Having to go home to a small minded small town is one of those things you hope you never have to do. I knew I never wanted to go back. The problem was, after 14 years of marriage, we finally found out I couldn't have kids. My husband was a lawyer who had gone into politics and he had always seemed reasonable to me, but when he divorced me, it came as a huge shock. Worse was when he took everything. The house, all of our things. I was lucky to get out with my clothes and my old car. All I had left was the old house my parents had left me in this shitty little town.
It looked almost exactly the same, nothing updated, nothing new. Just older and more faded. The house was exactly the same too. All the old furniture exactly as it had been for 50 years, the dishes in the cupboard, the old appliances. Even the clothes in my parents closet. My room was just as I left it after I had graduated highschool, right down to the Coldplay poster on the wall. There was even old homework still in the little trash can next to my old desk. It was like stepping through a time machine.
I looked around the old house, empty now for 6 years, looking for any immediate issues. Leaks in the ceiling, cracks, all the good stuff you find in a home that's been empty for years. It actually seemed pretty solid for the most part, though the old garage door was off track and permanently shut unless I could fix it. The faucet in the kitchen didn't work either, though the one in the bathroom did as long as I only wanted cold water. I went down to the basement and looked at the ancient water heater, knowing there was no way it was going to work. I had no idea what to even look at on it to see if it would turn on.
Instead of dwelling on it, I went back upstairs and sat down on the old couch, the cushions so worn down it felt like sitting on bare springs. Dust puffed up from it, making me cough and jump up, hurrying away from the cloud of it.
This really freaking sucked.
Suck it up. It could be worse. I could be stuck in a hotel spending money I didn't have while trying to pull my life back together. This could be a fresh start. A new beginning.
A new beginning right back where I'd started out and dreamed of escaping for 18 years.
I decided to tackle my parents' room first, boxing up all the clothes and other things and putting them out in the garage with the tons of boxes already out there. I would have to go through those later and maybe have a garage sale or something. Maybe I could make enough to get the hot water heater fixed?
I spent that night in my old bed after changing the linens and it felt so odd to be back in that room and that bed. It had been 17 years since I had been back here in this house. When my parents were still living, they had come to see me in their RV a few times a year and when they died, I'd had them cremated and sent to me since they were traveling when it happened. The RV had been completely totalled, burned down to a metal frame and nothing else. The house had already been locked up for them to travel so I wasn't worried about hurrying back here and taking care of it. Then I'd sort of forgotten about it until Rick had divorced me and the judge hadn't granted him this house as well, though he had tried for it. He'd gotten our house, the cabin and the summer house on the beach. I'd tried to ask him why he tried to take this house too and he yelled at me right there in the courtroom.
"You took EVERYTHING from me, Ava! Everything! You took YEARS of my life from me! You KNEW I wanted kids, a family!"
I think that was what hurt the most, the fact that he blamed me for not being able to have children, like I had tricked him somehow. And without the ability to have children, I was nothing to him at all. A doll for him to dress up and take to business parties and charity events. Someone to volunteer and organize and head up things in the community so he could brag about everything we did for the community. I was an accessory, and a disposable one at that once I became less useful.
He hadn't even waited for the divorce to finalize before he started dating a girl who was still in college. A girl who was tall and curvy, built for having children.
I'd told myself I wasn't going to cry again, but now here I was, wiping my eyes again and hating myself for being so useless. I hadn't finished college, I'd met Rick my freshman year and he'd swept me off my feet. He was much older than I was, but I hadn't cared. He took me around the world, showing me things I never imagined I would see, charming me, romancing me. When he asked me to marry him, I'd said yes without hesitating, I was so in love with him. I knew when he'd started demanding certain changes in me that it wasn't really right, but I would have done anything for him. Including a breast enhancement, lip injections, fake hair extensions. He didn't make me surgically alter my ass, that was the only thing he was already happy with, but I felt like he wanted to change everything else about me. I was fine with it, I WANTED to be perfect for him. I wanted to be everything for him.
I didn't look back once after meeting him, not to lament not finishing college or ever having a career of my own. All I knew was charity events and organizing community events and volunteering to run things during fundraisers for charities. My whole life revolved around making his life better, making him look good.
Now me, as a person, I was useless. I was nothing without him, because he was all I had lived for. I felt helpless and lost. Where did I even start? Find a job as a waitress somewhere? I wasn't qualified for anything.
No. I shook off the feeling sorry for myself and got out of bed, wiping my eyes. First things first. I started taking pictures of all of my high end name brand clothes, then I went up to the library and used their computers and internet to post the clothes in marketplace online. I would check back on them later.
From there I walked the single block to the hardware store, then had to step out of the way as a man came out backwards, talking to a man inside.
He turned and I stared up at him in horror.
Gerrid Hightower had been the quarterback, the dreamboat, the boy every girl in school had a crush on. He was still completely and utterly hot. I had never had a crush on him, but my heart still tried to stop beating as he turned and grinned down at me. Being noticed by one of the popular kids, even almost two decades later, was both thrilling and terrifying.
"Hey there," he said lightly, holding the door open for me. "You new in town?"
"Umm... yes and no."
He gave a single chuckle. "Well which is it?" he asked, stepping back inside behind me.
"I used to live here a long time ago but I moved away. I just got back yesterday."
"Well welcome back. What's your name?"
"Ava..." I answered breathlessly, wondering if he would remember me.
"Ava, pretty little name for a pretty little lady. What brings you here to this store, Ava? I'm a handyman of sorts, I can fix about anything."
"Umm... I was just going to ask a few questions about my hot water heater?"
"Oh, ask away," he grinned.
"Oh... umm... how do you turn it on? Make it work? It's a really old one, like... 50 years old."
"Well turning it on should be easy enough, what kind is it?"
"Umm... the kind that's in the basement?"
He chuckled again. "How about I come take a look?"
"Oh, no! That's ok. I was just going to ask and maybe see what I would need to fix it."
"It's no trouble, I'm off this afternoon anyway."
"No, really... I... can't afford it right now anyway, I was just figuring out how much it would cost!"
