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When the three of us walked out to the lobby, Derik was over by the concession stand chatting up the cashier. Whichmeant his attention was drawn to someone besides myself.
Fine with me.
Derik saw us and waved, signaling to Seth he’d catch up later.
Libby waited at the main door with me while Seth went to grab his car. Unfortunately, the weather hadn’t held out and it had begun to rain heavily outside.
“That was so scary! I can’t believe you just sat there the whole time! I was shaking. It seemed so real!” Libby exclaimed, her emerald-green eyes round with the hit of adrenaline from the movie.
I gave her my best shrug. “I used to watch a lot of horror. It doesn’t really phase me much.” Not a lie. When your childhood mirrors some of the most intense horror films, the fake stuff doesn’t really get to you much. Not when I had been abandoned and left to fend for myself at a young age.
It is what it is.
The only person who knew of what I had gone through was Seth and I planned on keeping it that way. Okay, maybe that was a little dramatic. Things easily could’ve been farworse. I was just glad it was me and not someone else.
Most young girls wouldn’t have been able to defend themselves.
I shook myself out of it before the memories clawed their way through my brain and claimed me.
Not the place for a flashback, Erin. Breathe.
Seth pulled the car up just in time, before my minimal control over my train of thought could begin to derail and stumble down that path.
“Would you ladies, fancy a ride?” Seth waggled his eyebrows at us with a shit-eating grin plastered between the stubble that covered the lower part of his face. Both Libby and I laughed, hers a high-pitched musical tone. Mine on the other hand mimicked that of a hyena. Libby opened the passenger door and slid into the front seat while I climbed in the back and strapped myself in behind Seth.
The drive was quiet; he dropped Libby at her place first. She lived in a large apartment complex right outside of campus, a quick walk from the sorority she helped oversee and was once a part of. Seth had filled me in a bit on that a few months prior. She was one of the nice ones though. Libby so far hadn’t really fallen into the sorority stereotype, besides being gorgeous and thin. I thought back to our brief conversation before the movie, my chin rested in the palm of my hand as I watched our small city drift by.
She did seem genuine.
“We’re going to head back to my place to talk. If that’s alright. It’ll be easier,” Seth stated, the throatiness of his voice caught me off guard. I nodded and snuck a quick sideways glance. His shoulders were relaxed and his eyes were trained on the road ahead of us. His body flush against the leather of his driver’s seat with one arm laid against the center console while the other controlled the steering wheel: the picture of cool, calm, and collected. I quirked my brow.
Worked for me. I loved my apartment, but Seth’s place felt like home. Part of it could very well have to do with the guy who owned it, but only a small part. His house was beautiful. Seth lived in an old schoolhouse he bought for almost nothing a few years ago. He completely renovated it and the place was massive. An open living room-dining room with a decked-out gym area off to the side; including lifting equipment and an array of cardio machines. There was only one treadmill but that worked out since neither of us enjoyed running indoors, typically. The walls were lined with floor to ceiling windows, which showered the main living space with sunlight during the day and provided a perfect view of the stars at night.
Seth unlocked his front door and we walked in. He switched on the lights as he went and flooded the space with light from the overhead lamps and fixtures that dotted the tall ceiling. The lightdanced off the pale-grey that painted the walls. I made my way into the living area and plopped down on his plush sectional and quickly made myself at home. I peaked over and saw Seth was in the process of making two mugs of coffee; three spoonfuls of sugar to his and a splash of milk with a measly five spoonfuls of sugar to mine.
He walked over and handed me the mug of coffee before he sat next to me. “So, I talked to my friend about the dreams you’ve been having, and we both think it’s about time you and I talk about some things.”
“Oh ho, sounds pretty serious there, Seth,” I responded sarcastically as I blew on my coffee to cool it down. When I didn’t get the lighthearted response I expected, I looked up to find his face was stone cold serious. “Did I miss something?”
He took a deep breath. “There’s some things you don’t know, Erin. About me and about yourself,” I had a sinking feeling. “The dream you had yesterday, it wasn’tjusta dream.”
What does he mean by that?
I felt the hairs on my neck stand up as panic welled within my chest, my pulse quickened and acid rose in my stomach. I swallowed the lump that began to form in the back of my throat.
Get it together, Erin.
I sat up, my back straightened.
I might be freaked about where this was going but I refused to show it. Calm the hell down.
Whatever it was that he was about to tell me, it was important. Important enough to have cool, calm, and collected Seth on edge. “Okay. I’m listening.”
Seth took a slow breath to steady himself before he began. The words escaped his lips as if they scratched their way out, leaving him barely an octave above being hoarse, almost gravelly. “Remember when we were kids and we would go on all those adventures in the woods around our houses? We’d run throughthe trees, battling our made-up monsters with sticks we’d find, pretending they were swords?” I nodded him on, unsure of where he was going with the trip down memory lane. The deep blue of his eyes softened, an apology within them. I furrowed my brows as I waited for him to continue.
Why do I feel like I’m not going to enjoy where this little story-time is headed?
“That summer when I turned sixteen, when my mom died and I had to leave and move in with my Uncle…The last summer we ran through those woods and before…” He trailed off, the memory of what felt like the beginning of the end hung between us. Seth didn’t have to say it. After that summer, things had changed. I had been in the midst of my transition into eighth grade and he was going into his second year of high school on the other side of the country. When Seth had left, things in my young life started to go south pretty quickly. My dad disappeared within days of Seth moving across the country and left me on my own. I was a few weeks shy of fourteen and had been left to fend on my own, utterly abandoned. My heart had shattered; I’d found an envelope under his mattress with enough money to last me the school year and a note that simply said:I love you. Please forgive me -Dad.
