Letting Go

by Katie George

  Chapter Three

  Sarah

  NEAR FOUR O’CLOCK, a car pulled into the driveway, a sleek silver Mercedes Sarah did not recognize. Unfortunately, she recognized the man who hopped out. He was Scott Towson, her father. He seemed a decade older, but he was all smiles when he took in the young woman awaiting him on the doorstep. She’d been sitting there for thirty minutes now, just waiting for anyone in her family to show up, to act like they cared about her wellbeing.

  “If it isn’t my little Sarah-bedera.” He’d called her that since she was a little girl, and she’d hated it all her life.

  She stood, letting him hug her, though she tensed when they touched. “Hi, Dad.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Ah, my beautiful grown daughter. Is your mother home?” He broke away, heading inside.

  Sarah subserviently followed. “No, no sign of her, either.”

  “Well, Zach’s at school, you know, and they get out at three, but the drive home takes a bit.”

  “Yeah, who’s picking him up?” She had attended the same private Savannah school as her little brother, and last year, she’d been in charge of taking him there and picking him up.

  Scott smiled. “Alison is, obviously. She’s really stepped up to the plate this year, but Zach still misses your taking him to school. That was a highlight for him, it really was.” Scott’s face had gone even more wrinkly, with skin sagging under his chin. He was a man of forty-two, but only a few years—maybe even months—ago, he’d looked like a man in his late twenties.

  “When will Mom be home?”

  “You know your mother. She’s constantly working, and when’s she’s not working, she’s up in that sewing room. Probably around six. How about you and I work up supper for the others?”

  “Actually,” Sarah said, her lips dripping with moldy lies, but she had a need to get out of the house already, “I was going to meet up with Karli, you know, my old best friend?”

  “How could I forget Karli Kirkpatrick? Of course, go see her.” Her dad pulled out his iPhone, ready to pounce on his emails. When he looked up, he noted the bewilderment painted on his daughter’s face. He tossed his keys at her, not giving this act a second thought. “Be home by seven for dinner, okay?”

  She accepted this with a smile, which was rather becoming on her. She was prettier when she smiled. She needed to smile more.

  Sarah was at a loss when she sat in the luxury vehicle. Even the wheel seemed to feel like gold to her touch, and she was afraid of backing it out of the driveway. Eventually, she gathered the gumption to reverse the car, and then she was on the road, her eyes spinning at the ease to which the car drove.

  Plus, the late afternoon sun was beginning to dim, casting a myriad of colors across her windshield. She rolled down the windows, remembering the memorized drive to Karli’s house, hoping her friend wasn’t home. She would go to the house, knock on the door, and chances were, Karli would be off with someone else. Then Sarah would head to the gas station, or something cheap, and buy a drink and a snack. If that was not an option, Sarah would go to the library. Anywhere but that suffocating sepulcher of her house.

  It was a twenty minute drive to Karli’s house. The girl lived in a town close to Savannah, and when they were younger, the two friends were far enough away from each other as to not do everything together, but close enough to keep their friendship intact. At least that was how it had been during grade school through high school. Now, though, Sarah had to admit to herself that she’d ignored the old crowd in favor of the new world she lived in. Karli was not in the sphere of normalcy anymore.

  Sarah entered the subdivision and parked the car in front of the small house Karli shared with her mom and stepdad. There was a car in the driveway, but not Karli’s. Sarah would check anyway, and she knocked on the door, waiting to see a familiar face.

  Karli’s mom appeared, her eyes golden brown, and she said, “Why, Sarah Towson! How are you?” Her accent was thick like the dense swamplands nearby. Karli’s entire family was encroached in the Southern culture, much more so than most. “Earl, come see Sarah Towson!”

  Sarah hugged the kind woman, though this place did not feel like home either. She did not expect it to feel like home, but she hoped it would. Anything had to be better than the Towson mansion, she bitterly reflected, but guiltily changed her mind. There were worse places than Breezewater, Georgia. There were many worse places.

  For example, children starved in the poor parts of Savannah, where women also doubled as prostitutes, a lucrative and secretive system. That would be worse.

  Earl appeared behind Karli’s mom, Stacy. He was a formidable man, built like a brick wall, and his hearty roar of a laugh filled the air. “California’s back!” He hurried over, hugging her from the side.

  “Well, if you’re looking for Karli,” Stacy said, pulling out a cigarette, “she’s not here. She’s been living with a man down in the south side, near the river. They’re really playing house, Sarah. Let me tell you. I’m surprised she hasn’t come home with a baby on her hip.”

  Earl shook his head. “We don’t approve, but the girl’s making her own choices. It would be good for the two of you to get to see each other, though.”

  “I do agree,” Stacy seconded. She took a drag on the cigarette, the smell of ash something Sarah was not accustomed to. “Karli misses you so much, Sare. After you left, and a bunch of your friends headed off to college, Karli was at a loss. She wanted so badly to be like you, always like Sarah Towson. But she wasn’t meant to be like you.”

  “We’re so proud of you,” added Earl, wrapping an arm around his wife. “People like you are going to change the world.”

  Sarah smiled, nodding appreciatively in response to their kindness. “Thanks. You know, I don’t know if I can change the world, but some people sure can. Who is Karli living with now?”

  “John Cruston. Do you remember him? He graduated a few years before y’all did.”

  “How could I forget Cruston? He was the best football player our little private school has ever had.” She laughed at the thought.

  “That is true. I remember that boy’s throwing arm.” Earl looked into the yard, his memory taking hold. “He was destined for greatness. Until he threw it all away, of course.”

  John Cruston was the typical bad boy. He grew up in the same school Sarah and Karli graduated from, as both his parents were coaches and teachers there, too. Cruston began to hang out with the wrong crowd—or maybe he even formed the wrong crowd—in tenth grade, when he started selling marijuana on campus. He got away with the practice for the most part, especially due to his impeccable stats on the football field, until one of the last games of senior year. Cruston had garnered interest of a few college scouts, but he always blew it with them, never showing an interest in return. He was caught dealing to a few underclassmen, and he was suspended. Eventually, Cruston was expelled.

  And now he was living with Karli Kirkpatrick?

  Karli was not an academic powerhouse, and she did not have athletic prowess. She was a country girl who loved to fish, hunt, and play with her muddy truck. She had worn cowgirl boots to prom, church, and school, ignoring teachers when they called out her shoes for being against school policy. Karli did not cuss, nor did she smoke weed.

  Yet when her dad died sophomore year, Karli began to unravel. She was not crazy, by any means, but she became lonely, especially when her mother married an old high school flame, Earl Hall, Karli’s senior year. Earl was a good man, a churched man, who helped Stacy Kirkpatrick combat the issues with the loss of the love of her life. Yet Karli was angry, and the anger eventually turned into rebellious behavior.

  Karli and Sarah had been close friends since childhood, because they both were on the outskirts of the group. Sarah could have easily been popular but chose not to be, while Karli was always ignored, even in the South, for being true to herself. In their senior year of high school, however, they began to drift apart, with Sarah’s dreams of e
scape opening, and Karli’s forced realization that she would stay in Savannah, probably for the rest of her life. Karli was not one to leave, and never had been.

  This development—that Cruston and Karli were a thing, a live-in thing—shocked Sarah. She listened to the peculiars of how the two had met, because Cruston was four years older than they. He had been working as a construction worker in downtown and had stopped by a local bar which Karli tended. The rest was history.

  Sarah did not even know Karli was a bartender. This shocked her, because Karli had sworn off drinking, but of course, Karli was not exactly one to keep promises. The two became a serious item around a month before Sarah’s return from Southern California, and now they were living together in a poor neighborhood in Savannah.

  After saying her farewells to Stacy and Earl, Sarah hopped in her car, intent on grabbing junk food from the gas station. This was hard to force down.

  Karli Kirkpatrick had fallen off an edge into a world Sarah had no knowledge about.

  Sarah could not help but cry, because this was her friend, and while some were probably accepting of this, she could not. Not when she knew of Cruston’s past.