Her breathing had returned to normal, and the ringing sound in her head had grown sporadic. She searched her memory in an attempt to identify if ‘sporadic ringing in the head’ was a normal side effect post-panic attack. She hated that these horrible attacks used to occur with such frequency that she actually HAD a personal database of experiences to check her symptoms against.
Nope, she concluded, the sporadic ringing is new.
Turning her head to take in her surroundings, she saw cars whizzing by on the interstate. She squinted against the glare of the sun, which was shining brightly down on the pavement and bouncing off of the car windshields speeding by.
Katie retrieved the paper bag and folded it up, returning it to her purse. She didn't LOVE the thought that she might need to keep it handy for future use, but better safe than sorry. I mean, let's be real, she told herself. You're twenty minutes off the plane and barely starting down the highway toward Harper's Crossing and you had a panic attack. You really think you're getting through the rest of the weekend unscathed?
As she placed the paper bag inside her gigantic 'in case of emergency' carry-on bag, she discovered the source of the ringing.
She felt like an idiot. One the good side, she told herself, is the fact that I don't have to add Tinnitus to the looooong list of symptoms which characterize my flipping panic attacks. On the bad side? Apparently I now no longer recognize my cell phone's ring tone.
Picking up her iPhone, she swiped the screen to answer, saying warmly “Hey Sophiebell!”
“Katie where are you? I thought you would be here by now. Did your flight get delayed? I can’t wait to see you” Sophie squealed, the words tumbling out of her mouth, one over another. Katie smiled to herself. She had always thought that Sophie could paraphrase that old Army motto to adopt as her own, 'I say more before 9 am than most people say all day!'
“The flight was fine. I am on my way, and I will be there in twenty minutes Sophiebell, I can’t wait to see you, too!”
.“Okay, hurry,” Sophie pleaded, but then followed it up with the command, “but drive safe!”
“I will. See you soon, doll!” Katie tried to cover the stress in her voice with ebullience as she said goodbye and hung up the phone.
It's 8:30 AM on Thursday morning, she told herself, repeating the mental math to herself. My return flight to California is at 7:00 P.M. Sunday night. All I have to do is get through the next four days (preferably without having a nervous breakdown!) and then I can wing my way back to my lovely, safe, predictable life in San Francisco.
Let the countdown begin.
It had been ten long years since Katie Marie Lawson had set foot in Harper's Crossing, the town of her childhood and her youth, the town that was in many ways responsible for making her the person she was today. It was definitely rife with memories, both beautiful and dangerous.
There were so many things about Harper's Crossing that Katie had buried deep inside, and sometimes she wondered if she had buried the good along with the bad. She could already feel the effervescent rising of those memories to the surface, and she worried about what would happen if only the dangerous memories came up, with none of the beauty to temper it.
But, she had to keep reminding herself, this weekend wasn’t about her, it was about little Miss Sophie Hunter, who was getting married to Bobby Sloan Jr. the youngest of the five Sloan boys. Sophie had called her, ecstatic, three months earlier to announce her engagement to Bobby and to ask Katie to be her maid of honor.
Katie breathed out a sigh as she pulled back onto the highway. Nothing short of the apocalypse or her beloved Sophiebell's wedding (the two events which anchored the opposite sides of the 'cosmic scale of awful to wonderful possible events' in Katie's mind) could have brought her back to the apparently panic attack inducing town that had raised her.
Sophie (or 'Sophiebell' as Katie had called her since Sophie was six and decided that she was Tinker Bell) was the closest thing Katie had to a sister.
Katie was an only child. She and her Mom, Pam, had gone to live with her Aunt Wendy in Harper’s Crossing when Katie was four, immediately after her parents divorced.
Craig, Katie’s Dad had come to visit his daughter exactly one time since she moved to Harper’s Crossing. It was one month after she and her Mom had arrived, Craig took Katie to Tasty Treats for a double scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
He talked about how much he loved her and assured her that the divorce and the move had nothing to do with her. He also promised to see her once a month…suffice it to say, he didn’t keep that promise.
Katie had not seen her father since that cold October Saturday 24 years ago.
Growing up, she had always just assumed that he had stayed away because he and Aunt Wendy “did not see eye to eye” as Katie’s Mom always said (although, now, as an adult, she was leaning toward the theory that it was because he was a shitheel).
Honestly, if Katie’s memory served, she hadn’t really seen a lot of her Dad even when he and her Mom were still together. It had seemed to Katie that ‘pre-divorce’ it was just Katie and her Mom and then ‘post-divorce’ it was Aunt Wendy, Mom and Katie.
She never really missed her Dad. Sometimes she would miss her idea of what having a Dad in her life would be like. But never the man who had fathered her, she really never knew that man, and what she had known, had been unpredictable. Promising to come visit her once a month and then never showing hide nor hair of himself ever again really just seemed par for the course where he was concerned. It was just the last in a long line of broken promises that had characterized their father-daughter relationship, and – even at four years old – Katie didn't remember being terribly surprised when the months rolled around and he didn't.
She had always accredited the fact that she didn't miss him terribly to how full her life had been, how utterly surrounded she was, by people who loved her. Although she would sometimes get lonely in Aunt Wendy’s house – Aunt Wendy had a full time job and Katie's mom usually held down two jobs just to make ends meet, so there was a lot of time that Katie was alone with her just her imagination and books to keep her occupied.
But, oh boy, how that had changed the summer before Katie’s 7th grade year!
That was the summer that Sophie Hunter (AKA Miss Sophiebell) had moved into the house next door to Aunt Wendy. And right away – literally, Katie thought, starting immediately on moving day – Sophie had become Katie's shadow. Not that she minded or anything! Katie loved finally having someone, anyone other than a doll, to dress up and play tea party with.
Sophie’s dad, Mike, was a fireman and her mom, Grace, was a nurse. Katie babysat for Sophie when Mike and Grace's shifts overlapped. Katie’s house felt a lot less lonely with a bouncing, laughing, full-of-life four year old in it. But Sophiebell wasn’t the only distraction that the Hunters brought with them when they moved to Harper's Crossing. They also brought Nick, Sophiebell’s older brother and Katie’s first love.
Nicholas Hunter was three months older than Katie and he never let her forget it. He had sandy blonde hair and the most beautiful green eyes Katie had ever seen.
The day before school started in seventh grade, two weeks after the Hunters had moved in, Nick came to Katie’s door to get Sophiebell for dinner. She'd never forget that day. Before he left the porch he looked over his shoulder, his green eyes sparkling in the sun. They were even extra green due to the fact that he was wearing his favorite Fighting Irish t-shirt. SWOON!
He had asked, “Hey, do you think you would want to be my girlfriend? It’s a lot easier to start a new school when you already have a girlfriend.”
He then proceeded to shoot her a smile that she would later come to know had gotten him anything he wanted since he was an infant. And with good reason, it was one helluva doozy of a smile!
As much as Katie wanted to act like the smile didn’t affect her, she knew the heat she felt in her cheeks meant that they were bright red. Dang. No way could she hide the evidence.
Still, that didn't mean she had to acknowledge it. So she did what any super-cool eleven year girl would have done faced with Nick Hunter’s dreamy proposal.
She shrugged and said, “Yeah, whatever.”
“Sweet,” he smiled,” I'll be here at 7:45 so we can walk to school together tomorrow.”
He then jumped off her porch before she could say another word. She slowly closed her front door and, once it shut, started to scream and run around in circles until she fell on her couch in utter exhaustion. Katie always did lean towards the dramatic.
Katie had no way of knowing then that the relationship she had just entered would last for the next six years of her life, and end in tragedy.
The summer after Nick and Katie's senior year of high school, Nick had been out late one night joyriding and had tragically driven his truck off Spencer Point.
Hours later, when the police pulled the truck out of the steep embankment, they found a nearly lifeless body inside. Nick had lain in a hospital bed, deep in a coma, for three weeks following the accident. Katie and his family had been by his side every moment that the hospital staff would allow them to be.
Finally his parents, Mike and Grace, had made the most horrific decision any parents could ever have to make. They took Nick off life support.
His funeral was held three days later, and Katie had left that very same night to go stay with her grandmother in Chicago. She needed to escape, and she'd been running ever since. That had been the last time she had set foot in Harper's Crossing.
Until today.
As she turned the corner onto Harper Lane, the street she had grown up on, she was amazed at how it looked as though nothing had changed. It was as if time had stood still on her street.
Not the rest of Harper's Crossing, though, that was for sure! On the drive in, Katie had barely recognized the town that she had spent most of her childhood in. The last time she had been in Harpers Crossing, it contained two traffic lights and one four way stop. Today there was a traffic light or four way stop at every intersection!
The field that Katie had learned to ride her bike in when she was five, played tag in, had attempted and failed to smoke a cigarette in when she was thirteen, and had spent almost every Friday and Saturday night parking in with Nick after he turned 16 and got his black Chevy truck...was now a strip mall.
The quaint, one story hospital that she had been admitted to when she had been suffering from chicken pox and had a temperature of 104 at age six, had her tonsils removed in when she was eight...and had spent three weeks practically living in when she was eighteen, keeping her vigil beside Nick’s motionless body as he lay in a coma...was now a four story hospital that looked to be straight out of the pages of Architectural Digest. And, if the exterior was any indication, it was now state-of-the-art.
She had counted four McDonald's, three Burger Kings and two Taco Bells since she had entered the city limits. This was quite a contrast to her days in Harper’s Crossing, when there had only been one fast food restaurant in town – a Dairy Queen – and it had been the local hang out for all the pre-teens and teens in town. Katie had noted sadly that the Dairy Queen, which was another place that held so many of her teenage memories, had also been obliterated at some point in the past decade. Replaced by an Office Depot.
Nothing had changed on Harper Lane, though. Certainly not the houses, which were still all painted in one of three color combinations – blue and yellow, green and white, or blue and white.
And judging by the few neighbors that she had seen out on their lawns, the people hadn’t changed, either. Mrs. Belmont still watered her yard in that same pink and green moo moo she had worn since Katie could remember. Mr. Peters still mowed his lawn in white shorts that were two sizes too small and black socks that he pulled all the way up to his knees.
As she pulled up in front of her Aunt’s two-story home (painted in the white with blue trim option, for that Mediterranean flair, Katie thought with a small smile) she felt a confusing combination of relief, nostalgia, sadness, and anxiety. She had always known that at some point she would need to come home and face her past. She’d just…been busy.
After she graduated from law school at Pepperdine University she had immediately started working at Wilson, Martin, Gregory and Assoc., a very prestigious law firm in San Francisco.
The first three years at the firm went by in a blur. Katie worked 80+ hours a week and even worked every holiday, including Christmas. She'd barely had time to breathe, let alone go out of town.
Last year, even though she was on the fast track to make Junior Partner, she had taken a vacation.
Well, vacation might be a bit of an exaggeration. It was two days off, tacked onto a weekend...and she hadn't gone in on the weekend, which was her normal custom. So, it was four blissful, unscheduled days all to herself.
Katie had spent her ‘vacation’ in her apartment, so it was really more of a ‘staycation’ - but still. She cleaned, cooked, slept and had a Julia Roberts movie marathon, but she had indeed taken time off.
At the end of the four days, she had felt herself starting to take stock and think about dealing with her past, so she had been MORE than happy to go back to work on Wednesday.
Now, as she opened the door to her rented blue Honda Accord, Katie took in a deep breath and let out a cleansing sigh. The air smelled of a familiar combination: sweet from Mrs. Greyson’s beautiful flower bed, and fresh from the trees that lined the street. Katie was home.
She moved to the back of the car, popped open the trunk, and reached for her suitcase. She was stopped cold in her tracks by the sound of a man’s voice.
“Need a hand Kit-Kat?” a deep voice sounded from behind her.
A shudder rippled through her body and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her carry on slipped from her shoulder and dropped to the cement ground of the driveway.
“Jason?” she said, her voice a whisper of disbelief.
Katie had known that she would have to face Jason at some point on her trip home. He was, after all, the best man in Sophie’s wedding - and seeing as how Sophie was marrying Jason’s little brother, Bobby, well let's just say it was inevitable that their paths would cross. She just thought she would have a little more time to prepare herself before she came face to face with him.
She also thought she would have the buffering (protective?) shield of a room full of people surrounding them.
Nope. Here they were. Face to face, for the first time in a decade. Alone.
She stood frozen with her back to him, staring down at her pink and black suitcase, wishing with all her might that she could just climb into the trunk and hide. That, however, was probably not the most mature response to this encounter...and also, shall we say, not the most subtle.
As the realization sank in that the extra time and buffer-people she so desperately needed to get through this encounter with Jason WERE NOT FLIPPING FORTHCOMING, Katie felt as though the air was literally being sucked from her lungs.
Great. Panic attack number two, here we go. And right in front of him. So, yeah. You could say this visit was not going well.
Jason Andrew Sloan had chestnut brown hair, dark soulful brown eyes, and a smile that could, as her Aunt Wendy always said, “melt butter in a freezer.” He was also the first person Katie had met in her kindergarten class at Harpers Crossing Elementary.
23 Years Ago
It was the first day of Kindergarten and Katie was paired up with a boy as a table buddy. A BOY! Could this day get any worse? The class’ first official assignment as kindergartners was to write their names on the white paper sitting on the desk in front of them and then tape it to the back of their seats.
Katie wrote her name in all capital letters and rainbow colors and taped it on the back of her seat, just as she had been instructed to do. She was proud of finishing her assignment in time to go out for recess. She noticed her table buddy (THE BOY!) had not.
After the first recess, when the kid
s came back into the classroom, she saw a few of them standing around her chair laughing. As she walked up behind them to sit in her seat she saw that the 'ie' at the end of 'Katie' on the nameplate she had been so proud of had been crossed out, and the word 'Kit' had been written in front of the 'Kat' that remained of her original creation.
She was so embarrassed. Why would anybody ruin her name paper? She looked over to see her table buddy Jason (THE BOY!), smiling a toothless grin from ear to ear as he patted her chair “I think this is your seat Kit Kat” he said.
All the kids started laughing and Katie just slumped down in her chair, furious at her table buddy aka THE BOY aka Jason Sloan.
Jason never admitted to being the one who had defaced her beautiful rainbow colored name paper but she knew deep down in her heart that he was the culprit. And she would never forget it, just like no one ever forgot the nickname. From that day on Katie Lawson was Kit Kat. Well, to all the kids in Harper’s Crossing Elementary, anyways.
Present Day
His voice interrupted her thoughts now.
“Wow all this time and you know it’s me without even having to turn around. I guess that means I still got it,” he said with his usual cocky tone. A tone that had always amused Katie, not that she would ever let him know that. His ego was big enough!
Jason had had girls swooning over him for as long as she had known him. In fact, Katie believed that even their sixth grade math teacher Mrs. Carson had a crush on him. Whenever Jason would turn on the charm, usually to get out of detention for not completing his homework or being tardy, Mrs. Carson would just smile as her cheeks turned a light shade of red and say “Oh, Jason if you were just 10 years older…”
Mrs. Carson never finished the sentence but Katie always knew what she meant, and Jason never got detention…at least in that class.
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