Dancing With Keenan

Chapter Four - Empty Promises

"I'm so freakin' late," I muttered, turning onto the street that I had lived on two years ago.

The day had not been in my favor. After waking up on the floor this morning and getting stuck behind a wreck on my way to class, things had only gone downhill. I'd been a good forty minutes late to my Poetic Expression class this morning, and then, as if to add insult to injury, my Greek Literature class had run nearly an hour over. Where I should've been leaving the college district at about twelve-thirty, leaving time to stop for lunch before heading to Keenan's, I was just leaving class at one-thirty, which only gave me thirty minutes to make the hour-long drive.

I ran through a drive through on the way out of town, since I, of course, hadn't eaten breakfast, and that left me running even later.

That is how I ended up getting pulled by a highway patrolman for going seventy in a five-five zone. Not good at all.

So, it was now pushing two-thirty, and I still had about a fifteen-minute drive to go before I would reach the house. My phone started ringing and I let out a sigh when I saw the name that popped up on the screen in my car.

"Hello?" I answered the call.

"Did you get lost?" Keenan's voice came through the speakers, just a hint of teasing on that husky tone.

"No. Class ran late and I got a bloody ticket."

"Yeah, there was a wreck last summer. Little girl died. Cops are bad by Daly's Bridge now."

"Could'a warned me," I grumbled.

"I didn't expect you to be speeding! You used to yell at me for that, remember."

I sighed. "I remember, Keenan."

"How far out are you?"

I looked at the scenery outside of my car. The church was right there, sending a jolt of pain through my mind and heart.

"Five minutes," I forced out.

"I'll let the others know," he said, ending the call with a click.

I took one last glance at the old brick church and focussed on finding the turn-off to the house. The trees alongside the road had grown in the last two years, and more houses had been built here and there. I almost missed the fence-lined dirt path on the right. Last I'd been here, there wasn't a fence, and there hadn't been a private road sign, but it was the same rutted dirt lane curving around trees and fields before opening up to an old farmhouse.

"Kalya's Trail," I read out as I turned onto the path.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. Keenan must've had that added whenever he'd come back to town.

The old farmhouse was the same as it had always been, maybe just a little rougher around the edges. It was time to paint the siding, and the concrete planters on the front porch were empty now, but I could still see the daisies and lilacs I'd once planted.

I remembered how hard we'd worked for this house, and I wondered if he'd paid it off the same way I'd paid my tuition.

I let out a shaking breath as I parked and turned off the car. Keenan's '68 Dodge Challenger was still parked around the side of the house, under a carport that had been added sometime after the original home had been built.

Two other cars I didn't recognize were parked along the path, but I figured they belonged to the rest of the band.

I took in a deep breath and forced myself out the car, violin case and all. My heart was already racing as I pushed open the front door. It creaked just a little bit, just as it had always done.