Delly nodded, satisfied with whatever she saw in my expression, then returned her water to the fridge. “I’ll walk you out. And for the love of God, don’t loiter and bait my classmates.”
I frowned, racking my brain for what I did during past visits to make her say such a thing, but I came up blank.
But then her arms were around my neck again, pulling me into a fierce hug.
“I have no idea what you mean by that,” I said into her hair.
“I know,” she said, patting my back in a way that was definitely patronizing. “Thanks for taking me to lunch. I needed to get out.”
Once I was back in my old Jeep, I sat in the parking lot for long enough to look suspicious. I hadn’t been back to Pops’s cabin since the accident.
At first, it was because of the cast and the painkillers. Then it was Pops blowing me off, making paper-thin excuses, and being generally cagey.
That ended today.
I threw my arm across the back of the passenger seat and looked behind me, but then I scowled.
My vision was hazy, my glasses smudged. Ihatedwhen they weren’t clean.
I grabbed a lens cloth out of the console and cleaned them off, thankful for the hundredth time that I’d had a spare pair. My others had apparently cracked when I’d smacked my head.
The haze from those memories was harder to clean off, but I put my glasses back on, and my clear vision snagged on the dashboard.
My ducks were in a row—literally.
The rubber duck thing that came with being a Jeep owner hadn’t been around when Pops helped me purchase this beauty from an aging local when I was seventeen.
Twelve years later, I’d slow burned myself into a cult.
Smiling at the little doctor duck that was Delly’s favorite, I pulled out of the parking lot and hit the road.
At the first glimpse of the North Georgia Mountains almost two hours later, the hairs on my arms stood on end.
I loved and hated this place. As much as those mountains had sheltered me, I’d alsoneededshelter here more than anywhere.
The accident hadn’t helped dissipate that horrible mix of dread and nostalgia.
When I passed the small gravel driveway that led to mychildhood home, it tipped all the way toward dread, making my ankle throb and stomach knot.
Cringing, I drove right on past the rusted mailbox.
The last thing I ever needed was comments from my parents about literally anything. They were toxic to everything and everyone, including themselves.
I’d let the only phone call I’d received from either of them this year go to voicemail, and I’d glimpsed at the transcript just long enough to see that they’d been asking for money.
I hadn’t called them back.
Despite my extremely limited contact with them, I dropped by a few times per year to check around the old single-wide trailer to make sure there weren’t any major safety hazards being ignored, like broken windows or AC units.
Darryl and Crystal Jacks didn’t have a place in mine or Delly’s lives, but I didn’t wish them harm either.
Once the mailbox was well out of sight, I expected to feel relief when I made it to Pops’s.
But… the gate across the driveway was closed.
It was never closed.
I turned the heat down, quieting the inside of my car, and frowned at the barrier in front of me.
