Page 4 of Rock Bottom Girl

There was a loud, strangled honk from the neighbor’s fence. I yelped. “What the hell was that?” I was already out of breath just from kicking the ball around. Surprises could explode my already over-taxed heart.

“Dang swan,” Dad said without any heat.

“Swan? Did you say ‘swan’?”

The honk sounded again.

“Amie Jo thought their yard needed an exotic touch,” he said, limping toward the back porch.

Oh, no. No no no no no. Not her. Not the monster from my past.

“Amie Jo Armburger?” I asked as nonchalantly as the lump of dread in my throat would allow.

“Hostetter now,” Dad corrected me. “She and her husband, Travis, bought the house next door a few years ago. Tore it down and rebuilt it from the ground up.”

My entire senior year came rushing back to me so quickly I got vertigo. Travis Hostetter. Amie Jo Armburger. And I couldn’t think of either one of them without remembering Jake Freaking Weston.

This was why I moved away. Why I rarely came home. And when I did, I didn’t make it a big thing. I wore a baseball cap out in public. I refused to go to any local bars or Walmart. I pretended to be a stranger.

“Amie Jo and Travis live next door?” I clarified weakly.

Dad, oblivious to my instantaneous panic, jogged up the back steps. “Yep! I’ll grab us a couple of brewskis and check on dinner.”

The back door closed, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to peer over the fence and see what kind of castle the Prom King and Queen had built. It was stupidity and curiosity that had me running at the seven-foot-tall, peeling-paint barrier. My sneakers scrambled for grip as my biceps screamed. I was able to haul my eyeballs above the fence just long enough to catch a glimpse of a huge kidney-shaped in-ground pool surrounded by what looked like white marble. There was a raised hot tub spewing a waterfall of color-changing water back into the pool. The porch had Roman columns holding up the two-story roof.

“A fucking outdoor kitchen and a tiki bar? Are you kidding me?” I groaned.

“Mom! Some lady is spying on us!” The shout came from the direction of the pool, and I realized there were people in the water. Two of them. Towheaded teens with surfer dude haircuts lounging on rafts the size of small islands.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

I dropped to the ground, ducked—for unknown reasons as I was currently blocked from view by the fence—and ran to the gate. I slipped through into my parents’ front yard and stared up at the modern monstrosity McMansion that I’d missed when I’d pulled in the driveway on the other side of the house.

Stately red brick, more white columns, and what looked like a cobblestone driveway. All behind a wrought iron fence that clearly stated that only a certain kind of visitor was welcome. There was a freaking fountain in the front yard. Not just one of those understated cement jobs you could get at Lowe’s or Home Depot.

No.This had statues in it. Naked ones spitting water at each other.

Honk!

“Oh my fucking God!” I clutched my hands to my heart and jumped a foot off the ground.

A swan waddled past on the other side of the fence, casting a derisive look in my direction. Was it an attack swan? Had it been trained in the art of home defense? Would it swoop over the fence and start pecking at me? Could swans fly?

I had many questions.

The front door of the mega mansion opened, and a man stepped out onto the porch. Even twenty years later and from one hundred feet away, I still recognized him. Travis Hostetter. His blond hair was cut shorter than it had been in high school, but the easy gait, the set of those shoulders was the same. His head swiveled in my direction, and I did the only thing that made sense.

I bolted.

I turned and ran for my parents’ front door, diving over the hedgerow of azaleas. Catching my foot on one, I landed hard on mulch and concrete. The wind left my lungs, and all I could do was stare up at the sky and listen to the rumble of the Cadillac Escalade next door as it backed down the driveway.

I’d made a huge mistake coming back here.

3

Marley

Approximately 1,000 years ago