Page 5 of Sam & Justin (Gomillion High Reunion #4)

Reunion Weekend - Friday Evening

I took the day off to drive to Gomillion.

It was only a few hours, but I knew myself well enough to know that I was going to want to get checked into my motel and settled before I braved seeing my old classmates.

The whole drive, I was filled with dread.

I was questioning what the hell I was thinking coming back here.

It wasn’t like I did a good job at keeping in touch with the few friends I had good memories of.

The only contact I’d had with them recently was checking that they weren’t coming to this thing.

Why the hell had I let Axel talk me into this?

That was the refrain the whole time I was on the road.

That and a constant little voice in my head telling me to turn back around.

My dad used to have a saying, and I was thinking about it a lot on the drive: “No use looking behind you. That’s why the rearview mirror’s so damn small, and the windshield’s big. ”

Might have been the only sound bit of advice I’d taken from my old man.

I even passed it on to some of my clients over the years.

I used to drive Tim up a wall, saying it in the same affected southern accent I associated with my dad in my memories.

It had been so damn long since I’d actually heard his voice that I was pretty sure he didn’t sound like that.

Not back then and not now. But here I was, not heeding his very good advice and driving straight toward that rearview image.

The moment I crossed the town line, regret hit me hard. My stomach balled up into a tight knot, and I felt it drop all the way down to my toes.

Gomillion hadn’t changed much in the years since I’d last been there, but the changes that I could see?

They were like neon signs as I drove down the main drag to the cheap motel I’d booked into.

I remembered a tree that used to be on the route, and now there was just a stump.

That tree had always told me I was almost home, back when I was young and didn’t know anything about distance.

If I made a left turn just after it, I’d be at my folks’ place in less than ten minutes.

I kept on driving straight.

The old video store was a dollar store now.

I could still see the ghost of how it used to look when I passed, and if I let myself, I could see my friends and me standing in front of it, passing around a cigarette while we pooled our change together to rent a video.

If we had enough, we’d buy a pack or two of microwave popcorn.

Half the time, we’d invite people around.

Girls mainly. I was the only one that ever actually watched the movies we rented.

My friends were too busy trying to get their dicks wet, and I was too busy making excuses as to why I wasn’t trying to do the same.

I’d been so damn worried about my friends finding out the truth back then.

Of course, when I finally told them after I left, when we all met up for Ryan’s wedding, they hadn’t given a single solitary fuck.

I didn’t know if they’d have had the same opinions back then.

It didn’t matter, not really. I wished at least one of them would be at this reunion.

It’d give me someone to talk to if nothing else.

I was getting real tired of looking in the rearview, and I hadn’t even been in town five minutes.

More memories flooded me as I drove toward the old motel.

Me and my friends walking down the train tracks, cigarettes in between our fingers, laughing about some stupid joke one of us made.

The old grocery store that had the best deli chicken I’d ever tasted; I used to hold onto my lunch money so I could walk over after school and buy some.

Anything was better than the school food.

Even the old motel had memories, ones I’d forgotten until I pulled into the cracked parking lot.

Some girl I was seeing had tried to rent us a room, and I’d had to fake food poisoning to get out of there.

At least that memory had me grinning as I parked my car and made my way to the reception desk.

There was an older woman at the counter, playing Solitaire on a computer that looked out of place on the cracked black desk she was sitting behind.

She barely looked up from her game while she took my name and details, not until she had to run the payment and make my key card.

Then she looked annoyed as hell at me for daring to interrupt her game.

There was no chance in hell that this place was winning any awards for customer service, but I wasn’t there for the five star service.

If I wanted that, I’d have found a way to book into the nicer hotel in town—the one that was listed in the email invite.

But that meant spending time with all my old high school classmates, and I wasn’t too sure about that one. I had enough qualms about coming back here in the first place.

I got my key from the receptionist and listened to the quick rundown she gave me about the motel.

It was the same standard shit I’d heard every time I traveled.

Telling me where the ice machine was, saying that there wasn’t a breakfast but there was a diner down the way that served a good one.

Shit like that. I didn’t really listen, because honestly?

I wasn’t going to be grabbing any ice, and if I wanted to grab a bite to eat, I could look that up on my phone.

I thanked her anyway, and her attention was back on her computer game before the words left my mouth.

It wasn’t hard to find my room. They were numbered in an easy to follow pattern; mine was on the second floor.

The stairs creaked when I went up them, and I was having some doubts.

I didn’t think those rusty old things were going to hold my weight all that long, so I made quick work.

I found my room number among the faded red painted doors and used the key card to get in.

The room itself was nothing to write home about.

There was a king size bed in the middle and the most uncomfortable looking chair over to the side.

The bed had a dark colored bedspread on it, and the floors were surprisingly clean.

The outside of the place had given me doubts, and I was more than happy to be proven wrong.

There was even a framed print on the wall, some generic art shit you could buy at any big box store in a gaudy gold frame that stood out too bright against the dingy white walls.

Even though the lady at the desk said no one was allowed to smoke in the rooms, there was a lingering smell of cigarettes that reminded me of being back at my folks’ place.

All in all, it wasn’t the worst place I’d ever booked into, and it wasn’t like I was going to be spending a lot of time there anyway. It was just a place to lay my head between these stupid ass events. The schedule for the weekend looked pretty busy.

I unpacked the jeans and tees I’d brought. I even hung up the button down I’d chosen for the prom thing the next night. The younger me would have scoffed at the shirt, but I was so used to those things now that I didn’t even care.

I put the small bag with my razor and soap in the bathroom.

The counter was small, and the mirror was a little warped.

There was an age ring around the tub, like someone had left water sitting in it for too long.

My tub growing up had a ring just like that.

Why the fuck had I booked this place? Every inch of that room reminded me of things better left forgotten.

(Maybe the nicer hotel across town would’ve had the same effect on me. Who the hell knew?)

After I got all settled in, I plopped back on the bed and pulled up the schedule I was emailed for the weekend.

It was chock full of activities, all ending with some eighties themed prom that sounded like a scene from a horror movie waiting to happen.

What the fuck was I thinking coming to this thing?

I should just check out of the hotel and find some place along the coast to lie low.

I could find a fling just as easy there. Easier, probably.

I’d be doing exactly what Axel thought I should, and I wouldn’t have to worry about all this bullshit. Wouldn’t have to deal with all the memories either. I could just keep living the way I was—content in King’s Bay, not weighed down with the bullshit of my past.

But I was already here, and I had never been much of a quitter. Wouldn’t have ever gotten my diploma if that was the case, so I wasn’t going to ride off into the sunset. I was just gonna bitch and moan about it until it was time to head to the welcome reception.

When it hit five, I figured I should get off the bed and start getting ready.

By six, I was pulling up to my old high school.

At least it had changed. It looked very different from the Gomillion High I used to know, so I was grateful for all the signs and the balloons, pointing alumni to the right parking lots.

I found a parking spot in a freshly paved lot.

I was pretty sure it had been a field when I was younger, maybe the same one where me and my friends used to hang out at lunch, smoking cigarettes and talking about our weekend plans. God, we’d been such fucking cliches.

That had changed too. For me, at least. For a few of them too. Maybe not so much for the two that were guests of the South Carolina prison system, or hell, maybe they’d been changing while they were locked up. Rock bottom, and all of that.