one knew about my crippling fear when the weather was bad… well, no one but Huck. I doubted he cared that I was on the verge of losing my mind as Mother Nature continued to rage.
I don’t think he wasn’t even home from his bartending job yet. I had no clue how he managed to remain at the top of his class and earn perfect grades when he was up all hours of the night. I swore he only slept about four hours a night, because regardless of how late, or rather how early, he came in from his shift, he was always up to go running with Harlen the next day. Even though I was a floor above the other rooms and the front door, I still heard it squeak every time it opened and closed. I’d gotten into the habit of peeking out the window to steal glances at Huck before they started their run. Both boys were in really good shape and absolute heartthrobs, but there was something magnetic and compelling about Huck that made it hard to look away. When it was warm enough, he often started his routine without his shirt on, which made me wonder if I was the only one stealing glances at him through the shutters. A few times, I swore that Huck looked up at the attic before taking off, like he knew I was watching him. When I caught sight of that smirk I knew as well as I knew my own face, it made the thought of running into him randomly in the house we now shared totally intimidating. I felt like he was up to something that wasn’t going to end well for me.
As a young boy, he’d always been tricky. As a grown man, he was cunning and slick.
Another crack of thunder had me pulling the blanket over my head and counting backward from one hundred as I tried to slow my racing heart and calm the fear that was rising in my throat, threatening to choke me.
All big storms were the same in my mind.
They took me back to another night in another place and shoved memories I’d much rather forget to the forefront of my exhausted, slightly broken mind.
Hidden under the flimsy fortress of the quilt, I could clearly recall slick, slippery roads. White lightning bolts zipping through the summer sky as windshield wipers struggled fruitlessly to keep up with the deluge outside the sports car I had no business driving.
It was the perfect recipe for disaster.
I remembered the flicker of illuminated eyes outside the windshield. I never found out if it was a deer, or a dog, or some other animal that suddenly darted in front of the car, that caused me to lose control and send the car careening off the road, down a steep embankment and into a huge tree off the side of the road. I could still hear the sound of metal crumpling like a tin can around me, and the screech of tires as they lost traction on the wet road. The memory of the tinkling sound of glass cracking and then imploding into a shower of painful shards still had the power to pull me out of a sound sleep. It was the soundtrack to each and every one of my nightmares.
I usually woke up with tears on my face and shaking fingers tracing over my scar. It was always a deeply visceral reaction.
Mixed in with the echo of the car breaking apart, I also heard Huck’s voice calling my name. And another voice, the one I was constantly running from both when I was awake and asleep, laughing hysterically as if the horrible accident was some wild ride at an amusement park. It was never a good situation when Huck and Sawyer were near one another, but that night had been the worst of the worst-case scenarios.
If I’d known that night would result in losing Huck and becoming even more entangled in Sawyer’s games than I already was, I never would’ve left the house. Back then, I’d been unable to say no to either boy. One by choice, the other through force. So when they both ordered me to play designated driver that night, even though I was underage and had only driven Sawyer’s fancy car in an empty parking lot when he insisted I needed to learn how to drive, instead of doing the smart thing, I did what was expected of me by both of