Take Me Home

Cassie Mint

Take Me Home

First published by Black Cherry Publishing 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Cassie Mint

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-914242-96-0

Cover art by KiWi Cover Design Co

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
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One

Josie

This town is exactly how I left it.

What did I expect? I’ve only been gone three years, though sometimes it feels more like three decades. Short of a well-placed sinkhole, nothing could change Maple Creek that much in the meantime.

Still, it’s all so similar as I sputter through the wide streets in my asthmatic car—those faded storefronts with wooden signs twitching in the breeze; the old cinema, with black letters spelling out this week’s single offering; even the drunk cradling his brown paper bag on the pharmacy steps is no different.

It’s all a little older. More tired, too.

Guess I’ll fit right in.

It’s evening, the sky tinting lilac above the rooftops, and the scent of honeysuckle drifts through my open car window. As I drive past the video arcade on the corner of Main Street, a slideshow of memories batters my brain.

So many afternoons spent there after school with my teenage boyfriend Harry, tinny music rattling out of the beat-up machines. The games were ancient even then, but that was all part of it. Part of the charm.

Maple Creek is stuck in a time warp.

Now I’m back here too: part of the town’s set dressing. Driving through these streets is surreal, like waking up from a dream.

Like I was never gone.

We used to rock up to that arcade right after school, backpacks weighing down our shoulders, already chewing on red strawberry laces that turned sticky in the afternoon heat. They’d tint our lips pink, and as we ate our candy and played games, we’d slowly ingest more and more sugar until we were both jittery and sick.

Then we’d spill out onto the Main Street sidewalk, laughing and clutching at our stomach aches, and call Harry’s uncle Everett for a ride home. Then do it all again the next day.

I can remember it all so clearly. Can taste those sickly strawberry laces; can feel the lurch of Everett Bray’s truck as it bounced through the potholes to my parents’ trailer park. Can hear the rumble in his chest when he grunted answers to my questions.

Everett Bray was never a chatty man.

Is he still here too?

This is my fourth lap of town already. At some point, I need to pick where I’m headed. Options are slim on the ground in Maple Creek, and that’s assuming you have money weighing down your back pocket. But I’ve got all of ten bucks in cash, and a few more nickels and cents’ worth in my bank account.

My gas tank is getting low.

So where am I sleeping tonight?

There’s the old abandoned farm out by the highway, but the local hell-raisers used to use it for parties, and I don’t fancy rolling over in the night and accidentally jabbing myself with a dirty needle. Then there’s my parents’ old trailer park, but Mom and Dad are long gone, and none of their neighbors will want to cram a long lost stranger into their single wide.

I guess I could find a comfy ditch on the school sports field. It’s summer, after all. No chance of getting trampled by a morning gym class, and the ticks will be some kinda company.

Chewing on my bottom lip, I run through every empty building and public bench I can think of in Maple Creek—assuming they all still exist. But I don’t know who I’m trying to kid, because even as I list out barns and sheds and abandoned pick-up trucks, I flick on my turn signal and drive away from the center of town.

I know where I’m headed. Know this road as well as the freckles on my forearms.

Will Everett Bray remember me?

* * *

Growing up, I think I spent more time at Harry’s uncle’s place than I did in my own home. Harry and I were best friends all the way from kindergarten, and at fourteen we kinda fell into dating without ever even talking about it. Two gawky teenagers following a well-worn script. Like it was just an extension of everything that had come before—the natural next step.

I didn’t mind. So long as I got to spend most of my hours out on Everett Bray’s property by the creek, I didn’t care what we called the bond between his nephew and I.

And Harry was a sweet boyfriend. He gave me cards and flowers on Valentine’s Day, and he matched his buttonhole to my dress at the school prom. He never mentioned how my outfit was clearly from a thrift store, and he never complained once about calling for me at the trailer park.

But we never, you know, did much of anything. An awkward peck here; a wander through the town holding hands there. We were best friends more than anything truly romantic, play-acting at being more. Rehearsing for our adult lives.

Even so, Harry’s uncle used to make us leave the bedroom door wide open on the days we hung out at his place, just in case we got any ideas.

Oh, I got ideas alright, especially once I got older.

But never about Harry.

It’s awful, isn’t it? I was sick with guilt, even back then, though obviously I never tried to act on any of those bad thoughts. I don’t know who would be more disturbed by my off-limits crush—Harry or his uncle—and besides: I’m no cheater.

So I pushed those thoughts away. And when Harry wrote me a break-up letter the summer before he went to college, I tried not to seem too relieved.

“You’ll forget all about me and Maple Creek,” he said as we packed up my car on the day I left for the city, his letter folded in my back jeans pocket. It was the same car I’m driving now, but with fewer scratches and dings. Back then, Harry loaded the heaviest bags for me, the trunk dipping under the weight of them. “You’re gonna leave this town in your dust, Josie.”

“I hope so,” I told him then, and I meant it.

So much for triumphant exits. So much for my blaze of glory, leaving this dusty relic of a town far behind. A conquering hero, on my way to the big city to… to…

Even now, I’m not sure what my plan was. Maybe that’s where I went so wrong.

All I knew was I needed to get far, far away from Everett Bray, or I was gonna do something really stupid. Something I couldn’t take back, and something that would hurt Harry. My best friend.

My phone buzzes beside me on the cracked leather of the passenger seat as I round a tight bend. That’s probably Harry now, checking in.

I haven’t told him I’m back in Maple Creek yet. He’ll find out soon enough, and in the meantime, I want a few more hours of not being a huge failure.

* * *

The road to Everett Bray’s place starts wide and smooth, then gets slowly bumpier and more narrow as you drive away from town. Side roads peel off, leading to other properties dotted around the Maple Creek outskirts, until the only possible destination of this path is the Barns by the water.

My teeth clack together as the car rocks over the road. I’m bouncing around the cab like a pea in a can.

The bags in my trunk are a lot lighter than when I last left this town.

What if Everett doesn’t remember me? And what will I even say to him if he does? I’m nothing to Harry’s uncle these days—I’m not dating his nephew anymore, and I have no ties to Maple Creek. I’m no one.

My palms get slick on the steering wheel and I grip tighter, lightheaded from these racing thoughts. What exactly do I think Everett Bray will do for me here? Why should he help me?

God. What am I doing?

The engine roars as I wrench at the steering wheel, bouncing off the dirt path to the side of the road, panic drumming in my chest. There’s a copse of straggly bushes a few meters up ahead so I drive behind there, tires crunching through the rocky dirt.

The car ticks as it cools. I lick my lips, and my mouth is so dry.

This is fine.

This is fine.

People sleep in their cars all the time, and this is still better than sleeping rough in that party barn or curling up on the school sports field. No one comes out here except Harry’s uncle, and he won’t see me tucked away behind these bushes.

The air is cool, drifting through my open window, and I can hear insects shivering in the long grass. It’s not so bad.

Tomorrow will be better.

I clip off my seat belt and roll my stiff neck. Six straight hours of driving is no joke, and I’d really freaking love to stretch my legs out in the fresh air; to lift my arms overhead and reach for the darkening sky; to feel my back pop and my muscles throb. But opening and slamming my car door will be loud, and I can’t risk it. Can’t have the sound drifting across these empty plains to Harry’s uncle.

Can’t risk being found. Not like this.

So: tomorrow will be better. I’ll come up with a plan, and I’ll find somewhere else to stay.

Or I’ll quit fooling myself, and leave Maple Creek behind me once and for all.

Two

Everett

It’s a sawdust day. Building hand-carved furniture is always gritty work, but some days I can get away with a damp cloth wiped over my face afterward, and other times I think I’ll never get the dust from my beard. Tonight, I finish up with an icy cold shower, the water stinging against my back, and scrub myself down with soap until my skin’s pink and raw beneath the body hair.

But I still feel like there’s a layer of grit on my skin when I rub down with a towel. I still need to swill my mouth with mouthwash, wincing at the film of sawdust clinging to my teeth.

No wonder I’m out here all alone. Who wants a man who tastes like wood shavings?

I roll my eyes at myself, shrugging on my flannel shirt and doing up the buttons over the hard slab of my belly. The bathroom is choked with peppermint-scented mist. Talk about self pity.

I like being alone—and it’s not like I’ve never had any offers to change that fact. I just never took ‘em. Never wanted anyone at all.

No one I could have, anyway.

Floorboards creak as I step out into the bedroom, stroking a hand over my damp beard. Everything around me is faded and well-worn, lit by the golden glow of my bedside lamp, the dark bedspread tucked neatly around the mattress. A paperback rests on the nightstand, and my watch lies already unfastened beside it. There’s a telltale strip of paler skin on my wrist.

No alarm clock. Out here, I rise with the sun and go to bed when my body tells me.

Right now, my body is telling me that I’ve got more energy to burn off before I can turn in. Even though I worked hard all day on that custom dining table, got oiled up with sweat and gave myself a goddamn dust bath, I’m restless. There’s an itch under my skin.

I’ve been dreaming about her again lately. Josie Martin.

Not that I ever really stopped, but it’s getting worse. She’s haunting me.

“Prick,” I mutter, since there’s no one else here to do it for me. What kind of a man lusts after his nephew’s ex high school girlfriend? What kind of a man wants a girl who’s fifteen years younger than him?

Josie must be twenty one by now, because she was nineteen when she came to visit for Harry’s first summer home from college. Nineteen fucking years old when I first saw her and then did a double take. Nineteen years old when she damn near gave me a heart attack.

Before that, she was just Josie. A kid, and one of Harry’s little friends. Quieter than the others, maybe, and always extra polite when she stayed for dinner. Always quick to help with the dishes.

I liked her well enough—thought she was a good influence on Harry—but I never really saw her.

Then they both came for that visit, and my world fell off its axis. Hasn’t righted itself since.

Josie Martin.

Wonder what she’s doing now.

She’s probably got some fancy job and an apartment in the city. A rich boyfriend in a suit, too. Who wouldn’t want Josie? I bet she has her pick of ‘em out there. Bet she gets bored of turning them all down, telling them she’s not interested, stepping on men’s hearts with those white canvas sneakers she used to wear.

She doodled on the toes. Little cartoon hearts and flowers and shit.

I clear my throat, the sound echoing through the empty bedroom. I think about Josie Martin way too much to be healthy.

* * *

It’s a warm night, the air scented with honeysuckle and rich soil, and thousands of stars pulse overhead. My boots crunch against the gritty dirt path, and I shove my hands deep in my pockets as I stroll down to the creek.

It’s good to be out. Fresh air is the best medicine.

And there’s something about rushing water that cools the fever in my brain. Something about that gentle plunk, sploosh of water tripping over the creek bed that helps the chaos warring inside me to settle.

I’m not sure what got me thinking about Josie again this time. A memory, maybe—a glimpse of my old truck, and the flash of driving her back to her parents’ trailer after school. Or a patch of moss clinging to tree bark, the exact same shade as her deep green eyes.

Doesn’t really matter either way. Whatever it was, I’ve got no business thinking about that girl.

Better to focus on the waxy glow of the moon.