Page 34 of Kill Your Darlings

Between the houses and twisted oaks, I caught glimpses of the old cemetery on the hill, marble headstones leaning like recumbent stones on an archeology dig site.

A little chill slithered down my spine.It was a very old burial ground, dating back to the 1800s.Nobody had been buried there in decades.That I knew of.

Anyway, there was another historic cemetery over by the art colony, which was theoretically still in use.Back in the day, people bought family plots, sometimes large enough to accommodate generations.My father, who had made no final plans, was buried in Skylawn Memorial Park in San Mateo, about thirty miles away.It could have been Mars.Either way, I was never going to visit his grave.

A lot of the homes through here were now rentals or Airbnbs.Freshly painted and newly landscaped, their colors glistened bright and clean against the dull, sea-stained clapboard of their neighbors.In fact, I almost missed our house as I rounded the last bend in the road, the once dusty blue siding now painted pristine white, the tall, multipaned windows gleaming like polished crystal.The ragged memory of lawn had been replaced by glittering white stone and some kind of driftwood sculpture.Very beach cottage-y.

I parked on the sandy apron in front of the house, the engine ticking as it cooled.For a few seconds, I just sat there, fingers clenching the key I’d dug out of the back of my desk drawer in New York.My heart was thumping unpleasantly.

After all, I wasn’t sure my key would even still work.The locks could have been changed after the renovation.

Which would probably be for the best.

Finally, I got out of the car and went through the gate, walking past the FOR SALE sign in the front yard.Seashell chimes hung from the porch rafters, clinking dully in the warm, still air.Sunlight filtered through the overgrown branches of the neighboring house’s trees, casting thin, lacy shadows across the freshly painted wood siding.

The newly sanded and varnished porch steps creaked beneath my weight.Sweat broke out on my forehead as I reached the front door—now painted a bright and cheery sea blue.

What I’d told Kyle was true.I wasn’t sentimental.So why was I—

My key slid easily into the lock, the mechanism turning with a flat, metallic click.The door swung inward, the sudden rush of cool, stale air carrying the faint, unmistakable scent of fresh paint and sanded wood.

Unfamiliar.Safe.

I stepped inside, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dim, echoing space.The walls, once papered in faded floral patterns, were now a stark, antiseptic white.The dark wooden floors, scuffed and scratched with twelve-plus decades of foot traffic—the house had been built in 1900—had been sanded, stained, and varnished.

I moved from room to room, the sound of my rubber soled footsteps ghostly in the hollow emptiness.

The house felt stripped, sanitized; the past scoured away with harsh, industrial cleansers.The tall, multipaned windows that once framed views of wind-battered oaks and the overgrown front garden now offered a stark, lonely view of the gravel drive and a short privacy wall of new plantings to shield this yard from the neighbors.The Jennings back in my day.I wondered who lived next door now.

The kitchen, once cluttered with dusty knickknacks and miscellanea, mismatched pots and pans, now gleamed with cold, impersonal granite and stainless-steel appliances.I ran my fingers over the cool, sharp edges of the counter, the faint chemical tang of cleaning agents lingering in the air.

The small breakfast nook where my father, brooding and hungover, would sit drinking his morning coffee and staring out at the wild, overgrown garden, was gone, the windows replaced, sunlight shining on an empty space.

I turned down the narrow hall to the back of the house, my heart resuming its painful thud as I reached the door of my old bedroom.

My hand hovered over the knob as I remembered things I did not want to remember.The “faggot” books that went into the trash, the little stray cat I’d wanted so desperately to keep, the punches that came out of nowhere when I least expected them, the college acceptance letters I’d found tucked away in his desk.

For long moments I stood there, breathing quietly, softly, struggling with it.

There’s something wrong with you.

You hear it often enough, you begin to believe it.

When I finally turned the handle, the door swung open smoothly, silently, the hinges freshly oiled.But then I’d had always kept the hinges well-oiled.The room was completely empty, stripped of everything that I remembered, everything that had made it mine.Even the built-in bookshelves were gone.

It was just a clean and tidy white box.

My eyes blurred in hot, unwilling reaction and the late afternoon light slanted through the large windows, distorted in attenuated, skeletal shadows across the freshly painted walls.

I exhaled slowly, shakily, and turned, pulling the door shut behind me with a soft, final click.

“Keiran?”

I was getting into my car when I heard someone call my name.

I looked around in confusion and saw a tall, slim woman in jeans and red T-shirt walking rapidly up the road toward me.She had short salt-and pepper hair and looked to me like she was maybe in her fifties.

“Yes?”

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