Homesick (Lesbian)

CHAPTER 16: Stalking

I didn't go home immediately. I needed to say goodbye to some things and I also needed time to recover from my breakup with Ellen Dumont. I wasn't in love and my heart didn't break, but this was still someone I had cared about. Ellen did try; she kept calling and asking to talk but the more we talked the clearer it became that we'd only end up fighting, so soon I stopped picking up her calls all together. She wasn't taking it well. Not in the sense of look how crazy she's for me. More in the sense of I don't think Ellen's ever been dumped before and her ego was bruised.

Scott did leave at the end of the month. I stayed until the end of October. I wasn't ready to go back, but then I got an email. Connor and Sheila picked a date for the wedding. November 6, which meant I had to go home. Before going back, I bought myself my dream car, a brand new Acura MDX, and rode all the way from New York, to Oregon.

Being back home felt strange. Not many things had changed but it felt different to me somehow. The first couple of days I felt bad. Like I had made a mistake. There were so many bad memories here. Lenberg is a small town which means if you and your family lived close to each other, everyone in the neighborhood knew you, and you knew everyone.

The bakery where we bought bread every morning, the park that Chester loved going to for a walk, the coal museum we went to that weird day we didn't know what to do for a date, the Mexican restaurant she loves with the owners who know us by name, even the church her dad goes to and neither of us are believers. Everything felt so ours, which meant nothing felt mine. I didn't fit anymore, but you see, that's where the people who love you come in and make things better. My mother insisted I stayed with her and Richard, at least until I could find a new place. I ended up moving into a hotel after three days because I didn't want to bother them, but they made me feel so welcomed, so comfortable all the time. Mike and Louise invited me to hang out one afternoon. Even Connor couldn't hide how happy he was to see me, when I showed up at the book store. And little by little, it became home again; home, even if I didn't share it with Riley.

But it kept nagging at me. People ignored it, of course. They didn't say her name, they pretended as best they could she didn't exist to keep themselves as impartial as they could. But that didn't mean she wasn't there. Not talking about her wasn't going to erase her from existence, life made sure I was acutely aware of that when I was driving back to my hotel about a week after coming back. I had to stop at a red light. I sighed and looked left, and there she was. Chester followed her around obediently, while she seemed to be consumed by her own thoughts. I thanked God I had bought a new car and she didn't recognize it. I still ducked, though, and waited for her to cross the street and for the red light to turn green.

For a split moment, Chester stopped crossing the street while Riley kept walking forward. I swear to you, on everything holy and pure, that freaking dog turned around and looked straight at me. His big blue Huskey eyes fixed... on me. I panicked for a moment, until Riley turned to him, whistled and called, "Come on, boy."

Chester looked away immediately and ran towards her. They both disappeared down the street. The light turned green. The car behind me had to honk at me because it took me a moment to recover from that. She was probably walking him, or doing some kind of errand and took him with her. She always did that. She took Chester everywhere she went.

Before I noticed I had done something really stupid. I parked in front of my hotel not knowing why I wasn't going inside. I stayed there for about twenty minutes before putting the car in gear and driving back.

I parked across the street, far enough away so that she wouldn't see me by accident and just... waited. For what, I'm not sure. But watching that big, blue house made me feel calmed, it made me feel things I didn't know I wasn't feeling until I looked at it, and remembered. My chest filled with something warm, soft.