Chasing the Tide

by A. Meredith Walters

  But why was it that now I was here, in freaking New York City, I couldn’t think of anything but what I had left behind?

  “I never get to eat like this. My friends from work all seem to be dieting or consume nothing but salad,” Nadine laughed, rolling her eyes.

  “Salads are for pussies,” I muttered, finishing my whiskey sour.

  “And rabbits,” Nadine agreed. “You want to hang out longer or head back—oh hello,”

  The guys who had been making it their mission to watch us all evening had finally grown some balls and decided now was their time to approach. Nadine’s eyes went gooey as she took in the classic good looks of the guy who stood behind her.

  “Care if we join you?” the guy asked, sitting down without an invitation. His friend, who was just as good looking joined him, sitting a little too close to me for my tastes. I had certain requirements when it came to personal space. Not being able to smell his beer breath being one of them.

  “I’m Jim,” one of the guys said to Nadine who was putting on her flirt face.

  “I’m Nadine and this is my friend Ellie. She’s up for the weekend visiting,” she said, batting her eyelashes in a way I thought was reserved for really bad chick movies.

  The guy with no respect for my body bubble leaned in close. “Hi Ellie, I’m Quinn.”

  “Quinn? Who the hell names their kid Quinn?” I asked, forgetting to censor myself.

  The guy laughed, clearly not insulted in the slightest. “It’s a family name, I didn’t choose it.”

  He was flirting with me. He was looking at me like I was a thick, juicy steak and he hadn’t eaten in a year.

  I turned back to my whiskey sour, feeling very awkward.

  “You girls want to play some pool?” Jim asked, his eyes never leaving Nadine, who obviously returned his blatant lusting.

  “Sure,” she said, letting him help her to her feet like she was some sort of seventeenth century damsel.

  “You down for some pool?” Quinn asked, his words laced with insinuation. It wasn’t just pool he was asking whether I was down for.

  I gave him a less than sweet smile. “Sure,” I said, knowing that he thought he had a chance of getting in my pants. He didn’t realize he was about to get hustled.

  Nadine and Jim headed towards the pool tables at the back of the bar. I followed with Quinn’s eyes zeroed in on my tits.

  “So you’re not from New York?” Quinn asked.

  “Nope,” I answered, grabbing a cue stick from the wall and chalking the tip.

  “Where are you from?” he asked, sliding in close to me. This guy was relentless.

  I looked over at Nadine engaged in a frantic sort of mating ritual with good ol’ Jim. They were flirting and making banal chitchat that only served to get them laid at the end of the night.

  Quinn was trying to be smooth; making it known he was attracted to me. His visible appreciation of my body more than noticeable.

  This is what people do. They flirt. They talk about meaningless shit. They fuck. Then nine times out of ten they don’t bother to see each other ever again.

  I had had my fair share of random hook ups. This song and dance was familiar.

  And I hated it.

  Why in the hell had I settled for this for so damn long?

  I had a man over three hundred miles away that never flirted. He never attempted ridiculous small talk to fill the silence. He didn’t pepper me with compliments hoping to score.

  “I live in West Virginia,” I said.

  “Oh yeah—“

  “With my boyfriend,” I added and watched with satisfaction as Quinn-with-no-sense-of-personal-space deflated right before my eyes.

  “Oh, boyfriend, huh?”

  I finished chalking the tip of my cue stick and handed it to him with a smile. “Yeah, for over three years now.”

  “That’s cool,” Quinn said, clearly souring and wishing he could leave. Nadine and Jim stopped mentally undressing each other and we started playing pool.

  Quinn, whose mood had already taken a turn once he realized he wasn’t getting into my pants, became even pissier when I won fifty bucks off him.

  “You’re a hustler,” he accused, handing over his money.

  “I never told you I couldn’t play pool. It’s not my fault you made assumptions based on my boob size,” I said, tucking the bills into my pocket.

  Quinn turned red and stomped off.

  “He doesn’t lose well, huh?” I asked his friend.

  Jim shrugged. “I should go. He’ll probably leave me here if I don’t. I’ll call you, Nadine,” he said and I heard the false promise in his voice. He wasn’t going to call her. Why pretend otherwise?

  The insincere song and dance of meeting that special someone. really sucked. And I was thankful that I no longer had to be a part of it.

  I had found my someone.

  Nadine preened until he left and then she pouted. “Thanks Ellie. I almost had him hooked,” she complained.

  “You’ll thank me for it one day. Why don’t we get out of here? I’m pretty tired,” I said.

  The walk back to the apartment took twice as long with Nadine stopping every few minutes to rest her feet. I had told her four-inch heels weren’t the smartest footwear. But she chose to listen to fashion over practicality.

  When we were back at the apartment, Nadine got us both a glass of water. “To combat my inevitable hangover,” she explained.

  I got my own glass of water and sat down beside her.

  “Today was fun,” she said.

  “It was,” I agreed.

  “So, what do I have to do to get you to move here?” she asked, grinning.

  “You know, twelve hours ago, I would have said not much.”

  Nadine’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  I drank the rest of my water and put my glass on the floor by my feet. “It’s been rough since going back to West Virginia. I can’t find a decent job. I keep running into people I’d rather not see. I’ve always hated it there,” I found myself admitting.

  “Then why in the hell are you living there? And if you tell me because that’s where Flynn is I will strangle you. Don’t be that girl, Ellie,” she threatened.

  “Yes, it’s because of Flynn,” I began and stopped Nadine before she could interrupt.

  “And I’m not that girl. You don’t get how things are with us. He gets me. Better than anyone. He loves me completely and without judgment.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your dreams, Ellie.”

  “I thought I was,” I admitted, drinking the rest of my water and putting it on the floor. “I thought that I was putting what I wanted aside in order to be with him.”

  “Then what the hell are you still doing there, damn it?” Nadine demanded, frowning.

  “I’m there because there’s nowhere else I want to be.” As I said the words, I knew, without a doubt that they were true.

  “I don’t get it. You just said you thought you were putting your dreams aside for Flynn. That you were in that shitty town because that’s where he was. So how can that be the place you want to be?” she asked and I didn’t really know how to answer her.

  I could hear Nadine’s neighbors through the thin walls. A couple above us was arguing at the top of their longs. The guy who lived beside her was blasting his stereo. It was loud. Too loud.

  I stood up and walked to the window, opening it. The streets, even after midnight, were still crowded and noisy. The lights from the neon signs and street lamps were almost blinding.

  There was a reason New York was called the city that never sleeps.

  I suddenly missed the pin drop silence I experienced standing in the middle of Flynn’s yard. I yearned for the quiet comfort of watching Flynn work on his sculptures, the only sound coming from our breathing.

  I had thought the grass was greener somewhere else.

  Why had it required me to travel hundreds of miles to realize the very thing I had known all along?<
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  “I want to go home,” I said softly, staring out into the frigid night.

  “But you just got here,” Nadine argued, not understanding.

  “I thought I needed to be somewhere else, doing something else. I felt like a failure for going back to my beginning. But I’m happiest there, Nadine. I belong there.”

  “With Flynn,” Nadine finished for me and I smiled.

  My moment of realization was interrupted by the sound of a crash from next door.

  “Shit. That’s Tommy. It sounds like he’s drunk and wrecking his apartment again. Hold that thought and let me go and make sure he’s okay,” Nadine said and I could hear yelling through the wall.

  After Nadine had left I went to the bathroom to get changed into my pajamas.

  I rooted around inside, trying to find my toiletries, when I felt something hard underneath my clothes.

  I pulled out two small objects, holding them in my palm.

  It was my sand castle.

  And a miniature Empire State Building.

  Then, just like that I was crying. The tears fell and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

  Flynn must have slipped them into my bag when I wasn’t looking. He had wanted me to let me know that he loved me and that he wanted me to come back to him.

  These sculptures were Flynn’s heart.

  I forced myself to stop sobbing, knowing it wouldn’t solve anything. I put the sculptures back in my bag and walked back out into the living room. Nadine was walking back in, looking frazzled.

  “Tommy’s a flipping nut job. He turned over his coffee table and…what’s wrong?” she asked, taking a look at my swollen face. “Were you…crying?”

  “I need to go back,” I told her firmly.

  “Huh?” Nadine stared at me like I had grown a second head.

  “I need to go back to Wellston. I need to apologize to Flynn. I walked out on him, Nadine.” I felt a bubble of panic when I thought of the possible consequences of my actions.

  This wasn’t the first time I had bailed on Flynn when things got rough.

  Shit, this wasn’t even something new for me. It was expected. Predictable. I had done it so many times before.

  I would walk away first before Flynn, or anyone else had a chance to walk away from me.

  I couldn’t make those same, stupid choices again!

  “I need to go back, Nadine. I can’t let Flynn think I’ve left him! Oh my god, why had I left like that? What in the hell is wrong with me?” I started searching for my car keys.

  “Hang on a sec, Ellie. Just wait—“ Nadine tried to placate me but I wasn’t having it.

  “Don’t, Nadine. I appreciate you taking me around your neighborhood. I really do, but I’ve got to get back. Tonight. I need to see Flynn so he knows. He thinks I’m not coming back!” I was starting to get hysterical.

  Crap. I had never, in all my life, felt like this. Hysterical. Losing my mind. Freaking the fuck out.

  Not when I was bounced from foster home to foster home. Not when Dania would come into my room after having to deal with Mr. Beretti. Not when I was sent to Spadardo’s Juvenile Detention Center.

  I was terrified that I would lose Flynn.

  That I had finally done it. I had pushed him away.

  Some therapist in the long list of professionals who had attempted to fix me had told Julie that I would do whatever I could to keep people at an arm’s length. That RADs kids, or people with Reactive Attachment Disorder, didn’t know how to have healthy, functional relationships. That I had learned early on, through my own lack of nurturing, to close off my emotions and to sabotage any attempt at connection.

  It felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  I had never thought it possible for me to have a family, so I was ruining my chances before they began.

  “It’s late, Ellie. You need to sleep. You’ve already driven six and a half hours today. You can get up and leave in the morning,” Nadine argued.

  “But Flynn—“

  “Will be there when you get back. It’ll suck worse for him if you crash into a tree because you’re exhausted,” my friend reasoned.

  She handed me my phone from my purse. “Text or call him. These gadgets of the twenty-first century are pretty amazing,” she remarked sarcastically and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “You’re a riot, Nadine,” I muttered, taking the phone.

  I had been away for less than twenty-four hours and I already knew that I was ready to go back.

  Yeah, I didn’t have a “real” job. Yeah, my boyfriend had some major issues that he struggled with every single day. Yeah I was a girl who walked around with a giant chip on her shoulder.

  But I had a home. A place to go that was mine. I had someone that was waiting for me when I finally got my act together.

  “I’m going to bed. I’m starting to get the spins, which means imminent vomiting. So I should probably go lie down before I pin-stripe you with my puke.” I made a face and nodded.

  “Go then,” I urged her.

  “Are you okay? You’re not going to go running out in the middle of the night are you?” Nadine leveled me with a hard stare.

  “No, you’re right. I should sleep tonight. I’ll leave first thing.”

  “Okay, well, goodnight. And tomorrow is a new day with your whole life ahead of you.” Nadine grinned.

  “When did you start writing Hallmark cards?” I laughed. She stuck her tongue out at me, and went back to her room, closing the door.

  I turned off the lamp and sat down on my makeshift bed on the couch. I didn’t want to call Flynn because he was probably asleep.

  So I texted him.

  A simple message that said everything. I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

  I’m coming home.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  -Ellie-

  There were times when I found myself driving the familiar road out to the Hendrick’s old house.

  I would stop my car and get out and walk into the woods that bordered the property.

  But I would never go any farther. I wouldn’t let myself actually see the house that I had spent so much time in.

  I would pick the Black-eyed Susans and I would twine the stems together like I had done so many times before.

  Then I’d leave the safety of the trees and go back to my car. I’d drive to town and I would force myself to forget all over again.

  But my heart never would.

  Because a heart didn’t lie. It would always know the truth.

  I could bury my feelings under a mountain of hate, but the warm glow of what I used to feel in that house, in those woods, with that boy, was still there.

  Though the more that time separated me from that girl I had once been, the harder it was for me to remember.

  Until the day came and the only thing that left was rage.

  That was the legacy of our relationship.

  Hate.

  Antipathy.

  Guilt and blame.

  I had lost that girl just as I had lost the boy.

  To the heat of fire and unrelenting time.

  **

  Flynn never texted me back.

  He didn’t call either.

  I got up early the next morning just as Nadine stirred out of bed. She had insisted on taking me out for breakfast.

  “We haven’t even gotten to see the good stuff,” she playfully pouted.

  “Another time, I’m sure,” I said.

  She didn’t pester me with questions about when I was going to join her in the city because this time she knew the answer.

  I belonged elsewhere.

  The drive home was arduous and long. I stopped once for gas and to grab a sandwich, but otherwise I kept going.

  I arrived back in Wellston a little after five in the evening.

  Pulling up in front of the house I was hit by a wave of déjà vu.

  Of another time I had come back to this place after a self-imposed separation. Flynn had welcomed
me back into his life so easily back then.

  Would he do the same now?

  Or had I pushed him away one too many times?

  I had made a huge mistake in taking off instead of trying to sort things out with him. I only hoped that I had finally learned my lesson.

  I could hear Murphy barking inside but Flynn never came out. He didn’t come to the door. He didn’t look out the window. The door stayed closed.

  I grabbed my bag and walked up the porch steps, the wood creaking underneath my feet. I opened the door slowly, not sure what to expect.

  Murphy came bounding toward me, assaulting me with his exuberant form of doggie love.

  “Hey buddy,” I cooed, scratching him behind the ear. I dropped my bag on the floor and put my keys on the kitchen counter.

  I could hear the TV on in the living room but the house was otherwise quiet.

  “Flynn?” I called out. I walked into the living room but it was empty.

  He wasn’t there.

  I frowned and went back to the bedroom and there was no sign of him.

  It was then that I realized his car was gone.

  I thought about calling him to let him know that I was back but then decided not to.

  I took a shuddering breath and on a whim, reached for my guitar that sat, untouched on its stand in the corner of the room. I hadn’t been much in the mood to play it for a while but suddenly I felt the desire.

  I ran my hand along the smooth wood of the neck, remembering how proud Flynn had been to give it to me. He had known that when I was a teenager I had enjoyed playing. So he had gotten me this gorgeous instrument so that I could continue doing something I loved.

  I plucked the strings, turning the tuning pegs until I could produce a pleasant sound. I hummed under my breath and started strumming a melody I hadn’t played in years.

  A song about first love and heartache. I sang under my breath in time to the music.

  When I was finished I sensed I was no longer alone in the room.

  I looked up to see Flynn standing in the doorway watching me.

  “You haven’t played your guitar in a long time,” he said.

  I let my fingers drift along the strings. “I haven’t really felt like playing,” I said, feeling suddenly unsure of what to say to him now that our moment was here. I had rehearsed my words a thousand times over on the car ride home but now I was rendered speechless.