Ava
Being back home was never easy. I liked being back in Apalachicola – it was the key to every childhood memory I’d ever had. I also didn’t like it because I felt torn. When I was in Chicago I lived my life – I paid bills, I worked hard, I saw friends. I dated from time to time. When I came home it was like slipping back into my childhood, into carefree years with the sun and lazy days, with the wind and the sea and everything that wasn’t Chicago.
Being back home ripped me from reality. And going back to Chicago jarred me back into it.
This time, I knew it would be a lot worse. I had stopped in Tampa and for two weeks I had ignored both my childhood and my adult life. I had fallen into a fantasy that now lay shattered at my feet. There was nothing of it left and going to Chicago would be that much more intense.
I was postponing it for that reason, alone. Being with my parents was tedious despite my love for them.
My past kept coming back in flashes now that I was home again. I’d visited places like the field where James and I had spent nights staring at the stars. I had walked Indian Pass Beach so many times, passing the dunes where I’d lost my virginity to him. I’d driven to the hotel where he’d stayed with his dad and his brother.
Everything about home, this time, reminded me of James and not of my childhood as much as it should have.
“Tell me again why you’re not with someone by now?” my mom asked. We sat in the living room on the floral print couch that my mom had inherited from my grandmother. She was knitting something for my dad. I played a game on my phone that was mindless enough to still have a conversation. The television was on mute, pictures broadcasting silently into the room.
“I don’t have to date,” I said. “I’m happy, alone.”
That was a lie. I used to be happy alone – sort of. I’d still had casual sex. Being alone was better than being in a relationship – at least it had been, then. Now, after I’d seen James, I felt like being alone in total was a waste of my time. I felt the best when I was with him.
“One of these days, you’re going to meet a good man that will sweep you off your feet and you’ll tell me you don’t know how you did it alone for so long,” my mom said. “Remember that boy you were so taken with? What was his name?”
“James,” I said, glancing up at her.
“Oh, right. James. You were mad about that boy. You have to remember what that felt like and find something like that again.”
I chuckled, looking back down at my phone again. Oh, the irony. “I’ll see, mom. I’m in no hurry to settle down. I have friends, I have my job… what more do I need?”
“Love, honey. You can’t do without love.”
I shrugged. Love just hurt a hell of a lot, in my experience.
“Did you know right away with Dad that he was the one you were going to be with for the rest of your life?” I asked. I put down my phone and pulled up my legs, tucking them underneath me.
“Oh, yes. When I saw him I just knew it. You should know he wasn’t interested at all. But I got what I wanted.”
She looked up and smiled at me.
“How?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I just showed him that his life would be empty without me. You know how men are – they can’t make anything happen without women.”
I shook my head. I’d never understood the dynamic between my mom and my dad. Half the time they despised each other, but they were happily managed and set on staying that way.
And, apparently, I had the same blood in me. I loved someone I could never have, someone I fought with half the time. Someone I just wouldn’t forget no matter how much time I spent with people that were so much better for me.
I looked at the television and frowned. It was on the news channel and James was on a podium talking to a bunch of reporters.
“Can I turn this up?” I asked.
Mom handed me the remote and I turned up the volume.
“…Quad Corp has always delivered quality to its customers and with this new expansion we aim to do the same.”
“It all happened so fast,” a reporter said. “Do you have a reason for that?”
James smiled and my stomach tightened.
“What fun would life be if it weren’t for surprises?” he asked and laughed. The press laughed with him. I rolled my eyes and switched off the television.
“What was that?” my mom asked. I got up and walked to the window.
“It was just a client I’d been working with for a while,” I said. Looked like James had gone ahead with the expansion despite the things he’d found out. I wouldn’t have done it, but I guessed there were things more important than ethics. His company was growing and the money would start coming in.
I wondered what the dynamic in the office had to look like, now, with Amanda knowing what we’d been doing. James seemed happy on television but I knew the one thing he was good at was putting on a mask.
At least James was doing what he wanted to do. That was all that was important. He lived his life and I was living mine and that was how it was supposed to be. Nothing else mattered.
“Are you okay?” my mom asked.
“Fine. Why?”
My mom shrugged and counted stitches before answering me again.
“You just seem… distant.”
I smiled. “I don’t visit very often. How do you know when I’m not okay? Maybe I’ve just grown up.”
My mom glanced up at me with an expression that said, ‘oh really’.
“I’m your mother, Ava.”
I nodded. She was. If there was anyone who knew me well enough, it was her. It was a pity that even my mom wouldn’t be able to help me with a broken heart. What was the point in talking about it?
I couldn’t hold out a lot longer. Two more days with my parents and I needed to go back home. It wasn’t just about them – it was about James and Caleb and Apalachicola and everything else that was my life now.
I didn’t want it to be my life anymore. I wanted to go home and forget.
“I have to go back to work, mom,” I said, packing my bag. “I extended a business trip, I don’t have more time off.”
It wasn’t the biggest lie.
“Don’t wait so long again before you come again, sweetie,” my dad said and hugged me. I hugged him back before hugging my mom. When I got in the car I waved at them before pulling out of the driveway. I weaved through Apalachicola, looking at everything I had grown up with one last time before I took the road that would take me to my flight in Tallahassee.
It took me three hours and forty-five minutes to get to Chicago from Tallahassee, with a stopover in Atlanta. When we touched down in Chicago, I could finally breathe again. I was back in a world I understood, in a life I had created for myself. I had run here when James had gotten rid of me and I had started over. Now I was back to pick up the pieces again in the same way.
It just wouldn’t take as long, this time, I told myself. I was an adult. I had learned more, loved less. I knew how to deal with it. If I told myself this often enough, I would believe it.
Everything that had happened in Tampa was in the past, now. I could leave it behind me without looking back, the same way I had done it fifteen years ago.
I switched on my phone again and waited for messages and missed calls to beep through. They didn’t. I rolled my eyes and tucked my phone back into my pocket. I had to stop waiting for them to call me. Neither of them was going to do it. Whatever there had been between me and James was gone, now. It was my fault. And whatever there might have been with Caleb – even if it was just friendship – was gone now, too. Again, my fault.
“Ava!” Hannah called when I walked through the gates. She came toward me, smiling. She wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug.
“You’ve been gone away for so long! I hope it was all worth it,” she said.
I shrugged. Worth it? I wasn’t sure.
“So, did you get a good rest?” She looked me up and down. “You don’t look very rested. In fact, you looked more stressed than when you left.”
I chuckled. “I’ll be okay,” I said.
Hannah narrowed her eyes at me. “Usually when people say that, they’re not okay, to begin with. What’s wrong? What happened?”
I opened my mouth to speak. I forced a smile onto my face. I took a deep breath… and burst into tears. Everything that I’d been pushing away, everything I’d been holding back, came gushing out like a dam wall had broken.
“Ava?” Hannah said, concerned. I don’t think she’d ever seen me cry. I don’t think anyone had ever seen me cry. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
I shook my head, trying to stop the tears. I wiped furiously at my eyes with the palms of my hands, messing up the little bit of makeup I was wearing. I hated crying. I hated it even more when it was because of a man. A man that never should have mattered in the first place.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said. “I’m going to carry on with my life here. I have a job I enjoy and friends that I love and that’s the only thing that matters.” I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, trying to get a grip on my emotions. I nodded, confirming that to myself. I would be okay. I would bounce back. I’d done it before.
“It’s just going to take me a moment to forget about him,” I said to Hannah.
She blinked at me. “Him?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. She looked confused. I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t making a lot of sense. I was a blubbery mess, crying at the airport like I was the emotional type when it came to hellos and goodbyes.
“Did you fall in love while you were away?” Hannah asked.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I just remembered why I shouldn’t love.”
Hannah nodded.
“I don’t know what you’re going on about but this isn’t the place to unpack, so we are going to stop at the store to wine and ice cream. Then we’re going to my place and you’re going to tell me everything.”
I nodded. Maybe that was all I needed – a friend to vent to so that I could get over it once and for all. I had kept James a secret for so long, maybe it was time to air it out.
Air it out, and finally, forget.