I’m wearing a pair of short cut-off shorts, a bikini top, flip-flops, and a smile. We look so young, both of us smiling widely, both of us happy to be right where we are and nowhere else.
There’s a knock on the wall behind me and I scream, turning around, coming face-to-face with Wyatt and Rylan. I blink, my lips parting as I stare at the men who are standing in my parents’ house.
“Knew were the hide-a-key was, saw your car in the drive. Dropping Rylan off at home, it’s getting late, wanted to make sure you were okay,” Wyatt says.
“How’d you know where the hide-a-key was?” I ask.
Wyatt smirks, shaking his head once. “Bought the house down the street. Before your dad left, he asked me to keep an eye on the place. He’d call me every now and again to check on shit,” he informs me.
“They kept it like a shrine,” I whisper.
Neither of them speaks right away, their gazes roaming over my face from the bedroom doorway.
“It was your mom, she’d always say you’d come home and want your things when you did,” Wyatt says with a shrug.
Shaking my head, I pinch my eyes closed when they fill up with tears, again. Inhaling deeply through my nose, I try to take a few calming breaths before I open my eyes again and look at the two rough men standing across from me.
“Did you talk to them often?” I ask, needing to know.
I’m not sure why I need to know, but I just do. It’s not as though my guilt will disappear, it will most likely only grow, but I just can’t not know. Wyatt lifts his hand, running his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends slightly.
His gaze finds mine and he smiles, though it’s hard to tell beneath the beard, but I can see it in his eyes.
“I would stop by and visit if they were on the front porch, or if your mama was in her flower garden. She’d always have some fresh-brewed sweet tea for me. When she passed and your dad left, he asked me to keep an eye on the place. Wish I woulda had more time to keep up the place, but seems the girl he hired to clean has done a good job on the inside. No dust or anything.”
Pressing my lips together, I roll them as I think about what I want to say or ask next. I’m not sure. I have a million questions that I could ask Wyatt about my family, about Ford, but it all seems too late.
“Learned a while ago, Stevie. You can’t go back. What’s done is done. But you don’t know what can be until you stop living in the past. Wasted fifteen years living back in high school, repeating it every fucking day and making myself miserable. You gotta move on, darlin’. It ain’t healthy to stay back there, you can’t change a damn thing.”
Snapping my brows together, I think about his words. He’s not wrong, not at all. He’s absolutely right, but why does the thought of leaving the past, in the past, terrify me? It shouldn’t. I should be happy to move on, in fact, I thought that I had.
“I tried to apologize, I messed it all up. Probably made it worse,” I whisper, speaking more to myself than to Wyatt and Rylan.
Rylan clears his throat and I lift my eyes to meet his. “I didn’t know you well in school, but I have to say that Wyatt’s right. I spent a lot of years feeling like I was destined to be something, and then I spent five years in prison.
“I came out ready for a change and it wasn’t easy, but I did it. If you want something to change, Stephanie, you have to make it happen. Look at all of us. None of us had it easy, not Wyatt, not Beaumont, none of us.
“Sometimes the journey to get to where you want to be is fucking rough, but you won’t regret it, not a single fucking second of it. Staying in limbo, missing out on what could be, that’s something to regret.” Rylan turns and walks away without saying another word.
“He’s going to go home to his wife, his kids. Something he never thought that he would have. I’m going home to my wife and daughter too. What about you, Stevie?” Wyatt asks.