Page 98 of Before the Bond
It wasn't discernment. It was fear wearing sensible shoes.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter and pressed the accelerator harder. The car engine hummed. The wipers pushed a thin sheet of mist off the windshield in metronomic intervals.
I could feel my heart racing. I was scared. I was uncertain.
But for once, I wanted something.
I wasn't going back only because the bond was draining Caleb. And it wasn't simply because Greyhollow and everyone there was in danger, though both of those things were real and they both pressed on me like a hand between the shoulder blades.
I was going back because Greyhollow was what I wanted to call home.
And I was going back because Caleb was the person I wanted to love.
I drove like I had when I left. The only difference was this time I had a mission.
Despite the clouds and the growing dark, I did everything I could to cut my time.
I passed trucks. Took shortcuts. Didn’t slow down. The tires skidded on a wet bend and my stomach pitched sideways and I corrected and kept moving, because stopping was not an option I was entertaining.
Come on, I told myself.You've gotta make it.
The rain was soft but persistent.
I turned from one road to the other whenever the GPS told me to. The signal dropped twice in the mountain passes and I navigated on instinct both times, following the fir and the gradient and the specific weight of the air that had started to feel, uncomfortably, like something I recognized.
I tried not to examine that too closely.
Instead I kept my eyes on the road and my foot on the accelerator and let myself think about what I was actually doing, which was driving back toward the one place I had always reserved the right to leave, and I wasn't leaving. I was staying. I'd decided. And the decision felt less like a door opening and more like a door that had been open for a while, one I'd been walking circles around for weeks while I pretended to think about it.
Caleb had been there the whole time.
Patient, infuriatingly so, with his pale green eyes and his careful words and never making me feel like I owed him. Which was, I realized now with my knuckles white on the steering wheel, the thing that made it impossible to leave.
A person who demanded nothing was harder to walk away from than a person who demanded everything. I didn't have anywhere to put that thought, so I filed it for later and drove.
The sky turned dark and the moon began to rise.
My heart sank.
If it got too dark, it would slow me down.
I bit my lip.
As I made a turn on the road, I saw something familiar: the fog.
Gray fog, too ominous-looking for its own good, felt like a beacon in the dark. I could see the trees shift into the firs I used to avoid looking at. They were now landing lights.
Just ahead, I saw the mountain rearing above the forest.
The quiet, urgent momentum inside me kicked into high gear.
I pressed the gas harder.
It wasn't long before I saw Greyhollow — small, quiet, unchanged. All the lights were off, but I could make out the different buildings.
The Blackwater Tap, dark and still. The diner with its fogged windows. The hardware store. The main street that looked like it had always been exactly this way and wasn't apologizing for it.
Weeks ago, I thought it was temporary. Just like everything. Just another gap to fill and then move on. I remembered thinking it was too quiet. Too small. Too close to things I didn't want to think about.
