Page 11 of Mouse
CHAPTER FIVE
Ingram
I was home. I felt it the moment my feet hit the sandy paved driveway. The scent of salt water filled my nose the same time the stickiness of the humidity in the air washed over my skin and I felt a calm wrap around me so tightly.
The drive here had been long, or it felt longer than it was. Traveling with a toddler wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world, but I did it and now we were here.
The moment I walked into Chris and Ky’s house, I felt a warmth I hadn’t felt in nearly two years. Only now it seemed to be warmer. Everyone had been there to welcome me back. And the best thing was that no one treated me oddly. I wasn’t an outcast. I wasn’t some strange girl that had been sheltered her entire life. I wasn’t a teenage girl that had ended up pregnant and lost and scared out of my mind.
As they all hugged me and smiled, I felt whole.
The best part was, I’d been back nearly three weeks now and that feeling hadn’t waned.
Despite being a little nervous about returning, I had support everywhere I turned. I had family and friends. Cami and Laurel acted as if I hadn’t even been gone. Well, except for all the questions of what I did while I was away. We had talked a few times while I’d been away but I could tell they were trying to give me the space I needed to figure out the answers I was seeking. Now I was back, and the world instantly felt right.
At first, I stayed at the beach house. I didn’t leave because I needed to settle in. Oh, and Chris basically hogged all my time. Which, I didn’t mind at all. I thought of him like a big brother. A bigcoolbrother. While Ky was my actual brother, he was more of that overly protective type. The truth was, the two of them were all I could ever ask for. They complemented each other so well and when Ky got too big brotherly, Chris was there to calmly get him to take it down a bit.
Even if Ky didn’t come right out and say it, I could see the relief on his face now that I was back. I knew he worried about me. I mean, he went crazy when I told him that I wanted to go away. He got into a fight with Mouse and everything because he didn’t want to let me go.
Mouse had been a good friend then. I didn’t know why I found it easy to tell him all the things I tried to keep buried, but I did. I supposed I could have blamed it on all the hormones from having a baby and whatnot, but I didn’t really think that was it. So like an amazing friend, Mouse did some research and found Glow Woods Sanctuary. He had one of the other club members look into the facility to make sure that it wasn’t some fake place. When he found out it wasn’t, he sat me down and told me all about it.
The name threw me at first. Mouse explained that part of it was an animal sanctuary that helped to rehabilitate injured wildlife and then release them back into the wild. But the other part was set up for people like me. People raised in controlling cult-like environments or had been severely abused by their caregivers. I think they wanted to have a place that felt safe for us and not have a name that shouted why we were there.
However, now that I’d been back, it hadn’t quite been the reunion I’d hoped for. I wasn’t blind, I saw the distance Mouse put between us at my welcome home party. Oh yes, it hurt me very much and I might have cried a little that night after I shut myself up in my room.
I didn’t know what to think about it but then again, what could I really expect? That I would come back and our friendship would pick up where it’d left off? I realized then that I didn’t know much about what went on with him while I was gone. Ky and Chris talked about their friends when they came to visit but there was never much detail. I got the highlights and it seemed that they didn’t really have many of those on Mouse.
There were letters that he sent me where he seemed standoffish. I saw it and I was just grateful that he finally started sending me letters back. I really hadn’t expected him to. Although, I couldn’t deny that I was maybe holding out hope that each day the mail arrived with something for me.
Then it came. I remember being so shocked that I ran to my room and opened it right away. It was short but there was a hint of the man that I knew in there.
He didn’t write me back every time but his letters always came when I needed them the most. I think that was what counted over everything else.
Sometimes I got the feeling that there were hints of more. Hints of something I couldn’t quite explain. I saw a sadness in his words sometimes and I was desperate to comfort him even though I was so far away.
Perhaps, with all those little hints I thought I saw, I had big hopes that I’d come home to the man that I remembered. But that was not so. He barely said anything to me that first night and since then, I had only seen him in passing when I went and joined everyone for dinner at the compound.
I didn’t want to be hurt by it but I was. If only I could talk to him.
“Hey,” I said to Chris as I came out to the main area to, unsurprisingly, find him chopping up things for dinner.
I loved this house. The layout was absolutely perfect. The bedrooms were separate, with mine and Chry’s being on the main level and Chris and Ky had the whole upstairs for theirs. The rest of the living area was open, the kitchen, dining area and living room practically one big, open room. The best part, I could see the ocean pretty much any way I turned because the back of the house was nothing but huge windows. The house was right on the beach, with no other houses to obstruct the view. So no matter if I was sitting on the couch, or cooking dinner, or enjoying a lovely meal, the ocean was always there to give me a sense of calm that I got from it.
“Hey,” he replied back with a smile and it made the troubles in my head quiet down.
“Can I help?” I asked and moved in to do so without waiting for his reply.
“Will you check the sauce?” He gave me a nod like he knew that was what I was moving to do.
I lifted the lid and the aroma of garlic and onions and tomatoes hit my nose instantly. It had my mouth watering and my stomach might have rumbled.
Ky wasn’t home yet and I took advantage of this time to talk to Chris.
“Is everything alright with Mouse?” I blurted out because I could no longer hold it in.
Chris turned to me and his face held a smirk and a raised brow.
“Tell me the truth, Chris. I need to know,” I said not even bothering to hide anything.
