Chapter Sixteen
Later that day, I sped through main street in grandpa’s truck, desperate to get away from the town, and Steven. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stop the thoughts about him? I couldn’t talk to anyone about this, not Jane or Renee. I certainly didn’t know Katie well enough to talk to her. I only had my thoughts to torture me. I kept thinking about Steven’s smile, his handsome face, and that amazing body. Besides, Jeff was a temporary boyfriend and I knew it. I wasn’t going to marry him and I certainly didn’t see myself being anyone special to him. So why was I fighting so hard to ignore Steven and my feelings?
By this time I was deep in the backroads. I didn’t think I drove this far. Something was different about my parents, as well. Aunt Rachel had been a total surprise. Why hadn’t mom told me about her sister and my grandfather? I had two cousins whom I never knew of. If she hid all of that from me, what else was she hiding?
My thoughts and desire ran back to Steven. I refused to think of anything else other than him. I pictured the look on his face when I would tell him I’m single. I continued my little fantasy to our first date. Dinner and a moonlit stroll through downtown sounded perfect. Maybe Steven would kiss me at the end of the night.
I trembled with excitement and took out my phone to call him.
“Hey Jeff, its Regina!” I said and took a deep breath.
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An hour later, I was still on the backroads. I couldn’t go home yet. The sun went down and I had half a tank of gas left. The conversation with Jeff didn’t go well at all. Either he was hurt or mad, I couldn’t decide. Probably both, I thought.
“Jeff, I’ve been thinking, a lot. It isn’t fair to us to carry on with this long distance thing.” I began.
“I’m fine Regina. I can wait for you to come home. Don’t worry about me, I’m worried about you. What’s going on there?” Jeff asked.
“Everything. The world here is topsy-turvy.” I said quietly.
“Why?”
“My grandfather is kind, my mother is a liar, my father hates me, and I don’t know what’s going on with me!” I tried to hold back the tears as I spoke. My headlights flickered in the darkness as I drove deeper into the country.
“Don’t tell me you’re breaking up with me to date those rednecks.” He asked at one point in the conversation, I heard his voice start to rise.
“Don’t call them that!” I scoffed at him. This was going to go horribly wrong if I didn’t do something drastic. “Jeff I’m a mess over here! I don’t know who or what to believe or if I’m ever coming home!”
I heard Jeff take a deep breath over the phone. I didn’t want the conversation to end because I dropped my service, so I pulled over onto the side of the road.
“Well excuse me! You know I would come to see you but, let’s be honest, I don’t want to go somewhere where the town shuts down at dusk.” He said with disgust.
“And you don’t want to see me? Is that it?” I asked
“No,…..but Lee isn’t exactly a vacation spot.” He said defensively.
“I know that Jeff! I thought that since I was here, you would want to make an effort to at least visit me once!” I shouted at him.
“Did you really think I was going to come to that town? Come on, Regina! Besides you’re coming home next month!” He spoke to me with a snotty tone. It angered me.
“I thought you cared about me enough to help me through the toughest time in my life!” I shouted.
“’The toughest time in your life’? Really Regina, I think you’re being dramatic.” He said with disdain.
“No I’m not, and if you really cared about me at all you would come see for yourself!”
Yes, please come see me. Please come see the ‘new’ me and save me from this place, I thought.
“I’m not coming to Lee, Regina.” Jeff said firmly. “Football practice starts next month, I just got back from camp, I want to have some fun this summer while I can, and I’ve got my parents on my back, too!”
“Well, maybe you could come this weekend?” I pleaded after I changed my tone and attitude. “Jeff, I’m sorry I’m acting crazy, but I need to talk to you, to really talk to you. I can’t do it over the phone and that sounds so stupid, I know, but please come. If you really care about me like you always told me, then you will come. Please.” I begged. He had to come. Once he did, he would see the spell I was under and free me from it.
Silence again. I was getting used to it. What was he thinking?
“Regina….” He stammered. “I can’t come to Lee. Don’t ask me to explain why, but I’m not coming.”
For some reason, his refusal freed the rage inside of me and I blew up at him. ”Fine.” I replied coldly. “Then don’t come, but if you don’t, consider us over.”
Silence.
I drove down Old Towne road when I noticed something odd about the scenery. There were plenty of crazy trees, as Katie described them. The barbwire fences stretched for miles in front of me and I realized I was lost. I was so lost in my thoughts, I drove aimlessly around. I looked for a safe place to turn the truck around. I kept a detailed map of the roads of Lee in the glove box. If I could find a driveway to pull into so I could look at the map…..
Then I saw it, the curve coming up in the road. I passed the familiar Fort Knox style house with the big driveway. The empty field loomed ahead of me as I took the curve. The road went left and straightened out. I couldn’t see past the tall cedar trees that lined the left side of the road, but I could see the fog. It patiently waited for me just ahead. Fog as thick as pea soup and darker than the night hung in the air straight ahead. I panicked. This was my dream! I didn’t know what to do. I thought I should turn around on the road, but it rained earlier and I would surely get grandpa’s truck stuck in the mud. Jeff’s response echoed in my head.
“You’re going to break up with me because I won’t come to visit you in Lee?”
“No! I’m breaking up with you because you’re a jerk!” I screamed into the phone and hung it up.
Now, panic and fear pulsated through my body. I breathed so fast, my head spun. I was trapped! There was no way around the fog short of driving through it. No, I couldn’t do that. I was about to stop the car when I saw the turn off to the left. Excitement and relief built my heart back up. I turned the truck away from the fog while tears of happiness streaked down my cheeks. Once I turned off the road, I felt so stupid. Here I was, scaring myself on a lone, dark country road because of some stupid dream. I pulled my car over, flipped on my hazard lights, and sat for a second in the silence of my truck.
“I’m so damn STUPID!!” I shouted in the privacy of the truck.
I knew it was more than the dream that bothered me. The whole time here in Lee, I’ve felt different. Maybe everything is different now. Deep inside me, I knew I was doomed to stay here in Lee and graduate from this high school rather than home in New York. I knew I wanted Steven and purposely broke up with Jeff. I knew my parents were different, too. I knew mom wanted to give up the city to live in Lee, being the happy little housewife. Daddy seemed as if he didn’t care where we lived, as long as it was with my mother. My grandfather was not the man my mother told me he was. And this whole town, it seems so strange……….
Before I could expand on my thoughts, I glanced out my passenger side window and saw it.
A house.
It sat about fifty feet back from the road in the darkness, just waiting for me to see it. The mammoth roof was taller than the tree line. It was a three point roof that loomed over the land before me. The darkness couldn’t hide the tan brick walls and the black roof. The windows were large and dark. They overlooked over the road like a guardian waiting for its master to return. The grass was overgrown with weeds starting to flower.
I don’t remember opening the car door and walking towards the house. I felt as if something in the house physically pulled me to it. My feet scraped over the cement steps and onto the p
orch. I felt dazed as I reached for the handle to open the door.
I stopped and yanked my hand away from the door as if I had been burned. Wait! What am I doing? I felt my senses come back and I looked at the house with a better view. The house watched me as I looked inside the windows on the first floor. I couldn’t see a thing without light so I backed away from the house to look at it from afar. The two windows on the second floor looked like the eyes of the house. I watched closely as an orange hue approached the window. I gasped in fright when the wind chimes on the front porch suddenly came to life. The sound startled me. I looked back to the window to see the orange light gone, but when I gazed at the first floor, I saw the orange light in the window. This time, it had eyes!
I ran away from the house at full speed. I threw myself into the truck and sped away, leaving a long trail of mud and grass behind me.
Regina Page 16
