What the hell was I thinking, moving back in?
Oh, right. I wasn’t thinking. Not with my head, anyway. My damn heart led me here—straight into what might’ve been a terrible idea.
Two weeks ago, I ran into Fia at the grocery store unexpectedly. I was grabbing another frozen meal to heat up in the motelmini-kitchen, and Fia was staring at cereal boxes blankly. I stared at her for way too long, unsure if I was really seeing the girl who used to tape coloring book pages to my bedroom door. When our eyes locked, something passed between us. Maybe a mutual relief?
“Jesse?” she asked, and without even thinking, I pulled her into a hug.
I hadn’t told her I was back in town. Truthfully, I didn’t know how to yet. It didn’t feel like I deserved to just show up at her house, so I’d been holed up in a motel off the highway for six weeks, trying and failing to find an apartment. No one wants to rent to a tattooed guy with a record and a pit bull. I was used to that kind of judgment, but still, it had started to wear on me. Started to make me doubt why I came back here.
Fia and I had kept in touch over the last ten years. Just a text here and there, holiday wishes, Instagram likes, but seeing her in our hometown shifted something in me. Like a fragment of my heart was mending.
When I mentioned where I was staying, her face fell, then instantly lit up. She told me she was searching for a roommate and nearly begged me to move in. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea at first, because coming back to Wilmington was one thing, but moving back into the house I lived in as a teenager was something else. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, though. Fia may be the gentler of the Hanson sisters, but both she and Penny are like their Nan. When they have an idea in their head, no one can change it.
I found myself moving in a few days later, and it’s been pretty smooth up until today.
I knew Penny was coming for Christmas, but I was supposed to have another week to prepare myself to see her. I didn’t expect to walk in the back door and see her just standing there.
Penny taps her nails on the counter angrily. “Was I the last to find out everything? That my baby sister is pregnant, that Jesse is back from god knows where, and that y’all are playing happy familyagain like nothing ever happened?” Penny’s sharp voice ricochets off the yellow-painted walls of this old house.
“I have a lot going on, okay? I’m sorry,” Fia says, voice cracking. “I needed time to figure out how to tell you everything. I knew you’d try to control it all.” Her hands are raised, helpless, and Penny shakes her head like she’s building a wall brick by brick.
I’ve had women fight over me, but not like this.
I should’ve warned Fia that this wasn’t going to be a sweet little homecoming. She doesn’t know the whole truth about our relationship.
Pastrelationship.
The only people who do are Penny and I. And judging by the way she’s clenching her jaw, she was planning on taking that information to the grave.
“I need a minute,” she says, biting her lip before stepping around me and straight to the back door I just came through.
“Hold up!” I shout, but I’m too late. Tank, my dog who forgets he’s not tiny, greets Penny the only way he knows how—uncontained helicopter tail, tongue ready to kiss, and head straight to the knees of his victim.
At least we got all the greetings out of the way.
4
Penny
THEN
Age 11, First Week of School
Nan will be so mad if she finds out we hung out at the park instead of going straight home, especially because the park isn’t even on the way home from school.
We’re in sixth grade now, which means no more after-school babysitters for us. I was excited about it—a chance to show Nan how responsible and grown I am. But Danny sees it as an opportunity to mess around. It’s not like I hate when we goof off; my brotheristhe funniest kid at school, but I like to have fun at the appropriate times. And we’re supposed to be going home right now.
But there’s a new kid in Danny’s class this year, and my brother must be trying to impress him or something, because he told him he’d show him the park after school today. Magnolia Street Park—where all thecoololder middle schoolers hang out.
As we pass the street we’re supposed to turn down to go home, I grab the handle of my brother’s backpack and yank him back, interrupting theirrivetingconversation about skateboards.
I remind him that the instructions were pretty clear: During the week when Nan works day shifts, we go home, do homework, and no later than 4:15 p.m., go three houses down to collect our sister from the babysitter’s house. Then we watch Fia until Nan gets home at six.
“Relax, Penny, she won’t even know. We’ll get Fia by four.”
“What about homework?” I utter, burning under the hot September sun as I walk beside them on the sidewalk. My jean shorts with embroidered daisies were a good choice, but the yellow cardigan I paired with them is starting to stick to my back.
“Homework is for losers.” He snickers and nudges his new friend, Jesse, but he glances back at me.
