Nostalgia. For most people, recollections came with warm and fuzzy feelings. Laughter was often followed by a moment of longing for what used to be. Sadly, Cori Walters didn't long for what used to be, but more what she never had.

Sitting in her rusty, old convertible and staring at the house that had been her childhood home, she felt as empty as it looked. Abandoned a decade ago when her father went to jail, the once grand brick two-story with its portico that stretched up to the second floor and the ionic columns was now in a dilapidated state. The windows were broken out, the grass was above her knees, and years of angry youths had left their mark in spray paint on the exterior walls. A well of sadness filled her. The house's federal colonial design stood out like a llama against the backdrop of a working cattle ranch. Cori saw the house for the harbinger it was—insight into the two adults who'd built it, both desperate to be better than the people and places around them. Perhaps the house's current state was just as indicative of who the Walters were now.

Cori sighed heavily and straightened her slumped shoulders. She pushed open the car door, then slid from the seat to a stand. She trailed her fingers along the car door as she slowly closed it.

Did she really want to go inside?

One final farewell was what had propelled her to make the drive from town where she lived, not that it was far, only fifteen minutes. Her mom, Barbie, relocated to a swanky neighborhood on the west side of Dallas and used the hour-long drive as her excuse to not come down.

For Cori, this goodbye was as much about the finality of her family's debt as it was a personal adios. The sale was the last of the restitution her family owed, and though Cori had sold it for far less than she could've ten years ago, she reminded herself that back then there'd been no potential buyers. She'd at least gotten more for the sale than the United States Government would have. Now, the victims of her father's crimes were able to petition the government and, hopefully, get back something of what they were swindled out of. After all, that had been a key point as to why she’d stayed. Never mind that Brewster, Texas was all she'd known.

Good luck to them, Cori thought with all sincerity. The townsfolk deserved a break. She'd done the best she could to make sure the pot the government would pull from was as full as it could be. It wasn't the entire amount, penalties and fees having added an insurmountable amount. Cori could work three jobs for the rest of her life and never earn enough money. But everyone in Brewster should get something back. That had been her goal.

Cori shook her head, hoping to break away from the unbidden memories swarming in her mind. She turned when she heard a truck coming up the long drive and recognized it as Mr. Miller's. He was towing his zero-turn lawn mower on a small trailer.

She stepped closer to her car, uncomfortable with having been caught here. The last thing she wanted was the town to gossip about why she'd gone to her old house. That story would be easily misconstrued, a classic case of the childhood game of Chinese Operator. The first person might start the story with a modicum of accuracy, but the last person would get a version drastically different. Chances were slim there would be any sympathy for her.

The good people of Brewster, Texas were quite angry with her family, and rightfully so. Which was why Cori had done everything in her power to try to right the situation as best she could. After graduation, when most kids were off to college or the military, Cori spent any free hour at the library learning about the best way to sell off everything her family owned for the restitution pot, all while working at the local supercenter.

Mr. Miller had been caught up in her father's web and lost his small ranch, but had managed to keep his zero-turn. She was never certain how these interactions would go with someone shafted by her father. Mr. Miller had never been outwardly mean to her, but he hadn't come to her defense either. Generally, she was persona non grata, never mind this was her hometown.

“Morning, Cori,” he said, hopping down from the dually truck. He was a portly man with thinning hair and an affinity for pie.

“You want me to make you a path to the door?” he asked as he prepared to unload the mower.

Cori wagged her head. “No thanks.” Nothing was left inside. What Barbie hadn't smuggled out before her husband's sentencing, Cori had sold off first thing.

“You have to mow the entire yard?” Cori swept her hand in the general direction of the land, several hundred acres.

Mr. Miller nodded. “Just up to the Besingame land.”

Instantly, images of Fort Besingame and his dad popped into Cori's mind. Man, Fort had been a ginormous pain. A few years older than her and consummate know-it-all on all things ranching. As if! Cori had made it her life's goal to antagonize the living daylights out of him and challenge him on everything she could.

Good times, she thought with sadness. 

Truth be told, anything had been better than being in a stupid beauty pageant her mother forced her into. As much as Fort Be-so-lame, as she liked to call him, annoyed her, he'd was real. A welcome reminder that life was more than the stupid pageant world.

Cori patted her short pixy cut. First thing she'd done when she'd stopped participating was to chop off her butt-length hair, infuriating her mother. The next thing she'd done following Barbie's escape to Dallas after the sentencing of Cori's father was to burn her wigs and those stupid flippers. Man she'd hated wearing those false teeth overlays.

Smile big, Corinne.

Flip your hair, Corinne.

Strut girl, strut. Shoulders back.

You can smile bigger than that!

But she couldn't. There was no such thing as a large smile when it was faked. The face can only be forced to stretch so far without the smile becoming a grimace.

Fort and his dad's ranch was located behind hers and had been an easy place to escape to. Especially when she hadn't placed first in a pageant and her mother would lose her mind, screaming at Cori about all the things she'd done wrong. Without fail, Cori would sneak out and run. Sometimes there was time to saddle a horse. and she would ride to the lake that divided their land from Besingame's.

Their pretend annoyance with each other had been comfortable and safe until they moved into their late teens. Cori blamed it on Fort's ball's dropping. Once he realized the junk in his pants could be used for more than constant cupping or readjustment, their dynamics changed. No longer was their irritation faux, but morphed into the real thing. Gone was the young boy who would let her complain and help feed his cattle. He'd been replaced by a single-minded, strung out on adolescent hormones, sex-craved junkie, all while she still sported the shapeless figure of a twelve-year-old boy. Cori recalled the last pageant she did and the stupid severely padded bra her mother forced on her. Humiliated, Cori refused to participate in any pageants after that. 

Now, thinking back on it, the past felt like it had been another life, a different person's story that she had read in a book or saw on TV. Cori pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes and tried to clear the past from her mind. As of today, she was technically free. Nothing held her to Brewster except the fact that this was her home, and that meant something to Cori. Roots had value; they told a story. Yes, hers was a pathetic one, but maybe now she could shift her focus and change the story moving forward. Hopefully, with the house sold and the government accepting claims, she could turn the bad feelings the townsfolk had toward her into good ones. Her motto, keep her nose clean and mouth shut, should help in her endeavors of finding a bright future. How hard could that be?