Page 130 of Through the Flames
The church steeple still stabbed at the sky like a finger wagging down at me.
As Hunter’s truck rolled slowly over the uneven pavement, I felt seventeen again just from looking out the window. Every storefront held a memory I didn’t care to relive.
There was the bakery where I used to buy my favorite red velvet cupcakes until I couldn’t endure the whispers and accusing stares anymore. There was the dress shop where Mrs. Calhoun hissed, “Bless her heart,” loud enough for me to hear.
And last but most certainly not least, the church steps where the youth group girls stood in a perfect row, avoiding my gaze after Sunday service.
Hunter parked at the curb. “This it?”
“This is it,” I said, though my throat burned around the words.
Why the fuck had I mentioned wanting to get a milkshake?Way to self-sabotage, Ella.
Maybe I’d get lucky, and we wouldn’t bump into any of the people I was trying to avoid.
Yeah, right.I pursed my lips at my delusions, shaking my head as I climbed out of his truck.
We started down the sidewalk, his hand brushing mine once, twice, until he just took it, his hold firm and steady. It should’ve calmed me.
Instead, every step felt like walking into a glaring spotlight when I hadn’t even agreed to be on a fucking stage.
A group of older men hunched on the bench outside the feed store fell silent as we passed. One of them spit tobacco juice into a Styrofoam cup and muttered something I couldn’t catch.
The others chuckled low, the kind of laugh you don’t have to hear all the words to understand.
“Ignore it,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“I won’t ignore shit,” Hunter said, his voice as sharp as razor blades. But he didn’t stop walking.
We passed First Baptist Church, which had definitely seen better days, with peeling white paint on the columns. Still, the wooden sign out front boldly proclaimed in big block letters:REPENT OR BE LEFT BEHIND.
My stomach lurched. I remembered standing in those pews, trying not to cry, while Pastor Reed thundered about sin and temptation. His words landed like stones.
I remembered the choir singing “Just as I Am” while the whole town watched me as a cautionary tale, a girl gone wrong.
Hunter didn’t say anything, but his hand tightened around mine. The kind of grip promising violence if anyone so much as looked at me wrong.
I swallowed hard, forcing air into my lungs which felt like paper bags ready to crumple. “Come on,” I said, tugging him toward the corner. “The diner’s just up here.”
But with every step, I felt like I was walking into an ambush. It sat on the corner of Main Street, just across from the Piggly Wiggly, like a monument refusing to die.
A neon “EATS” sign buzzed overhead with half the letters burned out, and a row of mud-splattered pickup trucks lined the gravel lot.
Inside, everything was the same as always: the cracked vinyl booths, the smell of burnt coffee and fryer grease, and the regulars stationed at the counter. Nothing in this town ever changed.
I used to think leaving would make this place seem smaller. But coming back made me feel small instead.
Hunter held the door for me, his broad frame nearly filling it. His hand rested on the small of my back as we walked in, heavy and grounding. It stayed there when we slid into a booth, as if to remind the entire diner I wasn’t alone anymore.
“You good?” he asked in a low voice, like gravel rolling.
I lied. “Yeah. Totally.”
I wasn’t.
Every breath here tasted like seventeen. Like shame and whispers and locker doors slamming behind me.
But Hunter wanted to see where I was raised. Idiot that I was, I was determined to be brave and prove I wasn’t scared anymore.
