For the first two days back at school, Chase had insisted on walking alongside me to school. I could speed up, slow down, turn left when I should have turned right, yet there he’d be. He talked the whole time, even as I blared my music, and I couldn’t stand another day of it. I set my alarm for 4 AM on Wednesday morning and shoved my phone beneath my pillow so Chase wouldn’t hear the blaring music jar me awake. The last thing I needed was more time with him before school.
I had three hours until first bell, and the coffee shop in the town square didn’t open until 7 AM. I wiped sleep from my eyes and circled around the town square, trying to find a distraction. The square mimicked the template found in most small Texas towns: shops and restaurants rimmed the perimeter, and smack dab in the middle on a half-acre of green grass stood a town hall made of interlocking limestone blocks. Years ago, the statuesque building had housed city government, but not any more. It cost too much to maintain, so the town had began leasing the first and second floors to a law office and a real estate holding company. The businesses jumped at the prime office space, and Blackwater didn’t have to board up its town hall.
The streetlights loomed overhead, drawing every flying insect within a 100-mile radius. I meandered around the square, enjoying the peace and quiet. I loved walking around my small town in the early morning hours; it meant that I could wander free from pitying gazes and conspicuous whispers. Everyone in town knew my past and everyone was eager to see me return—not so they could welcome me back with open arms, but because they needed someone to pity, someone who had a worse life than they did. A busted radiator seemed manageable when compared to a dead mother.
I walked past windows with well-dressed mannequins and a new candle shop that had opened while I’d been away in Austin. My aimless journey eventually ended outside the Matthews’ repair shop. The old red sign in the window read ‘Closed’ and it was tilted off balance, as if someone had been in a hurry to turn it and leave. Out front, piled on the sidewalk against the front door, there were a half dozen boxes and packages left unclaimed.
Dust and dirt had accumulated across the tops of the mailing labels, so I wiped some of it away to confirm that they were all addressed to Mr. Matthews. They’d clearly been sitting out for a few days, but no one had bothered to steal them, which didn’t speak highly of the crime rate in our small town; rather, it spoke poorly of the amount of foot traffic the town square usually produced on any given day. Most of the shops didn’t stay open longer than a few months; the Matthews’ repair shop was a rare exception.
I glanced around to confirm that the square was still deserted and then turned to check the lock on the door. Mr. Matthews used a simple cable lock and when I shined my cell phone’s light at the keyhole, I discovered why. There was a key broken off inside that he hadn’t bothered to get out. Instead, he’d looped a cable lock between the door handle and a hook on the doorframe. It looked like the work of an overzealous eight-year-old trying to keep his parents out of his room. Anyone with a pair of nail clippers could have torn through the cable.
I tried two combinations on the lock; the first was Hannah’s birthday, and the second was Chase’s birthday. The lock popped open on the second try and I pulled the door open, covering my ears in anticipation of a blaring alarm. Of course he doesn’t have an alarm, this is Blackwater. The shop stayed silent as I worked quickly to shove the boxes and packages inside. I was careful not to damage any, but as I stepped back and reviewed my work, I wasn’t happy. The boxes were stacked haphazardly on the welcome mat inside the doorway, and more than likely, Mr. Matthews would trip on them when he arrived at work in a few hours. I sighed, checked around me once again, and then walked into the shop.
It felt like stepping into an old memory. The smell hit me right away, that slow decay of old carpet, chipped paint, and air filters in need of replacing. The shop was bare and ugly, but repair shops aren’t supposed to be pretty.
I started the arduous task of carrying the heavy boxes from the doorway to the small area behind the counter. I stacked them from heaviest to lightest and pushed them out of the way, into a corner. I thought about leaving a post-it note explaining how I’d broken in and left the boxes, but that would only lead to more questions. He didn’t need to know that I was the one to put the boxes inside. If anything, maybe it’d convince him to finally put a proper lock on his front door.
When I was finished, I turned to leave and caught sight of a small photo framed next to the cash register. The colors were faded and a yellow tint had started to creep in near the corners, but I recognized the children in it right away. It was a photo of me and Chase when were little kids. It was a terrible shot, out of focus and shot too close to distinguish anything but our bucktooth grins. Chase had four missing teeth and I had dirt smudged across my cheek. He was squeezing my face to his and I was laughing, my eyes squeezed shut and my smile big and toothy.
I picked up the photo from the counter and stuffed it into my backpack before leaving the shop.
Chapter Twenty-One
Chase