously, I’m not actually sure I’m gonna be able to handle this road trip with you two.”
Sienna swings her legs over the side of the bed as she stands, swatting a hand at my chest as though this is all my fault. “You’re coming with us,” she states, giving her brother a hard look. “And you, mister,” she says, finger pointed at me again, “will behave yourself.”
My brows raise as I stick my tongue out at her. “Never gonna happen, babe, you know that.”
Sie rolls her eyes at me again, even as she tries to hide the smile that’s tugging at her mouth. “I’m going to check I have everything from my room,” she states, before walking out.
I glance at Caleb. “I’ll be back in a sec,” I say, before following her out. When she disappears into her room, I do the same, closing the door behind me before sidling up behind her and slipping my arms around her waist.
“You know,” I murmur, my mouth at her ear, “I’ve never been in your room like this,” I say, referring to the fact we are now together. Back when we were kids, I ventured in here plenty of times, mostly to annoy Sie or convince her to come and do some crazy shit with me and Caleb.
But never like this.
Never when I could slip my hands under her t-shirt and over her warm skin, teasing her nipples over her bra as I lower my mouth to her neck and start sucking.
Sienna smacks at my hands, squirming in my arms as she tries to break free. I don’t let her go though, tightening my grip as I kiss a path up to her ear and whisper, “I really think we should christen it before we go, don’t you?”
“What?” she whisper-shouts, finally turning so she’s facing me.
I grin down at her, pulling her closer as I slip my hands up her back, undoing her bra strap with a quick snap of the clasp. “I definitely think we need to fuck in here,” I say, brushing my lips against hers. “It’s our last chance and something I’ve thought a lot about,” I add with a wink.
Sienna stills, her hands gripping my biceps. “You have?”
Chuckling, I trace my tongue along her bottom lip, my hands sliding around to cup her breasts now as she lets out a gasp. “Fuck yeah,” I tell her. “I used to think about sneaking in here all the time when we were kids. About all the things I could do to you if I did.”
Sienna’s body melts against mine, her grip loosening as she slides her hands up my arms and around my neck, holding me close, apparently forgetting about our deadline for leaving today as she asks, “Oh yeah, like what?”
I grin against her mouth, backing her up against her twin size bed. “How about I show you instead,” I murmur, before pushing her down onto the mattress and covering her body with mine.
By four o’clock, the last of the boxes and bags are packed in the back of my truck and we are ready to go. I’ve already spoken to Detective O’Connor and with my dad basically confessing to everything, particularly after he discovered his conversation with us had all been recorded, it looks like there won’t be a trial.
I’m fucking relieved about that, not just because I had no interest in standing up in court and reliving all the things I’d seen and heard, but because I wasn’t sure Caleb was physically or mentally ready for rehashing it either, especially if my dad’s lawyers went after him.
It was already obvious he was barely getting through each day, but having to relive the beating he took at the hands of my father, or all the things that came before, I was pretty sure that was going to push him over the edge.
“Okay, come on,” Sie says, clapping her hands together as she stands by the side of my truck. “We are already running late.”
Caleb and I laugh as we both walk down the front steps of their former home, each of us carrying one last box of things that’s coming back to Hawthorn with us. He’d been surprisingly chill about packing up his life and I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew just how much he needed to get away from this place after everything that had happened. As though this was the first step in him walking away from this whole nightmare and starting to heal.
“Jesus, babe, we’re coming already,” I say, grinning as I give her a smack on the ass.
She rolls her eyes at me, but she’s smiling as she opens the front passenger door. “You wanna sit up front?” she asks Caleb.
He shakes his head, holding up his still cast arm. “Nah, I’m good,” h
e says. “I think I’m better laying out in the back seat.”
She nods, opening the backdoor for him before jumping into the passenger seat. I walk around to the driver’s side, stopping to look at Caleb across the roof. “You good?” I ask, watching as he glances up at the house he and Sienna grew up in.
Caleb nods, turning back to me. “Yeah, I’m good,” he says, a small grin on his face. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Chuckling, I get into my truck as Sie turns to me and says, “So what’s our first stop?”
As I start the engine, I glance in the mirror at Caleb before turning to her. “Philly,” I say.
“Philadelphia?”
“Yep,” I say nodding. “I think after everything that’s happened, a run up the Rocky steps is in order.”
“The Rocky steps?” Sie asks, scrunching up her nose.
Caleb and I laugh and as if on cue, we both hold up our fists and shout, “Adrian!” in mock Stallone accents.
Sienna gives us both a slow blink, clearly having no idea what we are talking about.
“Sie, seriously?” Caleb shouts from the back seat, still laughing. “Rocky, the movies! Fuck, you only watched them with us like a million times.”
She rolls her eyes. “Ugh, god, was this one of those boring guy flicks you two made me sit through?”
I nudge her as I reverse out of the drive. “Please, you loved it,” I tell her. “Anyway, it’s got the perfect road trip song, put “Eye of the Tiger” on,” I add, waving a hand at her phone.
She types away at her screen, her bottom lip between her teeth as she searches her music collection. Eventually she looks up, shaking her head as she grins. “Nope, it’s not nineties, so it’s a no go.”
“Sie,” Caleb and I both groan.
Her smile widens. “But,” she holds up a finger, “I do have the perfect alternative,” she says as she hits her screen before throwing her phone onto the dash.
