Chapter one: You can’t run from who you were
Rain that was all I saw through the window of Beck’s car, the trees were merely dark green blurs through the droplets that covered my passenger window. I hated it here already. I made my new judgements of the town through the windscreen wipers instead, but it was nothing better than the blurs, the town was small and depressing as it always has been.
“That’s your new school, Sam” Beck said nodding to a large building we passed, I glanced at it but I wasn’t that interested, I was fine with my old school, my old friends.
“That’s nice” I muttered pulling out my phone checking it, nothing, no messages from my mother who had up and disappeared with her new husband on their new life together. Leaving me here, in this miserable part of the earth called Roseville, a place where nothing happens; there was no fun, no adventure.
“You’re already enrolled, you start tomorrow if you’d like?” he asked me glancing away from the road to see my reaction, so I didn’t give him one.
There was a silence for a moment as I scrolled through my phone.
“You’ll like it here Sammy” Beck said giving me his best father smile, he tried, he really did.
But he doesn’t know me, my mother wouldn’t let him know me, apart from the occasional times where he’d flown over to spend a week with me, but that had stopped when I hit 14.
“Uh huh”
“Are you even going to give it a try?” he asked
“Nope” I answered popping the ‘p’ “It’s depressing here, I looked up the disappearance rate on the town and let’s just say I’ll leave my stuff unpacked for a while”
“Are you trying to be difficult” Beck said holding back his frustration.
“It’s a talent Beck” I said, I really shouldn’t have because it wasn’t his fault that I'm unhappy. Calling him Beck was yet another blow to the list, he flinches at his name, but I can't start calling him Daddy when a parent needs to be around to earn that title. Besides, I’d been calling him ‘the sperm donor’ since I was 14, so Beck must be a step up.
With a sigh Beck turned up the radio station, it was blasting some random song so we wouldn’t have to talk. That’s it Beck, pretend like there isn’t a problem between us, that’s how it's always been since I was a kid, since the attack when I was 13 in the woods in this town.
I was in my father’s care, and I almost died. Ever since then if there was ever a problem he’d tune it out so he wouldn’t have to deal with it.
When we pulled up to his house the rain had finally stopped and it was just a damp feeling in the air when I shut the car door behind me, with my bag slung carelessly on my shoulder. I was tired, travelling all day to get here had taken its toll on my tolerance level, and I just wanted to go home.
I didn’t want to be here, I had made that clear when my mother had told me I was moving back. I looked out at the woods that surrounded the house, surrounded the town, like a barrier that kept everyone in and let no one out.
I hated the woods even though I know I shouldn’t fear something so harmless, so meaningless. But I did, I couldn’t help it, I almost died in that woods when I was 13, it's been 4 years and I still refused to go camping, or climb a tree. The woods wasn’t my enemy, it was what was in the woods that was.
“Hasn’t changed much has it” I declared as I walked up the creaky porch steps, I studied the overgrown rose patch that my mother had planted, the roses had withered and died years ago, just like their love had.
