Breaking down a hurrican.., p.35
Breaking Down a Hurricane (Confession #2), page 35
part #2 of Confession Series
“You’d miss Calvin,” I remind him.
“I would miss Calvin, but something tells me he’d be fine going with us.”
“Plane!” Coop shouts out, pointing to the sky.
We all run over to the chain-linked fence to watch as a plane makes its way to the small runway.
“That’s not him,” Ethan coolly states. “Relax. I’ll let you know when I see him.”
“Look what just pulled up,” Kennedy whispers, nodding further down the runway. A black Suburban has just arrived. Tinted windows, no way to tell who’s inside.
“See!” Coop mutters under his breath. “Look at how fucking cool we’d be. Pimping around town in that monster.”
Luna quickly pulls out binoculars from her pocket. “I can’t see anything,” she says, handing them out to me. “You try.”
I push them up against my eyes, and lean into the chain-linked fence, but she wasn’t lying. It’s impossible to see who’s driving the Suburban. “You’re right. I can’t see—”
“What in the hell are you guys doing here?!” a familiar voice roars out behind us. We all spin around and see my dad standing there, looking beyond pissed.
“Shit,” Bodhi mumbles under his breath.
“Shit is right!” my dad yells out. “I expected this from you Eva, but Bodhi … why in the hell are you allowing her to put herself in danger like this?!”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I angrily respond back. “This was my idea, not Bodhi’s—”
“Of course it was,” my dad says through clenched teeth. “I thought we had an understanding here, the three of us, that you two stop searching for Henry Channing and let me handle it. And you all!” he points to our friends. “You guys have a death wish or something?!”
They awkwardly look away.
“Yo, Mr. Calloway,” Ethan says from the table, wiping his greasy hands on a napkin. “She was going to call you. That was the plan, right? If Henry does indeed walk off my dad’s plane, Eva was going to call you.”
“You were?” my dad asks me.
“I was.”
His face calms down. “I can’t protect you if you throw yourself right in Henry’s path on purpose.”
“It’s not like we were going to run out to the runway and say hi to him,” I sarcastically reply. “I just wanted to see him. I just wanted to know that it’s really him, that’s he’s back. Then I was going to call you. Even though I don’t know why …”
“Why are you here?” Bodhi suddenly asks him. “How did you know to come here?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Yeah! How the hell did you know this was happening?”
“Because I took your advice last month and went to Mark Granger.”
Ethan chokes on his food. “You—you went to my dad?”
“Your dad is a good guy, mixed up with the wrong people—”
“Is this all a setup?!” Ethan then worriedly asks.
My dad quickly shakes his head. “No, not at all. I convinced your dad to call me if he heard from Henry. I got the phone call this morning—”
“My dad is now working for you?” Ethan asks, shocked.
“I wouldn’t use the word working; helping me is a better term.”
Ethan stands from his seat and stares straight at my dad. “What’s in it for him?”
I can tell my dad’s getting frustrated. “Knowing the day is coming where he won’t be associated with Henry Channing anymore. Knowing that I’m not going to do anything about the fact he almost assisted in the kidnapping of my daughter.”
Ethan points at my dad. “Smart move there, sir.” But then he narrows his eyes. “Something’s not clicking. Why aren’t the police here? Isn’t that your goal? To get Henry behind bars? Why didn’t you call them? If my dad is helping you, I’m sure you could have convinced the police his innocence in bringing Henry back to Flagler. So that’s not it … why didn’t you alert the police department that Henry might be coming back?”
I slowly move behind Ethan, bringing my hands to his shoulders. “Yeah Dad, why didn’t you call the police?”
My dad carefully sits himself down in a chair. “You kids need to understand something,” he bluntly remarks. “Things in Flagler aren’t picture perfect. I’ve been working alongside Henry for over a decade. There are also numerous people in this town who have worked alongside Henry too—”
“You don’t trust the police,” Bodhi interrupts him.
“I trust the police … I don’t trust a few people in the department. Henry needs to be turned over to the right people, and I’m not sure who that is right now.”
“Do you trust Holden?” I ask him.
“I want to trust Holden,” he nods his head. “But something about him keeps nagging at me.”
Ethan suddenly moves over to the fence, pointing through the chains at an airplane approaching. “He’s here. That’s my dad.”
We all rush over, staying out of view of the black Suburban that’s sitting on the runway.
“What happens when Henry walks off that plane?” Bodhi whispers. “We pretend we didn’t see him and act like life is normal?”
“Your life has never been normal,” my dad swiftly responds. “You guys are going to stay the hell out of trouble, and let me figure this out. Now, stay down!” he pushes at us just as the plane lands.
We watch as it crawls down the runway, stopping a few hundred feet away from the Suburban. The door on the airplane immediately opens, and Henry fucking Channing steps right out. He’s in a baggy sweatshirt, holey jeans, and he looks so disheveled, I’m finding it hard to believe this is the same guy who used to be so put together and seamless every day.
“Son of a bitch needs a haircut,” Coop mumbles.
“Maybe that’s a disguise?” Beck grunts.
Bodhi laughs under his breath. “He plays the role of a homeless bum really well.”
I look further down the runway, to the Suburban, just in time to see the driver open the door and step out. No one else has seen this yet, as they’re all too wrapped up with Henry Channing’s wild appearance. Seeing the driver takes my breath away, but then again, I totally expected this.
“Uh, Dad,” I tug on the sleeve of his shirt. “That nagging feeling you had?” I then point to the Suburban, and everyone turns to watch as Henry Channing approaches, smiles, and shakes hands with the driver.
The beaming red hair is a dead giveaway. Holden. The driver of the Suburban is Holden.
chapter thirty-four
Bodhi – that night
Eva?” I whisper her name into the darkness of my mom’s studio. “Are you sleeping?”
She rolls over to face me. “No. I can’t sleep.”
“We need to leave Flagler,” I seriously say. “I’ve been lying here thinking about it, and it’s the only thing we can do. We need to leave. I have more than enough money to keep us afloat until I have access to my trust fund—”
“Bodhi—”
“No Eva! I’m serious! Why are we staying here? So Henry Channing can come after us? So Holden can lead him right to us while pretending to be on our side?”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me as the moonlight shining in through the windows reflect off her eyes in an eerie way.
“Eva, we can’t stay here.”
“I can’t leave my family, Bodhi. I can’t leave my mom, and my brothers—”
“Everyone can go with us.”
She shakes her head, and I wait for her to start arguing with me, but instead she starts crying.
“Babe?”
“We should leave!” she cries out. “We really should! But what’s that going to do? He’s here for a reason, and if that reason is us, he’s always going to find us!”
I pull her closer to me, her tears dripping onto my bare chest. “We’ll figure out something,” I try to reassure her, completely changing my mind. “We’ll stay here and figure out who to trust.”
“We can’t even trust the police,” she mumbles against my skin.
“We can trust your dad, right?”
She lifts her head from my chest, wiping at her eyes as she asks, “Do you know how crazy that sounds? We can trust my dad? I’ve never trusted my dad! I’ve hated my dad since I was a little kid! All the lies and the secrets, and now I’m supposed to put all my trust in him?! The only person I trust is you … and the four wasted people sleeping downstairs!”
“I trust Calvin, and your mom—”
“So do I! But they’ve lied to us, too! You tell me one person, besides our friends, who hasn’t lied to us or kept shit from us.”
“Calvin? I mean, I know he didn’t tell me shit about my dad, but he didn’t know about anything else.”
I can tell she’s thinking about what I just said. “You’re right. But he also knew about you for years and never did anything about it.”
“I’m not holding that against him—”
“Why are we arguing about this!” she sits up and asks.
I lean my back up against the headboard and pull at her hand, but she doesn’t move. She just sits there, looking frustrated, and angry, and scared. Exactly how I feel. I pull her hand again, harder, and this time she moves right into my arms. “We aren’t arguing,” I softly say.
“Do you really trust my mom?”
“I always have.”
“And Calvin?”
“I trust him, too.”
“My dad? Do you really think we can trust him? Porter told me I could.”
“Porter?” I give her a disgusted look. “When did you talk to Porter again?”
She frowns. “This was before he left for Charleston. He told me I could trust my dad, him, and you.”
“Me? He seriously said that?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Porter Channing is the most bipolar person I’ve ever met. Did he forget about the time he punched me in my face—”
“I think he realizes you’re not his enemy.”
“I think he’s still madly in love with you.”
“I think you need to stop being jealous of someone who isn’t even in the same state as us anymore.”
Silence. I can hear myself breathing. “I’m not jealous,” I finally say. “I just hate that he’s still a part of your life. That he’s done things with you that only I should have done with you.”
“That’s called jealousy,” she makes clear. “And what I did with Porter is nothing compared to what I’ve done with you. He has never made me feel the way you have. But he’s always going to be part of my past, and your past,” she pushes me in the chest. “You guys used to run around in diapers together, remember?”
“Don’t remind me,” I grumble. “You going to tell him that his dad’s back?”
She shakes her head. “Why? So he can tell Holden? And then Holden will question how he found out? My dad said not to tell anyone. My dad said he needs to figure out what Holden is doing.”
“So you do trust your dad?”
She growls into my chest. “I don’t know. I want to, but I don’t know if I ever really will. There’s just too much …”
Her head pushes into my ribs and I scooch down further onto the bed, keeping her in my arms as I lie my head back on my pillow. I give the side of her head a kiss and say, “I think trusting your dad might be the only thing we can do right now.”
I can hear her sigh. “I really hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces.”
“Sunday dinner, let’s see what happens when he shows up for dinner on Sunday. What he figures out before then. And until dinner, we stay just like this. You in my arms, forgetting about all the other shit, lost in our own world.”
She leans up and gives my lips a tender kiss. “How’d you know that’s my most favorite place to be?”
“WHEN IT GETS cold outside, can we still surf?” Rowan asks me.
I join him at the kitchen table, placing myself down next to Eva. “Of course! I have wetsuits. We can surf all year.”
“You have wetsuits that will fit them?” Eva asks.
I nod my head. “I have a collection stored somewhere from when Coop and I were little. Hey!” I turn to Rowan and Miles. “Don’t you guys have a birthday coming up soon?”
They both nod their heads with excitement. “Will you come to Legoland with us?” Miles questions.
Eva lets out a groan. “My mom and dad are taking them to Legoland for the weekend of their birthday.” She turns her mouth to my ear. “Trust me when I say, there is nothing for us to do there. Please say no.”
I kiss her cheek. “Let me think about it,” I say to the boys.
“Think about what?” Mrs. Calloway asks, walking into the kitchen.
“Legoland,” Eva grimaces.
“Boys, Bodhi and Eva do not have to go to Legoland with us,” she laughs.
Mr. Calloway appears from the foyer. “I think it’d be fun.”
“I think you need to look up the definition of fun,” Eva snidely remarks.
Mrs. Calloway loudly places a platter of food on the table. “Let’s eat,” she demands.
Dinner is pretty quiet. The boys talk about all the rides at Legoland, Eva and I briefly talk about school, and her parents just sit there and listen. These Sunday dinners have become a normal part of our week now, but tonight something seems off, and I can’t put my finger on what it is. When dinner is over, Mrs. Calloway hands the boys their tablets and tells them she downloaded new games, but they can only play them in their rooms. As they rush away, Eva gives me a worried look.
“Are we in trouble?” she asks her parents.
“No,” her mom shakes her head. “Why would you be? It’s not like you two have been doing anything wrong, like sneaking into Eva’s bedroom every night, right?”
Shit.
“It’s not every night,” Eva replies in a pissed off tone. “And if you and Calvin knew, why didn’t you confront us?”
“We’re sorry,” I quickly blurt out. “We won’t—”
“I don’t care that you’ve been doing that,” Mrs. Calloway cuts me off.
“I care,” Mr. Calloway adds.
I can’t meet his gaze.
“You don’t care?” Eva repeats to her mom.
“I care,” she stresses. “I care enough to know that you don’t have nightmares when Bodhi stays over. I care enough to know that when I see you in the kitchen on the mornings after he sneaks back to Calvin’s, you look like you actually slept for more than an hour. I care that on those mornings, I also see you eat breakfast. I care enough that I haven’t said anything to either of you.”
Eva looks down at her hands and mutters, “I have a hard time sleeping by myself.”
“We’re sorry,” I say again. I can feel the heat on my face as I finally look at her parents. “We’ll stop. We’ll just—”
“Oh, Bodhi,” Mrs. Calloway actually laughs as she says my name. “If I had a problem with it, I would have told you two to quit it weeks ago. You are the sole reason my daughter smiles, and if you both need each other so that you can sleep soundly at night, I’m okay with that.”
I look straight at Mr. Calloway.
“I’m okay with that, too,” he raises his eyes. “But we do have a small problem with the situation.”
“What’s that?” Eva asks.
Mrs. Calloway points at us. “You two can’t be walking between houses in the middle of the night now that Henry Channing is back.”
“Dad told you?” Eva asks.
“I’m not keeping secrets from your mom anymore.”
Eva grunts. “Took you long enough.”
“I thought we weren’t keeping secrets from each other anymore either, Eva,” Mrs. Calloway says with a tone.
Eva leans her body into the table, a telltale sign she’s getting pissed off. “One, Henry Channing literally showed up two days ago. I haven’t been home all weekend! I’ve been hiding at Bodhi’s avoiding life because I’m so sick of all of this! And two, what am I supposed to do when I have one parent wanting to know everything, and the other parent telling me not to say anything?!”
“That won’t happen anymore,” her dad bluntly remarks.
“Oh yeah?” Eva hisses. “Why is that? You finally grow some—”
I slam my hand over Eva’s mouth and pull her body into my chest. “Before this escalates into another screaming match, I’ll speak for both of us and say that it’s very hard to know what the right thing to do is anymore.” I cautiously remove my hand. “It’s getting a little out of control, trying to respect both of you, when you both want us to do something different.”
“There can’t be anymore secrets between the four of us,” Mrs. Calloway makes clear. “We are done living like that, and we won’t be living like that anymore, agreed?”
“Yes,” Eva and I reply.
“No more sneaking around,” she continues. “Drive over here, Bodhi. Don’t be walking through that path in the middle of the night.”
“I won’t,” I instantly agree. “I promise.”
“Is there anything you two need to share that we don’t already know?” Mr. Calloway questions.
I can feel Eva laugh under her breath. “Do you need specific details on everything Bodhi and I have ever done—”
“No!” her parents shout in unison.
I bury my head into Eva’s back. This is turning into one hell of a Sunday dinner.
“Is there anything you two need to share with us?” Eva inquires.
“Yes,” her dad immediately replies. I lift my head up, knowing my face is still bright red with embarrassment. “We need to talk about that year … that year I was away? The year you and your mom lived with Calvin again. I don’t want you questioning my trust anymore, and we think telling you—”
“When you say we, do you mean Mom already knows what you’re going to say?”
“I do,” Mrs. Calloway nods. “And I don’t think it’s going to surprise either one of you.”
Eva rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s nice to know you two are a united front for once.”
I squeeze her side. “Will you excuse us for a minute?” I say to her parents, and then I tug Eva up by the hand and pull her into the foyer with me. “Eva!” I cry out her name in desperation. “Your parents just told us they know I’ve been sneaking into your room at night, and they’re cool with it! They’re trying to work out their issues by not lying to each other anymore, and you’re giving them an attitude. This is what we wanted! We wanted reasons to trust them, and they’re trying to tell us these reasons, and you’re just being cold and sarcastic!”
