Home Again (12 page)

East stifled a laugh. “Tommy? What the hell are you doing in the woods by yourself?”

“I—uh—” He looked between the three of us, obviously frightened.

I don’t think there’s a name for the shade of red my face turned.

East grabbed the kid’s phone out of his hands. “Here’s the deal kid. Don’t tell anyone about this and I won’t tell your mom what you were doing in the woods. Got it?”

Tommy nodded, his face flushed in embarrassment. “Yeah. Sorry Easton. Um, Aisley.” He looked at me real quick, obviously as embarrassed as I was. When Easton handed him his phone back, picture free, Tommy took off, fast.

East looked over at me in amusement. “You, superstar, are
way
too paranoid.”

I looked up at John, who wore the same expression, and I groaned. “Well, who would have thought sweet little Tommy Pruett would grow up to be a peeping tom!”

“Be happy it was just Tommy. Your job is safe.” Easton chuckled. “Gotta give that kid props for being so bold.”

“This is so much worse than paparazzi!” I said dramatically. “I used to babysit that kid, East!”

Both he and John broke out in laughter.

“I’m glad you two find my humiliation so amusing.” I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes at them. “Can we go now?”

Easton nodded, his eyes still twinkling with laughter. “Yeah, babe.”

***

Twelve days. I had twelve days left with Easton. That was it. Then I’d be gone. Would it be another two years before I saw him again? My phone buzzed on my nightstand, and I rolled over in bed, grabbing it.

Easton:
I want to take you somewhere today… have any plans?

I smiled. Then frowned.
Twelve days.

Aisley:
Only with you, green eyes.

Easton:
Good. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.

Aisley:
Ok.

I peeled myself out of bed, trying not to think of last night. Getting dressed in a pair of jean shorts, and a pink tank top, I put my hair up in a messy bun. It was supposed to be in the upper seventies today.

Easton wore the biggest grin when I met him at the front door fifteen minutes later. “Ready, Carter?”

“Always.”

He looked past me to John. “So we’re back to having a babysitter?”

“He thinks I’m helpless.” I shrugged.

John just rolled his eyes.

“Well, let’s go,” he said, grabbing my hand.

Easton’s butterflies took that as a sign to start doing figure eights inside my stomach. It was not going to be easy to walk away again.

“So where to?” I asked jumping into shotgun.

“It’s a surprise.” He gave me a goofy smile.

“You know I hate surprises.”

“Well, you’ll just have to deal.”

“Fine,” I mumbled in mock anger.

“Don’t get yourself in a huff, girly.” He reached over and pinched my cheek. “You know it only takes a few minutes to get anywhere here.”

True enough, about five minutes later we reached our destination. We were at an empty piece of land on the edge of town. I knew where we were, I knew what this was, but I didn’t know why we were here.

“Why don’t you play me that new song you learned?”

“You do not want to hear me play an Avril Lavigne song, East.”

“I would listen to anything you play, Carter.” Easton and I sat crisscross applesauce, facing each other, in our tree house. The guitar I got as a birthday gift last year was perched on my lap.

I blushed, quickly looking at the floor, hoping East wouldn’t see. “Do you think that’ll be me one day?” I asked him, strumming lightly on the strings.

“On the radio like her?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“More than anything, East. I love playing.”

“Then, my girl, I predict you’ll be a thousand times better than Avril Lavigne, or any other singer out there.” Easton calling me his girl was something I never heard before. My head popped up, looking him in the eyes. “Just never give up on your dreams.”

“What are your dreams?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m thirteen. Not everyone’s as dead set on something, like you.”

“Well, you have to want something.”

He furrowed his brow. “I guess I’d like to be an architect, like my dad.” He looked around the empty property his family owned. “I’d love to build a house right here. Raise a family. Maybe get a dog, too. You know, normal stuff.”

I nodded. “You think your dad will ever build here?” I glanced out of the window of the tree house, looking around at the grass and wild flowers.

“If he doesn’t, I will.”

“That’s a good dream, Easton. I predict you’ll get everything you want.”

“I haven’t been here since we were like seventeen.” My eyes wandered around. Everything was exactly the same. The only thing here was the one oak tree we build a fort in.

“Ever since my dad died, I come here to just think. To be alone.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Turning around to face me, he added, “He left it to me.”

“The property?”

Easton nodded. “Yep.”

“Wow.”

“I think I’m going to sell it.”

“What? Why?” I looked over, dumbfounded. “I thought this was your dream.”

He shook his head. “It’s just a reminder of all the things I’ll never have.”

“You could look at it as a reminder of all the good things you will have in the future. You’re only twenty-one.”

“Maybe, but look at you. You’re only twenty and you’re holding all your dreams right in your hands.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what happened, East.”

He looked over solemnly. “It was just a stupid accident. God. I’ve replayed that stupid fucking day in my head a million times. If we left a second later, didn’t stop for food. If we did one little thing differently, he could still be here.”

My eyes started watering. My heart broke for East.

“You were playing in Seattle that night.”

I inched back.

“Dad practically forced me to go see you play. I didn’t want to, because, well, you know why.” He wiped the tears away. “We stopped to eat at some restaurant on the way to the show. A T. G. I. Fridays. He had a steak, and I had a burger. Then he asked me to drive, so I did. But, it was so foggy, and I couldn’t dodge it fast enough when a truck crossed the highway. I swerved, I tried to miss it.”

“Oh god, East, I’m sorry.”

“I think the report said the car must have flipped ten times. I’m lucky to be alive. But, Dad? Why? Tell me why, Ais? He was the best person I know!”

“Hey, Ralph. Is East home?”

He grinned and wiped the sweat off his brow, looking up at me from under the hood of his old Chevy truck. “Hello, dear. No he’s still out with his mom.”

“Oh.” My head fell.

“Something I can help you with?”

I shook my head quickly. “No, it’s stupid.”

“I doubt it’s stupid.”

“I’m leaving in five days, and East has been avoiding me.”

Ralph cocked his head to the side and walked up to me. “He’s just trying to deal with it. You know our boy.”

“Yeah, well, I just… maybe I shouldn’t do this, you know? I probably won’t ever be anything.”

“You already are something, Aisley. If you weren’t, that boy wouldn’t be mourning you like you’re already gone.”

I laughed. “You know what I mean. I mean, it’s easy now with East, but what about when I’m gone? It’s going to be so hard.”

“Sometimes, the biggest challenges we face are the ones we learn the most from.”

I smirked. “How do you always know what to say?”

“That’s a father’s job, dear.”

“My dad must not have gotten the memo,” I joked.

“Sometimes, the biggest challenges we face are the ones we learn the most from.”

“That doesn’t fucking help,” East spat.

“It’s something Ralph told me.”

His eyes darted to mine.

“Your dad was a wonderful man, East. I know he’d want you to keep this.” I motioned around the property. “He’d also want you to stop blaming yourself for something that was beyond your control.”

“But it was
my
fault. I was driving.”

“No. It wasn’t. It was an accident. If anything, it was the other driver’s fault.”

He let out an angry laugh. “He was driving drunk. Broke about every bone in his body and is paralyzed. But
he
got to live!”

“East—”

“If it makes me a bad person for hating him for it, I don’t give a shit.”

“You’re not a bad person.”

He shrugged. “For a while, I blamed you, too.”

I sucked in a breath. Was this why he was really angry with me when I came back? “I’m sorry.”

“I know it’s not your fault, I do, but—if you weren’t playing that night he’d still be alive.”

“You can’t know that, East. Maybe it was just—”

“Don’t.” He cut me off. “Don’t you dare fucking tell me it was meant to happen. I can’t believe there was a reason this happened. There can’t be a reason.” He broke down in a sob, and I held him close.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I wished there was a way to make everything better again.

People say time heals everything—but how could time heal something like this?

***

Chapter 13

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, barging in Beck’s front door and narrowing my eyes at her.

“I swear. We only hooked up one time. East is not that—”

“What?” I gasped.

“I’m kidding. Geez, you’re easy to mess with today.” She rolled her eyes, and continued flipping through the Cosmo magazine she was reading. “So what didn’t I tell you?”

“For starters, that Easton was in a car accident!”

“Ais—”

“His dad died on his way to see me play!”

“Calm down—“

“No.” I cut her off again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“East asked me not to.”

“Why? When?” I shook my head.

“When do you think? When you showed up here out of the blue.”

“I thought you were my best friend, Becks. How could you not tell me?”

“Because
he’s
my best friend, too. He didn’t just up and leave, never to call again!” she yelled. She must have been holding that in for a while. “When the accident happened, and I called you—you didn’t even call me back to let me know you got my damn message! In fact, I don't even think we talked more than five times after you left!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be like that.”

“But it was. And I love you to death, but you didn’t see the way East was after the accident. He was lucky enough to not have been hurt too bad, physically. But mentally, emotionally? There was only so much I could do to help him. He really needed
you
.”

“And you don’t know how much I regret not coming! It kills me to think it was because of me that Ralph’s dead. And that I didn’t just come home. It makes me sick. I’m a horrible person and friend and—what the hell am I supposed to do? How do I fix this?”

Becks pulled me in for a hug. “I hate to say it, Ais, but there’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. It just takes time.”

“But I
have
to fix this, Becks, I just have to.”

But she was right. I couldn’t change the past. All I could do was be here for Easton now. The only problem was… I was still leaving in a week and a half.

***

“You’re not going to forget about me when you’re rich and famous, are you?” East joked.

“You think too much of me. Who says I’ll even make it?”

“Come on.” He grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. “People would have to be both dumb and blind not to love you, Carter. Besides, this whole town’s heard you play, and we all love you.”

I shot him a look. “It’s a pretty small town, East.”

He shrugged. “You were great at every show in Seattle, too. Why else would they ask you to record an album?”

“You’re right, I’m just being stupid.”

“Yes, you are pretty stupid,” he teased.

“Shut up! I guess I’m just scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared, nobody’s fearless.”

“I’m going to pretend to be.” In a few weeks, I’d be in L.A. where I would know nobody. So I’d pretend to be strong. I’d pretend leaving the only life I knew wasn’t terrifying, and I’d pretend being away from Easton would be easy.

“You know what they say, ‘fake it ‘til you make it.’” He laughed.

“You could come with me, you know. We could get an apartment together.”

“As nice as that sounds, Ais, I’m small town. I like it here. And besides, I start at U-dub in the fall.”

“Seattle’s not very small-town,” I reminded him.

“Well, if I don’t like the dorms, I’ll just commute. It’s only like a forty minute drive.”

“They have schools in L.A.”

“Yeah, none of which I applied to.” He let out a sigh. “I know you can’t understand that I want to stay here, but I do. As much as I hate the thought of not being around you, we are just on two different paths.”

“Maybe. But I know our paths end up in the same place,” I said, matter of fact.

“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”

“Right here.” I cuddled in closer. “Together.”

He laughed and gave me a squeeze. “It’s something to dream about.”