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Heather
Another bug hit the windshield. Slimy guts smeared on the surface, and I cringed at the blur on my view.
“Ugh.” It had to hit right there, right in my view.
I turned the wipers on, grimacing as the brown gunk spread and made it harder to see the highway road that looked the same as all the boring miles I’d already covered. Flat plains. Gray sky. Hawks perched like sentinels on fence posts.
Same old, same old.
I never planned on making this drive—again. The first time I pushed my car over this route, I did so in the opposite direction, toward Chicago in the east. That was two years ago, but it felt like an eon had passed.
When I moved out of the small town I was raised in, I did so with no goal to ever look back. To ever return. Yet, here I was, burning the rubber off my tires as I crossed the pavement leading toward Burton, Iowa. Or as it was better known as, the middle of freaking nowhere.
I sighed, my face still scrunched with disgust and annoyance at the newest obstacle in my view. The windshield was littered with goo from bugs and whatnot, but that was expected in a five-hour drive on the most boring highway of the Midwest.
Gone were the skyscrapers that all looked so unique and different, their lines cutting up into the sky with a variety of architecture and design. Bridges and waterways were absent, replaced with crops and grasslands dotted with farting cows. Pedestrians didn’t walk out here, commuting or keeping a city bustling. Only slow-poke farm equipment needed signs out here.
“But it’s for the best,” I muttered, reminding myself that even though this drive wasn’t fun or ideal, this move was mandatory. For the sake of my sanity, I had to come back home.
I chewed on my lip as I checked the speedometer. Keeping the car at a steady nine miles over the limit was my goal, but each time I let my thoughts gather and brew up another mini-storm of anxiety, it was a natural reaction to push the pedal down harder. Thinking of what I was leaving behind was another reminder to go faster and get away from Chicago as quickly as possible.
I didn’t want to have to go back home, to the one place I had wanted to escape so badly after graduation, but I had enough common sense to realize that I couldn’t stay in the city.
Near him.
Running from my ex was the only motivation that could steer me back to the small, closed-minded town I wanted to leave so badly when I was young.
Young and stupid. But wasn’t everyone? Didn’t all young adults make dumb mistakes that could contort the trajectory of their future?
All I’d wanted back then was to get out of town.
And look at me now.
I squashed the self-doubt and bitter reflections the best I could, but there was just no way I could smile about this drive to Burton. No one was excited from my return. Hell, I couldn’t be excited or optimistic about leaving civilization in the city. Only self-preservation had me accepting that this was my best option.
As I neared the highway roads toward “home,” I noticed the clues that nothing had changed. The rustic wooden sign hadn’t been updated, still showing that a few thousand lived in Burton. The tree with the split trunks hadn’t been cleaned up from the big storm that half of the old-timers claimed to be a “real” tornado. And as I steered my car around the last bend before the downtown Main Street area came into view, I raised my brows at the abandoned grocery mart that looked like the set of a low-budget horror movie.
“Why don’t they just tear it down?” I wondered aloud.
Burton, unsurprisingly, was the same old. It was still a little mark on the mark. Some could call it quaint if they wanted to project an idyllic vision of small-town America. Others would be more accurate to dub in a rundown ghost town, void of opportunities or excitement.
I spent four years in Chicago. Forty-eight months, I was away.
It hadn’t been long enough to sate my need for the thrill of a big city. Of being anonymous and blending in as one among millions. But it was long enough that I now felt like an outsider moving back here.
The drone and steady noise of traffic and people still remained in my mind, but this quiet stillness of Burton overrode it. The need to watch out for walkers, bikers, joggers, and commuters urged me to be cautious, yet aggressive at intersections, but not a single car waited opposite me at the slowly blinking red stoplight.
I wasn’t an outsider. I was born and raised here. Yet I had existed far from this bubble of no action for long enough that I didn’t feel like I belonged now. I wouldn’t fit in, even if I tried.
Quoted in my yearbook as the student who “can’t wait to get out of town” cemented my sentiments on this place. Everyone teased me at graduation for how stubbornly I insisted that I would be gone as soon as I got my diploma in my hands. And I had. I left the second I could.
Only to be forced right back here, at square one.
No welcoming party would be waiting for me, either. I supposed that if someone cared about my return, it would prompt me to be slightly obligated to arriving on time. To coming by and faking a smile that I was glad to see them again.
Only my cousin, Eric, lived here, but we weren’t close. We hadn’t gone without contact over the last two years, but I bet he was surprised when I called him about moving back home. Eric was twenty-three years older than me, and that gap resulted in him seeming more like an uncle than a cousin. He was also born and raised here, and with his age and holding the same job at the ranch that he had all his life, he likely saw no point to ever moving out. I appreciated that he hadn’t questioned me about wanting to leave so badly when I had. Now, though, I figured he was also indifferent about my need to return.
Slowing at the next stop sign, I leaned over to peer in the direction of the grocery mart. “Maybe I should stop there for a few things.” My stomach had been grumbling for the last two hours of the drive. I didn’t stop because I wanted to just get here and settle in for the night, but I didn’t count on Eric having groceries for me. He’d been helpful enough to find me an apartment in town, but I was sure that was the extent of his hospitable intentions.
Just the essentials. Bread. Peanut butter. Some fruit.
Living in Chicago trained me to favor quick, limited shopping trips for food, but I imagined most folks in Burton still drove the fifty minutes to the nearest Walmart to do the bulk of their grocery shopping.
That’ll have to wait. Besides, I wanted to see how much room I had to work with at this apartment. It couldn’t be large. The kitchen would probably run on the smaller side, like what I was used to in my apartment in Chicago.
No, not my apartment. My stomach knotted as I recalled the details of the place I shared with my ex. At least, in the beginning, it was supposed to be a mutual arrangement like that. A boyfriend and girlfriend cohabiting. But it had turned into something worse so quickly, so—
Stop. He’s not here.
I parked at the food mart and slammed the gear stick in place with a rough shove. A deep exhale punched past my lips as I consciously ordered myself to stop going down that train of thought.
I wouldn’t have to contend with a roommate, a boyfriend, or an ex here. No one would control me here. And nothing could stand in my way of finding a path back to independence.
The first step in shutting out the memories of my past was to avoid thinking about David. At all. Starting now.
Once more, my stomach growled in hunger, and that was all the push I needed. I’d run in for a few things, hop back in my car, and go check out this apartment. Eric texted earlier that he’d be at the bar downtown. I only had to tell him when I arrived and he’d hand over the key from the landlord, someone he knew.
After all, everyone knew everyone’s business in a town this small. That fact was proven as soon as I entered the mart and grabbed a basket.
“Are you serious?” the woman at the cash register said upon my entrance.
Oh, come on. Not now. Ashley Venna? I had to run into my high school nemesis on my first day back? If that wasn’t a bad omen, I wasn’t sure what else could be.
“Heather?” she sneered, raising her brows and emphasizing her astonishment. “Heather James?”
I reined in my temper at her instant disdain. “The one and only,” I quipped dryly.
“Oh my goodness. Are you serious?”
“You already asked that,” I said, deadpan.
“Oh. My. Really?” She stood, getting off the high stool she’d sat on behind the counter. Her phone was set face-down on the worn wood surface. I bet she struggled to stay off it with no chance of a real life here. But she ignored it now to turn all her shock and judgmental sneer on me. “What are you doing back here?” She noticed the few essentials I’d already put in my basket.
I held the basket up higher as a prop. “Getting some things.”
“Yeah, but like, to stay? Are you moving back home?” She snorted an incredulous laugh that sounded like the same nasally bray she did when we were younger. “Oh, my goodness. I heard someone say you were coming back home, but, like...” She laughed, smiling smugly as she scanned my things on the counter. “Like why? You made such a fuss about moving away. And, lo and behoove—”
“It’s lo and behold.”
“—here you are.”
“Here I am,” I agreed without emotion. I wouldn’t give her the ammunition of knowing it grated on my nerves to be back in Burton. I was never welcome before, and I wouldn’t be now. Every town acted like a family, for better or worse. Where the Venna family was the golden child, the James family was simply the black sheep. There was no changing that, and I was well aware I would face similar treatment from the other “lifers” here.
“Aww. Couldn’t handle the big city life after all?” she teased as she bagged my things.
I swiped my card without making eye contact. “Aww. Couldn’t make anything out of yourself other than being a cashier at a convenience store?” That quip was fueled on snark and fed by my lack of patience. I didn’t have to stoop to her level. I never wanted to, but something about her pushing my buttons like this fried my censor and ruined my tolerance for criticism.
She huffed. “Nice to see you’re still the same bit—”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bag, walking out before letting her think I’d listen to her drivel.
Minding my own business was how I survived before, and I planned to make that my mantra again. I could keep my head down, work, and avoid interacting with the townsfolk. That was the only solution I could think of in order to not go crazy here.
And minding my own business shouldn’t be a hardship around here. I was already an introvert by nature. I preferred to be a homebody anyway. As I got in my car again and picked up my phone, I sighed and realized I’d be able to keep to myself a lot better once I was settled into my apartment.
Heather: Hey, Eric. I’m here. I’m parking on Main now.
I pulled out from the spot I was in to drive the couple of minutes toward the building Eric said he’d snagged an apartment for me. With the unit located on the second floor, above the bakery, I’d at least have a view of downtown. Maybe even the bonus of fresh-baked bread scents wafting in the windows.
It wouldn’t be much to enjoy. The nightlife around here was limited to whatever the regulars at the bar got up to, and most shops and boutiques closed frequently with this economy. But as I parked and brought my one bag of groceries with me, I realized that even my dismal thoughts wouldn’t happen.
“What the hell?” I walked closer to the door that would lead up the stairs to the second floor.
It hung open, the lock busted off.
“Hiya, Heather,” Eric said as he walked out from the entrance. A pained cringe made him look twice his age.
“Hey,” I greeted, too confused to make it seem like an actual acknowledgment of his presence. Much less a genuinely happy one. “What... what happened here?” I gestured at the busted door.
“It, uh.” He rubbed the back of his head, sending his thinning brown hair askew. “It, um, looks like someone broke into the apartment.”
My shoulders slumped. The last of my energy evaporated as I hung my arms down. “Fuck.”
So much for a fresh start back home.
