14 years later
Who else died for you?
The wooden billboard in the gravel lot of Glome's Valley First Baptist Church questioned all passing vehicles with a menacing question.
The red script, carefully hand-painted half a century ago, peeled up in random places, uncovering the rotten wood beneath. An almost unrecognizable crown of thorns lay painted at the bottom of the board, bleached after years spent underneath the Oklahoma sun.
Dove Bravermen stared up at the sign from the safety of her 1999 Ford Taurus.
The dim electronic clock on her half-broken radio told her she had five minutes left to shove down all her feelings before the funeral began.
She pushed her blinder down and popped the mirror open. Car mirrors were always unkind, but Dove imagined she could look worse.
Her grey eyes were framed with taupe-colored shadow and black lashes. The dullness of her pale skin couldn't be helped, no matter how much concealer and moisturizer she slapped on last night.
Fourteen hours ago, she was in Colorado, nursing her second glass of cheap wine and preparing to finish the night with the company of a handsome, but pretentious, med student.
Men were always more attractive with a "doctor" before their name. Unfortunately, degree or not, they managed to be just as infuriating.
Dove had been driving since midnight.
Her brother, Jonathon, called at 11:30 p.m.
She sent him to voicemail, like she did to everyone from her past.
He knew just what to say, even when she wouldn't answer.
Cedric LeCruz is dead. Funeral's tomorrow. It'd be nice if you'd come home. I imagine you probably won't.
A week ago, Dove planned to never step foot into Oklahoma again, much less her hometown.
This morning, she found herself within a mile-radius of every first she ever went through—first beer, first love, first smoke, first I-need-to-get-the-hell-out-of-this-place.
"You're fine," Dove promised her reflection. "You're fine, even if you don't think you are. I swear."
She patted her palms on the soft dark linen of her button-down skirt. It was easy to find an outfit for a funeral. She could clothe two dozen mourners with her closet.
She only survived the night by taking energy drinks like liquor shots and blasting her radio at full volume. When her eyes would droop, she sang frantically to well-worn lyrics until her head hurt from the noise.
This wasn't how she imagined her homecoming.
Dove was supposed to come home in a luxury car. She would be thirty-one, childless, and married to someone with old money. Her curly black hair would finally be tamed enough not to frizz in the humidity. Her face would have a tasteful amount of Botox to help fend off fine-lines.
She was only twenty-two-years-old now, and she was thankful she could now legally buy alcohol from Jerry's Liquor Store. Not that she would, rumors followed her wherever she went in Glome's Valley.
She didn't need to confirm the town's theory that all Bravermen were drunks.
"It's now or never," she whispered.
She swung her door open. Instantly, she was met with the frigid December air.
Before she moved to Colorado for her undergrad degree, she used to think Oklahoma winters lasted forever. As a teenager, when she shivered the days away, she dreamed of summer nights spent around bonfires and in rivers skinny-dipping.
YOU ARE READING
Little Bird | Book One
Romance"I said I would protect her," Finn's voice cut through the tension in the air like a glass shard to soft skin. "I didn't say she wouldn't be scared." "I don't-" Dove begged. She hated it. Hated the way the howls only grew louder, and how she couldn...
