I was drunk and depressed, and didn’t give a damn anymore about, well, anything. Charity had just died two weeks prior and I was partly to blame. She and I had just broken up but ended up attending the same party one weekend. We were always breaking up and getting back together, but this particular breakup had been rough. I was hurt and moping around, so when a random girl at the party started kissing me I didn’t stop her. But Charity saw us and stormed out of the party, completely drunk, and died in a car crash later that night. So I blamed myself for her leaving that party drunk and setting a series of tragedies in motion.
My life was already a mess. My drunk dad had nearly killed Conner two months prior and sent my life spinning into a never-ending pit of debt and shame, so I’d already been on the brink of a mental breakdown before Charity’s death. But after…
Like I said, I didn’t give a damn.
I’m not sure if I was really trying to kill myself or not, but I certainly didn’t care either way, which is just as bad. I remember lying in the road with a pair of headlights shining on me, irritated that someone had found me and dared to interrupt the pity party I was trying to have in the street.
Ellen stood over me, looking down at my pathetic existence with an arched eyebrow. Her striking good looks caught me off guard for a moment as I gazed up at her. She was wearing a flowy white shirt and had her dark hair loose around her face. She looked like an angel.
I knew she was Pixie’s aunt, but Ellen and I had never spoken before.
“Did you fall?” she asked me, glancing around to see where I had come from. Honestly, I didn’t even know.
I shook my head, which was heavy with alcohol and heartbreak.
She glanced me over. “Are you sober?”
I shook my swimming head again.
Her long hair slipped over her shoulder as she tilted her head and stared into me with her hazel eyes. Her voice softened. “Do you want some company?”
I started to shake my head again, but it was too heavy and I was too exhausted to lie.
Wordlessly, she lay down beside me in the road and looked up. I remember thinking it odd that this grown woman who barely knew me was willing to sprawl out on the dirty road for my benefit, but I was too hammered to ponder her reasons.
She knew about Charity because Pixie and Charity were best friends. And she knew about my dad because his transgressions had been breaking news around town for the past few months. But she didn’t speak a word about either.
We stayed shoulder-to-shoulder for several silent minutes. Just us and the headlights of her truck.
“It’s a beautiful night,” she said after a while, staring up at the sky. “The stars are lovely.”
I stared up at the darkness and all I saw were the things I had lost. My mom. Marcella. Charity. “I don’t see them.”
She slowly nodded. “You will.”
We stayed in that road for who knows how long before I finally pulled myself up with a groan, brushing off the dust and cursing the fog in my head.
“Come on,” she said, helping me to my feet. “It looks like you need a ride home.”
I snorted. In my head, I said, What home? But aloud I think it came out as, “Whamo,” as I stumbled into her.
“Okay.” She caught me and tossed one of my arms over her shoulder so she could guide me to her truck. “I think I have just the place for you to sober up.”
I don’t remember much after that. The next morning I woke up in the clean-smelling sheets of one of Willow Inn’s guest room beds, still wearing my dirty clothes from the night before. I smelled like hell. I looked like hell. But for the first time in several weeks, I didn’t feel like hell.
Later that day, Ellen offered me a job as her stock boy so she wouldn’t have to drive back and forth from Copper Springs to Willow Inn as often. At first, I declined. But she got pretty demanding and, honestly, I needed the money. She offered me free room and board as well, but my prideful ass wasn’t ready to accept total defeat in my own independence yet. But I took the job. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. One of the few.
35 Kayla
After my little breakdown in the lavender field, Ellen told me not to worry about stepping in as a waitress for the inn today, but I insisted because I knew serving food would help take my mind off everything. And I was right.
After serving the lunch rush for a few hours, I feel much better as I enter the kitchen.
“So who’s Pixie?” I ask, pointing to the name written on an apron on the wall.
“She’s Ellen’s niece,” Mable says. “Her real name is Sarah, but she also goes by Pixie. She worked with me all summer but she moved out yesterday because she’s starting college in a few weeks.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, nodding as I think back to the Fourth of July party on the lake earlier this month. “I think I met her a few weeks ago. What is she studying?”
“Art.” Mable smiles. “What about you?”
“I was hoping to go to nursing school, but things changed and I came out here to take care of some family business.”
Her face softens. “Ellen told me about your father. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. “Thank you.”
Her eyes fill with sympathy. “I’m so glad you have Daren to help you get through everything.”
I inhale slowly, and quietly say, “Me too.”
Even though he’s only been in my life for three days, Daren really has helped me get through things. But Mable was wrong. I don’t have him. At least not anymore.
And… the tears are back. Dammit.
Ellen enters the kitchen and I quickly get my emotions under control.
“Hey, so I’ve been thinking about how you said you have no plans for, like, ever,” Ellen says. “And Mable’s been singing your praises all day—”
“I have.” Mable smiles.
“And since I need a part-time waitress,” Ellen continues, “I thought maybe we could help each other out. You could work here at the inn—just until you figure out what you want to do next, of course—and since I have a resident room opening up you live here for free at the same time.”
My mouth falls open. “Are you being serious?”
She nods. “I need the help.”
I blink a few times, not sure what to say—or think. Having a new job in a new state away from all my crap back in Chicago would be wonderful. But having a place to live rent-free would be… well, incredible! And it’s not just any place. It’s a cute little inn, tucked away in a lavender field, free of rodents and cockroaches. And with the money I saved on rent, I would be able to go to college and pursue a career in nursing.
I stare at Ellen, speechless.
“You don’t have to answer me right now,” she says casually with a wave of her hand. “Think it over and let me know if you have any questions. And Mable?” Mable looks up from a pie dish. “That apple cobbler smells divine. I love you the most, you know that right?”
Mable snorts. “You only love me the most when I have cobbler in my hands.”
“And your point is…?”
Mable smiles. “I will save some for you, as always.”
“See?” Ellen smiles broadly. “Total love.” She turns and heads out of the kitchen. As I watch her walk away, my mind races with all the possibilities working at Willow Inn would give me. I could live in Arizona and start fresh. And I would be so close to Copper Springs…
I’m not sure if that thrills me or stresses me out.
Daren swings into the kitchen from the dining room with a rack of glassware in his hands. Our eyes meet and he stops walking. He opens his mouth, but doesn’t say anything.