Page 31 of The Best Worst Mistake (Off-Limits #2)

Abby

I shut the door behind me and walk across the road, turning around to make sure Dax hasn’t chickened out when it comes to following me, but he’s directly on my heels. I grab his hand and we set off together down the road.

Part of me is mortified that I decided to bring him here today, but if there’s anything I’ve realized, it’s that I won’t do this alone. I don’t want to. And besides, it’s too late for all that right now. We’re already here, aren’t we?

The smell of trash permeates the air since the sanitation department hasn’t been down this road yet today.

Most of the houses here just put their trash bags out at the curb all week though, instead of waiting for the city’s official trash day.

It’s easier to keep the dogs and raccoons and whatever else away from the doors and windows of the houses that way.

I know all too well that horrible things on this street always find a way in, no matter how much you try to prevent them.

And not all of them will leave nicely when asked.

When we arrive at the front of it, my feet won’t move any more. I couldn’t breeze past this place, even if I wanted to — which, right now, I do. In fact, everything in me wants to breeze past this house now that I’m here.

It’s more gray than I remember. More dingy and worn, since most of the yellow paint has peeled off, leaving only a hint of that lemony color my dad started painting it one summer — even if he only got half of the front wall done before giving up on the rest. The door on the front is a different color than I remember.

It used to be thick, brown-painted wood, but it’s been covered with a tawny green color that looks out of place among the yellow-gray hues surrounding it.

The yard looks the exact same though. As if whoever lives here now enjoys yard work about as much as my parents did. Weeds as high as my hips, with a dead flower box hanging off the wall beneath one of the windows.

The window that used to be mine.

The flower box was a gift for my seventh birthday. The last birthday I ever had here.

I fix my eyes on the house, afraid of what I’ll see written all over Dax’s if I turn to face him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can tell that Dax is watching me closely — me, not the house — and it’s making me feel uneasy.

“Do you know who lives here?” he asks.

I bite my lip, then pull it out harshly, feeling my skin swell beneath the pressure of my teeth.

“I used to,” I tell him, forcing my eyes to meet his, for only one second, before pulling them away again. “But I don’t think I know whoever lives here now. At least, I’d be surprised to know that . . .”

To know that they’re still alive.

I can’t finish that sentence. It’s been too long and they were in such a sorry state when I left them. In fact, I’m somewhat surprised to see that this place is still standing here at all, and that it does actually exist in the world. It isn’t just a figment of my imagination.

I’ve filled so many holes within my childhood memories. Sometimes filling the blanks with happier, made-up moments of holiday traditions and things that other kids in class always talked about having, that I never did.

But standing here now, I know that this part of my childhood memory is undeniably real.

I lived here.

“That little girl in the window,” he says, slowly. “You knew her?”

I turn to face him, and though I have no idea what look is stretched across my face, it must be a doozy because Dax stops talking and takes a small step toward me, brushing a stray wisp of hair behind my ear.

“I only know her in theory because I used to be her,” I say, admitting it out loud to both him and myself in the same breath. Then I turn back to the little yellow-gray house with the ugly green door. “Not her , exactly, but I was someone just like her. This was my home, growing up.”

He turns to look — really look — at the little house we’ve stopped in front of.

“This was my street. This” — I smile, looking directly at him — “was the coast I grew up on. The best coast, as you like to say.” I clear my throat before going on, trying to stay composed.

“I don’t know why I had to come back here, but I guess I did.

Something about putting things out into the universe so they stop having so much power over you.

” I blink, remembering something Starry said last night while we talked, hoping with everything in me that it’s true.

“And thank you for coming, I mean I just couldn’t . . .”

I stop talking. My brain won’t work properly anymore because that rickety little handle on the green door is turning over from the inside.

It suddenly swings open. I feel like I might faint.

An angry, tired looking man steps out.

For one blinding moment, my eyes trick me into thinking it’s someone else — he reminds me of my father, but horribly aged. Rabid, completely bedraggled, and high, stepping out to call me back home once the streetlights have turned on.

I blink, and he’s gone. Replaced by a man I’ve never seen before.

He narrows his eyes sharply toward Dax, then me.

Dax swings his head toward the man, then back at me, and I can tell he’s probably wondering if there’s anything he should be doing at this moment. Or if that’s my father we’re looking at.

Just be here with me , I want to tell him.

“Can I help you?” the man calls out, his voice completely unfamiliar and unsteady. “You waiting on the one eighteen? Haven’t seen you two around here before.”

The one eighteen. Just hearing that number makes my stomach take a nosedive. Even the bus routes haven’t changed around here.

I shake my head.

“No,” I call back, and I feel Dax let out a little sigh of relief. “I used to live here. Just came back to see how the old place is holding up.”

“Ah,” he says, eyeing us both up and down like we might be here to fleece him. “You’re not wanting to come in, are ya?”

“No,” I quickly call out. Although I wouldn’t say it out loud to the man, wild horses couldn’t drag me back into that place. Not ever again.

“Thanks!” Dax calls out next, waving a hand above his head.

We should keep moving down the sidewalk, but my feet stay firmly planted.

Dax’s feet stay rooted next to mine, too.

He takes my hand and holds it tightly while I bring myself to inspect the exterior of the home I spent seven long years living in.

“Do you mind if I just take a look from here?” I call out to the man.

He watches me for another moment, then tosses one hand out toward us, as if he doesn’t care anymore.

“Free country, suit yourself,” he grumbles. “Though I wouldn’t stay out here too long. You two look like you’re lost.”

The door slams behind him and I let out a sigh of relief once he’s gone back inside.

Then I take it all in, knowing I will never, ever be back.

Battered shutters hang at the front window — torn off now on one side.

Tall grass and weeds growing every which way, as if not a day has passed.

Two concrete steps on the front are still cracked down the middle, right where I tripped up them one day after school, splitting my lip on the doorknob so badly that I vowed never to try and skip up them again.

The roof, which has possibly never been replaced, is still sagging between the chimney stack and what I know to be the kitchen toward the back of the house.

The same kitchen where I used to watch my parents mix their potions and cocktails, never thinking whether their little girl might be wondering when they might use that stove to make something for her, too.

I wonder if the wall my mom used to chart my height a few times still shows the thin lines where she’d hold a book over my head, then mark where my hair met the book’s edge with a pen.

I still marked my height every birthday myself, since after the first few years, she’d forgotten to do it.

My lines were wobbly and imperfect above her straighter ones, a visible reminder of when everything went wrong.

Once I feel certain that I will never again question the realness of this place, or its power, I turn away, toward Dax, afraid of what I might see etched across his face, now that he knows the truth about where I came from.

But instead of disgust, or even surprise, I’m met with understanding. And acceptance.

“So, this is it?” he asks, squeezing my hand. “I had no idea you were originally from L.A.”

I shrug, ready to explain why I brought him all the way out here when the whooshing sound of a city bus exhaust muffler shoots a stream of ice straight through my veins.

“Oh my God!” I say, spinning around. I saw the bus stop sign still standing when we walked up — it’s covered in red spray paint now — but the odds of the one eighteen showing up while we stand here right now are slim to none.

And yet . . .

The doors of the bus creak open and people start spilling out onto the sidewalk all around us.

My heart thumps in my chest, threatening to send me into cardiac arrest when I look up at the driver.

“Catalpa Street!” The woman’s voice carries to the back of the bus, loud enough to wake anyone who might have fallen asleep on her route. A few sleepy passengers stand, then make their wobbly way down the steps that carry them outside.

I stare up at her face, more aged now than I remember, but still proudly wearing that same, tired bus driver’s hat — the one with the gold medallion pinned across the front.

The exact same one she’d let me wear sometimes when I was having an especially hard day, when we rode around her whole route together.

She’d pepper me with questions. Questions that no one had asked me before.

What’re you gonna do when you get out of this town one day, Miss Abby?

How’d you score on that reading test last week with your teacher Miss Johnson?

What’s your mama up to today, honey? Was she awake before you left?

Did you water those seeds I gave you last week for your new flower box out front?