The Reunion

Chapter 1 - Karlie

Karlie stared out the airplane window, watching the patches of fields and forests blur beneath. The hum of the engines was a dull backdrop to the chaos in her mind. She clenched the armrest as the seatbelt sign turned on, signaling the descent into the town she had vowed years ago she would never return to.

Over the intercom, the captain spoke in a crackled voice, announcing their imminent arrival and alerting them of the massive heat wave that they would soon feel once they were out of the airport. They hit a patch of turbulence, but Karlie's churning stomach couldn't be blamed on the bumpy descent alone. Just thinking of the messages, the ones she had received from her aunt yesterday, brought her back to the harrowing notion that she would be facing her father in less time than she would care to. She would have to share the same room, the same air, as the man who had pushed her away with harsh words and cold silences, who now lay motionless in a hospital bed needing her help.

Her stomach dropped just as quickly as the plane when the wheels finally touched the tarmac. Returning felt like a trap – a very well, thought out and planned trap. She sighed, tapping her fingers on her thigh as she waited her turn to stand and grab her luggage overhead.

Karlie wasn't the same naïve girl who had fled this town in tears, tail tucked tightly between her legs. No, she was tougher now, maybe even because of it. But was she tough enough to face the man who had broken her in more ways than one?

She inhaled deeply as she stood waiting for the rest of her luggage at the baggage claim, bracing herself for the inevitable. She hoped it would help steady her, but could she really handle what waited for her beyond the airport doors? How do you heal a wound that has been festering for years? Was it even something she wanted to heal?

Stepping out of the air-conditioned terminal, Karlie was hit by a wall of heat. She half expected Pennsylvania to be cooler, but the sweltering wave that greeted her felt like an annoying reminder of home in Florida. Yet, it was different—heavier, more suffocating, as if the weight of her past was pressing down on her along with the sun overhead.

"Jesus," she muttered as she hoisted her luggage into the trunk of her rental car. Sweat trickled down her back, her shirt sticking to her skin as she opened the driver's side door.

The air was thick with humidity, and every breath felt like a chore. Karlie fumbled with the keys; fingers slick with a now nervous sweat. She blasted the AC and slumped back into the seat, waiting for the stifling air inside the car to cool.

She tapped in the hospital's address into her phone and pulled the rental onto the highway. It had been almost ten years since she had been back, and she could still vividly remember when to avoid the potholes in the road.

She chuckled when she unconsciously swerved a little out of the lane, crossing the solid white line, just to avoid the same hole right near exit 28, that had been there since before she had left.

Everything looked the same as it had, but it all felt different. The once comforting sight of the rolling hills and dense greenery now seemed foreign. She had lived an entire life outside of this county's lines.

When she pulled off the highway and onto familiar backroads, they twisted like the memories she had tried to forget.

***

"You know that girl down the street, the one you used to ride the bus with?" Dad asked as he lifted the hood of Karlie's Honda Civic.

"Rachel?" Karlie asked, her brow furrowed.

"Yeah, Rachel. Do you still hang out with her?" He asked.

"No, not really. She hangs out with mostly upperclassmen now. She's always with Ryan and Carrie. They both live in the neighborhood on the other side of the elementary school." She pointed in the direction of the school, but her dad wasn't paying attention.