2005—CURRENT DAY

Ambivalence. The word stuck in Tori’s mind like bubble gum in hair, the rhythm of its vowels and consonants moving at the speed of her tires over bumpy asphalt. Each letter of the word could be found sprinkled over Garden Hills as ubiquitous as pollen, touching every square mile of the town. Not a big town, but not a small one. Not a rich town, but not a poor one. Wooded and mountainous on one side, flat and listless on the other. A railroad track that announced itself with X-shaped warning signs and red lamps, but no trains had shrieked against the rails in over seventy years. A town stuck in the past like a Wild West facsimile, yet had changed enough to disorient Tori as she rode down the single county road serving as the only entrance and exit to Garden Hills. It looked as if it had waited for her return—buildings and fixtures standing in the same place—but also like it had moved on without her.

Their car took them through the downtown—a generous term for one intersection of shops, family-owned restaurants, and standard utilities. Climbing up the hills which gave the town its name, Tori gazed upon it from the perfect view each block possessed due to the intentional way rich prospectors blew into the sides of the mountains and dropped luxury homes. From here, the town and much of the unimpressive county lay at their feet, the industrial park just outside the town limits and the busy interstate highway winding around the homes in the valley like a noose.

Several blocks from her own home, the car’s dashboard lights blinked, and all at once the car stopped. Tori understood deeply—she, too, would rather die on the side of the road than go back home. Her fiancé, Ben, got out of the driver’s seat, ostensibly to check under the hood. Reaching over, she pulled the lever to unlatch the hood, knowing full well Ben had no idea what to do. After a minute or two, he closed the hood and looked at her through the windshield, laughing.

“Babe, I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

Tori chuckled and exited the car to join him near the front bumper. “Really? Your ‘looking concerned at the engine’ face is pretty convincing.”

“Yeah? Do I give off big ‘frustrated dad on the side of the road during a family road trip’ vibes?”

“Definitely.” Rows of McMansions blocked the view uphill, but Tori knew they were close. “I guess we could call my parents?”

“Please don’t,” he replied quickly. “The last thing I need is to show up at your parents’ house with my car on the end of a tow truck. Can you imagine the look your mother would give me? I would turn to stone and the gardener would drag me onto the lawn with the rest of the sculptures.” He sighed. “I’ll get it towed to a shop.”

Tori’s heart skipped a beat. “Right. Okay. Probably one close by, I’d think.” She knew.

Tapping on his cell phone, Ben walked in the street to chase better cell service. Tori rested on the side of the car and stared out into Garden Hills. Behind downtown, over the railroad track, smaller homes stood in neat rows like sets of teeth. Hemmed in by trees, Tori traced the blocks in between with her memory. Eyes closed, she vividly recalled cruising those streets with her head back, the summer heat blowing in through the open window and cooling her glistening skin. One hand out the window, the other clasped in the strong grip of someone else. Feeling unlimited and invincible in the way only teenagers can. Now twenty-two, light-years away from the teenager who soaked up summer nights, Tori stood at the edge of her old town, deathly afraid of it. Her memories lurked around every corner, waiting to rob her of the armor she’d built to keep hidden the sad, heartbroken girl who left Garden Hills and never looked back.

Ben sat next to her on the side of his expensive sedan, folding his hands in his khaki lap. In the context of Garden Hills, Ben fit perfectly, just as she thought he would. His placid demeanor, model good looks, Lacoste wardrobe; everything about him screamed “I am comfortable in a mostly white, small suburb.”

“Pretty town.” Ahead of them summer gasped out its dying breaths, the green foliage resisting the encroaching yellow touching the tips of the leaves. A mild breeze jiggled the branches, marbling the sunlight across the grass. Idyllic and banal, just as she remembered.

“It is.” Garden Hills never lacked for beauty. What it lacked for Tori ran deeper than the flora and fauna.

“I’m looking forward to seeing it. The town that built Tori Lockwood,” he said, imitating great fanfare. “Plus, it’s not every day you get to attend a Sweet Sixteen as a twenty-six-year-old man. Gonna try out my sick dance moves at the party.”

“It’s laser tag, Ben. There isn’t any dancing.”

“Not with that attitude there isn’t.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “I hope we get to see some of the town.”

“You did. That’s the town. Two elementary schools—one nearby and one across town. The middle school and high school share one building, right there.” She pointed to a plus-sign-shaped building to their left. “The industrial park over there? That’s where Lockwood Industries is. It’s a boring office building surrounded by other boring office buildings. There’s the duck pond and the park, which are fine, I guess. And, on the other mountain over there, a make-out spot for horny teens. Our downtown is one block.”

Ben nodded along like he understood, but for a man raised in a luxury suburb of Boston, Garden Hills likely looked like a sandbox in comparison. “Nothing like Boston, huh? The bars here probably won’t even play a Sox game.” Sensing tension, she looked up at him to find his face pensive. “I’m sure coming back for you is tough. I know your relationship with your parents is…strained.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Tori fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. She kept Ben’s knowledge of her relationship with her parents fairly limited. Better to ease into the dysfunction than baptize him in it. “I’m only here for Ward. I left him here alone with them for five years. I owe him. I mean, we’re lucky Ward is still a boy and not metastasized into whatever deep sea creature Mother would like to groom him into.”

Ben grimaced. “Now I can’t stop imagining your mother as Ursula from The Little Mermaid.”

“Yeah right, she wishes she had the gravitas of Ursula.”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss against her temple. “Well, I can’t be entirely negative about your parents, because they made you.”

“You’re just saying that because they love you.” Of course they did, because Ben represented everything her parents valued. A third son of an old-money family from Massachusetts, the only kid to follow into the family law firm. Their roots dug so deep, he had an ancestor on the Mayflower. Pedigree, money, whiteness—a dream for Cassandra and Victor Lockwood, Sr. “It’s just going to be exhausting. The reunion is whatever, and Ward’s party is fine, but this stupid award dinner is basically going to be my debutante ball. Where Dad introduces me to the old men who will be my subordinates because it wouldn’t be Lockwood Industries without massive nepotism.”

“Maybe it’s nepotism, but you’re smart, you’ve got a degree, and there’s no reason why you can’t step into a CEO role.”

“Not wanting to isn’t enough reason, I guess,” she mumbled, drowned out by the crunching of gravel behind them. Ben strolled toward the oncoming pickup truck as Tori ducked into the passenger seat to grab her purse and phone. Rummaging around the passenger side floorboard, she heard the tow truck driver’s voice call to them.

“Hey, you the one who called? Ben?” A pair of boots thunked against the asphalt. “I’m Leah. What seems to be the problem?”

No, no, no. Tori’s breath caught and she froze, bent over in the passenger seat. Air rushed around her, a hurricane of anxiety where she sat in the eye, anything but calm. It couldn’t be her voice because every other sentence out of her mouth was about getting out of Garden Hills. Those couldn’t be her boots because she said she’d never set foot in this town again. But her voice, its low rasp and familiar intonation, Tori could pluck it out of thousands of voices. A voice she heard whisper, banter, moan, and sing. A voice that told her the sweetest words she’d ever heard, and then never spoke to her again.

Ben scratched his short brown hair and sighed. “Oh, man, I don’t even know. I’m garbage with cars. The lights inside went nuts and then the thing died.”

“Okay. Let me take a look.” As Leah came into full view around Ben, Tori dropped her purse and phone. Rooted in place, hands outstretched, she stared at Leah in open shock. A thousand memories swarmed her like bees, but she kept immobile, lest one of them sting. Tori struggled to find a coherent emotion among the many battling for dominance. Dejection, bittersweet nostalgia, and oddly, relief, as if she could finally expel the breath she’d stored in her lungs for five years.

Their eyes met and Leah paused in her step, boots kicking loose gravel down the road. Her eyes, always so wonderfully expressive, conveyed surprise and perhaps even excitement for the briefest of moments. They then quickly moved to Ben, then to Tori, and dismay ghosted across her face before she banished her emotions. The chilling effect unexpectedly devastated Tori, and she clutched her stomach in the place Leah’s eyes hollowed out.

“Pop the hood for me?”

“You got it.” Ben did as told and Leah lifted the hood to inspect the machine. Unlike Ben, Leah could divine a car’s problem like tea leaves. Tori watched her do it many times, instinctually finding issues even Leah’s experienced father couldn’t spot. After long, agonizing minutes of inspection and testing and ignoring Tori’s presence, Leah took a few steps back and placed her hands on her hips.

“I think it’s your alternator, but I won’t know for sure until I get it to my shop. I can tow you there, or I can tow it somewhere else if you want.” Leah’s gaze flitted up the road, in the direction toward Tori’s childhood home. “If you’re not too far from where you’re going.”

Ben glanced at Tori, who only now picked up her phone and purse off the ground, hands trembling. “We have to get it fixed, I’d think. Is that cool, babe?”

“It’ll have to be,” Tori replied in a strangled voice. “Otherwise, we’re walking.”

Leah smirked. “It is a long walk back to town. Good thing it isn’t raining.”

Dumbstruck, Tori stood off to the side of the road with Ben as Leah hooked the car up to the tow truck. Her father’s auto shop didn’t used to do any towing, but Leah appeared to know her way around it. What else had changed? Did she still only drive with her left hand, firmly placed at twelve o’clock? Did she still keep her guard up, letting only the lucky ones in? Did someone reside in her heart now?

Once she secured the car to the truck, Leah jerked her thumb toward it. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“Oh, nice. Thanks!” Ben climbed into the cab of the truck in the middle of the bench seat, and Tori sandwiched herself between him and the door. The interior of the car smelled fresh, like leather cleaner and pine. Terribly neat, which came as no surprise, as Leah had always kept her car immaculate. A small cross dangled from the rearview mirror, a pack of gum thrown into the cubby below the radio, and a black CD binder lived on the floor near Tori’s feet. Currently, a CD played soft rock at a decent volume, though none of them tried to speak over it. Well, except for Ben. “So, is this your shop we’re going to?”

“No, it’s my dad’s.”

“Neat, a family business. Have you always worked for him?”

Curse Ben and his insatiable curiosity about other people. Normally, Tori found it kind of charming, but right now she wanted to throttle him. “Pretty much. Other than when I was away at college.”

“Oh yeah? Where did you go?”

“MIT.”

“No kidding! Practically neighbors! Tori and I went to Harvard.” Ben slapped himself on the forehead. “Where are my manners? Yikes. This is my fiancée, Tori.”

Tori watched carefully as Leah withdrew her sunglasses from her pocket and placed them over her eyes. Even with her shield up, Tori caught the furrow of angst drawn between her eyebrows. Leah nodded but didn’t respond, her fingers clenched the steering wheel until her knuckles nearly turned white.

Drumming his palms on his thighs to the music, Ben spotted Leah’s thick CD binder on the floor and eagerly nabbed it. “Wow, this is a lot of CDs. Most people do MP3s now, right? Old school, though. I like it.”

“You can’t touch that,” Tori said automatically. Ben’s curious gaze tilted to her and she picked out Leah’s snickering over the music and the ambient road noise. “I mean—it’s her car and her music. I’m sure she doesn’t want us pawing through her stuff.”

Ben placed the binder on the floor with the exaggerated precision of Indiana Jones switching out an artifact. “My bad.”

“It’s fine,” Leah replied coolly. “I prefer discs. I don’t like music I can’t touch.”

Ben smiled. “I can dig that.”

The conversation died down as they turned down the block toward the shop. VASQUEZ AUTO SHOP used to blare in big metal letters atop the garage door, visible from blocks away. In its place, the marquee read: VASQUEZ FAMILY AUTO.

Leah pulled in backward and the three of them climbed out of the cab, their football echoing off the cement walls. Ben and Tori stood to the side as Leah methodically removed the car from the tow. “I’ll park the truck and be right back.”

Stepping away, Tori ran her hand along a bright red toolbox, inhaling the scent of oil and rubber. Her olfactory senses sent her hurtling through time, back to when this shop functioned as a third home for her. Perhaps if it looked the same, she’d have drifted into the past even further, but modern upgrades like computers and new machinery grounded her in the present, as well as the lack of music. Years ago, anyone within five feet of the shop could hear Hector’s traditional Mexican music playing from an unseen old stereo. The eerie quiet unnerved her.

But not as much as Leah unnerved her. Tori silently took her in as she strutted across the floor of the shop upon her return. The blue machinist jumpsuit hugged her more closely than it had as a teenager, emphasizing a broader, more athletic physique. She’d tied her big, wild curls up into a ponytail, a red bandana hung loosely around her neck, and the same worn, clunky boots on her feet. Still achingly gorgeous, making Tori’s insides clench with no effort at all.

Leah, however, didn’t appear affected by her. This infuriating indifference made Tori want to grab her by the lapels and shake her, demanding an answer for the feelings she engendered without permission. Tori jammed her hands in her pockets instead.

“I’ll need at least an hour. I’ll give you a call and read you the estimate, and you can tell me how you want to proceed.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about the estimate. If you can fix it, I don’t care what it costs. Consider it a blank check to make sure I don’t roll up to my future in-laws on a bicycle with their daughter in the front basket.”

Leah pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and nodded in agreement. Gazing into Leah’s eyes, Tori lost sight of everything else in the room. For a single, dizzying, insane moment, she considered throwing her arms around Leah and hugging her tight. But you can’t embrace an open flame, and that’s what Leah was. Crackling, burning, magnetizing, luring her in. The instinct to draw closer to her became almost too powerful to ignore.

Disturbed by the frightening sharpness of her urge, Tori slid closer to Ben. Leah looked between them, where Ben had casually taken her hand in his. “Fine by me. I have your number. I’ll call when I’m done.”

Her gruff dismissal couldn’t put off cheery Ben. “Sounds good. Any recommendations for a quick bite while we wait?”

“The diner is close, and the food’s good. The industrial park is a bit of a walk from here, but they’ve got food trucks. Better food, longer walk. And there’s always the Starbucks, I guess.”

Ben frowned. “I look like I drink yuppie coffee, don’t I?”

“Little bit.”

“Is it the khaki pants?”

She nodded toward the car. “The Beamer doesn’t help.”

“Gosh, that’s true. Nuts. Well, thanks for the help, Leah.”

After giving a quick wave Leah did not return, Ben led them back out into the street. Just one block off the main road, they walked together around the corner toward the diner. The streets smelled strongly of fresh asphalt, and Tori noticed the unblemished yellow lines bisecting the road. A facelift, she figured, as they passed quaint streetlamps and sophisticated garbage cans. Maybe the money in the hills had finally trickled downtown.

“I’m famished. This diner any good?”

Tori nodded absentmindedly, watching her feet as they walked down the block. “The food is good, but it’s just a diner.”

Of course, it wasn’t just a diner, it was their diner, but that didn’t matter. One of many places they’d painted their love, splashing it in bright neons across Tori’s memory, only to be washed away by time and intentional scrubbing.

She and Ben grabbed a booth and a young waitress immediately popped up to take their order. Tori caught her admiring Ben, an almost comically common occurrence. Good-looking and polite, Ben charmed just about anyone he met. Still, no matter how beautiful the woman—or man—who gave him attention, or how shamelessly they flirted with him, the attention only ever embarrassed him. Besides, Tori simply didn’t have the energy to be jealous.

“Did you come here back in the day?” Ben asked, leaning on the Formica table.

“Not a lot. I do know the food is exponentially better than the décor.”

“These kinds of places always have the best food, right? And this is a lot cleaner than some of the spots we’ve been to in Boston, for sure.” He gave an appreciative look at the place as a whole, its dust-covered knickknacks and wallpaper yellowed from the days before it became unfashionable to smoke indoors. His eyes dropped to the bench, where he shifted in his seat to look at something. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Somebody carved in the seat.” He tilted his head as the color drained from Tori’s face. Unbeknownst to Ben, she inhaled shallow breaths, gripping her seat like her life depended on it. If she let go, she would surely slingshot into the past. “Let’s see. What is that, ‘honk’? Why would someone take the time to carve ‘honk’? I guess maybe a clown enthusiast. Or a car enthusiast. Oh, or a clown car enthusiast.”

“Ben.”

“What else do we have here? An LV over a VL. Weird. Looks like roman numerals. Who carves roman numerals into a seat?”

“I—I don’t know. Probably the same person who carves the word ‘honk.’”

She knew. She knew exactly who. The “who” took shape like a desert mirage, shimmering to life in the seat across from her. In Ben’s place sat the younger versions of herself and Leah, cozied into each other and lost to the rest of the world. Wrapped in her warm embrace, her nose tucked into the crook of Leah’s neck, breathing in the salty musk of her skin. Tracing the divots in between her knuckles, outlining the tiny cuts on her hands. The same hands that wielded the knife and carved their initials into the booth, marking it as theirs forever.

But forever is just a promise you make and don’t intend to keep.