Right Where You Left Me

widow's creek

All three of us are sitting in my room, chilling in silence. Kate is sprawled on my bed, flipping through her phone. Alexandra is next to her, on her own phone too. I am seated on the floor against the side of the bed, reading a book.

Nate knocks on the door. "Come in," I call, and he opens the door. He's in a pair of grey sweatpants and a black shirt. A towel is in his hand, and he runs it through his hair to dry it, only tousling it even more. His arms unintentionally flex, and I rip my eyes away from the veins on his forearm, focusing on anywhere else except his muscles.

"Whatcha doing?" he asks.

"Reading," I reply, my eyes returning to my book.

"Guys, let's go do something," Kate says, sitting up from her position on the bed. "Let's do something fun. This isn't fun."

"Reading is fun," I say without looking up from my book.

Kate plucks the book out of my hand. "Yes, but there's more to the world than your books."

"Debatable."

"C'mon, let's do something fun. You know, like what normal high schoolers do."

"Or, you could give me my book back." I yank the book from Kate and open it up again, but we're both giggling.

"Let's go to Jagged Edge," Nate suggests. "We can share a pizza or something."

I put the book down and stand up. It was kind of boring anyway. "Okay, let's go."

We walk to the diner, where Kit is working his shift. "Hey, Kit," I call, grinning, and he shoots me a smile as he washes his hands and wipes them on his apron and comes to greet us.

We slide into a booth; Nate and I on one side, Kate and Alexandra on the other. Kit leans against the table and whips out a notebook to take our orders. Since Jagged Edge is basically the only decent diner in town, almost every kid here (whether they like Kit or not) is a regular here. I order my usual; a chicken sandwich with fries and a chocolate shake. The others put in their orders and we all sit back and relax.

"How's Jenna doing?" Alexandra asks Kit, who has begun to put our orders together behind the bar.

"Jenna dumped me," he says as he drops the bread in the toaster.

There's an awkward silence around the table, and I'm the first to break it. "I'm sorry, Kit," I say. "That sucks."

He shrugs and laughs a little. "She's cheated before. I think a part of me always knew she was cheating again, but I just didn't wanna believe it, you know?"

"At least sit and eat with us, yeah?" Nate says. "We'll cheer you up."

Fifteen minutes later, all the food is ready. We're sitting with steaming plates of food and frosty shakes on the side. Kit has pulled up a chair at the edge of the table and is eating with us.

"Nate," Kit asks, taking a huge bite of his burger. "Are you gonna try out for the basketball team this year?"

Nate shrugs. "Sure. Haven't played in a while though." He shifts in his seat, then clears his throat. "I have to tell you guys something."

I raise my brows questioningly, even though I'm pretty sure I know what he's going to say. He meets my eyes and quickly looks away. "Adya and Kit already know, but, uh, I didn't actually go to a boarding school. I ran away."

Kate slurps her milkshake loudly. "Yeah, I figured," she says. "You never visited for Christmas or summer. Like, ever."

Alexandra, however looks fairly surprised. "Really? I never really pried into people's business, but I was so convinced you were having the time of your life at some rich fancy boarding school."

Nate shakes his head, grinning. "Nope, no boarding school. Just bad people and a lot of alcohol."

I lean back. "While we're on the topic of spilling our secrets, I should probably clear things up for you guys." All eyes turn to me, Nate included. I flush red under his gaze. "My mom's not in rehab. She ran away, like, three years ago, and never came back."

"I'm so sorry," Kate says, placing her hand over mine. "My dad did the same thing when I was ten. It gets better, I promise."

I smile and squeeze her hand. I have my own share of daddy issues, too; he was plain abusive to my mother and me when we were younger. I think when my mother was most vulnerable, teetering on the line between sobriety and addiction, he had been the one to push her over the edge. His abuse became too much to handle, and to cope my mother turned to the drugs. He finally left one day in seventh grade. Stumbled out of the house with a beer bottle and never came back.

He used to hit me. With his words, and his fists, and any object in his way. I would run out of the house, stumbling over my own feet, sobbing silently in the middle of the night. I would run to Nate's house, the gravel cutting the bottom of my feet. Him and Nancy would greet me with open arms, with warm blankets and bandages. Nate and I would sleep on his living room floor, in sleeping bags, smiling at each other and giggling over a silly joke.

I glance at Nate next to me, and he's staring at me. I know he's thinking the same thing. But all of that was so long ago. Memories I've blocked away because it was easier to forget about Nate than it was to find closure. Now that he's back, the memories have surfaced again, and I don't quite exactly know what to do with them.

"You okay, Ahmed?" he asks, his voice a little amused. I snap out of my daze and nod.

Alexandra speaks up. "My dad was dead sober, all the time, mainly because we literally didn't have any money for alcohol. He was just generally a really shitty guy, and I know that my mother struggles without him but we struggled more with him."

"Maybe that's why Widow's Creek is named that," Nate suggests. "Because most of the women here are widows, or women who wish their husbands were dead." The creek was originally named Willow's Creek for the large willow trees that hung over the waters, but the locals started calling it Widow's Creek and the name just stuck.

"Oh my god, you're totally right," Kate laughs. "Also, wasn't the founder of the town, like, a widow?"

Alexandra nods enthusiastically and leans forward, dropping her voice as if she's sharing a secret. "Apparently she killed her husband because he hit her. And then she went and founded Woodvale and a bunch of women came here looking for, like, a safe refuge from their husbands. It's a really cool story, I wrote an essay on it last year for history."

"Abusive husbands were so normal back then," I say sadly. Then I realize something. "I guess abusive husbands are still really normal. At least, they're normal here."

"If I ever see any of your dads, I'm beating the shit out of them," Kit says. We all laugh, including Kit, but there's a seriousness in his eyes that tell me he's not entirely joking. His dad is one of his biggest role models; he left for the army when Kit was younger, but they call and write to each other all the time. I admire their relationship, and how strong it is even though they're thousands of miles away from each other.

Everyone's spoken about their parents now, except Nate. I already know the story behind his parents. I know where his dad is, and where is mother was, and why he doesn't speak to either of them anymore. He could shrug and nonchalantly tell us how his mother died of cancer when he was five, and his dad fled away with his mistress. He could casually explain how Nancy and Rick were left to raise him, and Rick was the only father figure Nate ever knew. He could describe the crushing grief he felt when Rick died; the disappointment when his father didn't show up to Rick's funeral. He could explain to us the bag he packed the next night, the coins he took from the front counter, the note he taped to my screen door. The bus he took out of Woodvale.

But Nate doesn't explain anything. He simply sips his milkshake, quiet and content, and no one asks him to explain anything.