Travis (Pelion Lake) by Mia Sheridan

A small strangled sound came from my throat as I felt eyes turning toward us.

These individuals.

I kept reading. I couldn’t stop. I was glued to my spot, unable to lift my head, my eyes refusing to stop taking in line after line after line of Easton’s exploits and my own enabling of his behavior. All the destruction left in our wake. Arrests, divorce filings, public altercations.

“How did they . . . how did they . . .” I choked.

“My social media,” Easton said, and his voice sounded flat, devoid of emotion. “I’ve posted from every community we’ve stopped in since the day we left LA.”

I felt numb, confused, sick with distress, my mind reeling with how much work had gone into compiling a list like this. I felt all the eyes on me. Judging.

Most unwanted.

Most unwanted.

Most unwanted.

Some of the information was mostly accurate, and some was wildly off-base. Not that it mattered. Whoever had done this, had put in a lot of time and much effort contacting local townships from California to Maine.

Why?

I was focused on revenge.

Revenge?

Yes. What’s wrong with exacting revenge when a wrong is done to you?

The Pelion Police Department, along with the newly formed community relations committee . . .

He’d done this. Travis had done this. I felt hot, woozy. Whispers picked up, people murmuring. I heard my name, the person’s tone full of scorn.

“Well, they don’t seem like people we’d want here permanently,” someone said.

“It seems kind of mean,” someone else answered. “But I agree,” they amended softly.

“Can you imagine the trouble they’d cause?” someone else asked. “It seems like they’ve already started.”

“What trash.”

I dared a glance at Easton to see his gaze focused in the direction of the firehouse captain, whose head was bent as he read over the paper outlining all Easton’s sins. My brother’s gaze lowered. I’d seen that expression before. He’d worn it as he’d sat on the sidewalk, two fingers pressed to our mother’s wrist, her track marks glaringly red in the light from the raging fire.

This was killing him. I was watching his soul slowly die. Again.

My gaze flew to Travis’s stunned face and he seemed to suddenly remember how to move, dropping the remaining flyers and moving toward me.

Run.

Only I didn’t seem to be able to.

I stood, trying desperately to sink into the floor as Travis approached. “Haven,” he said, his voice a mere whisper as though he was having trouble breathing. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“No, evidently not,” I said, and my voice sounded dull and lifeless even to my own ears. I held the flyer up, my hand trembling. “Did you do this?”

He swallowed, his eyes clenching shut momentarily. “I . . . no. I did not have this flyer printed, but it’s my fault. I asked my recruit to look into Easton.” He glanced at my brother, then away. “I take responsibility for this. But I didn’t think . . .” He breathed out a sharp breath, running his hand through his hair as my heart slowly shriveled.

“Your . . . revenge,” I said.

His shoulders dropped and he looked at me pleadingly. “Yes. My revenge.”

Voices began to rise as more people gossiped about what they were reading. It looked bad. It looked terrible. I wouldn’t have wanted us as part of this idyllic community either.

What trash.

We were. We were trash, and this flyer didn’t even detail the half of it.

Easton made terrible choices. There was a list of them grasped in my hand. But I had dragged him across the country because of my issues, and he’d acted out because of it. I was selfish and thoughtless. He’d needed to stay home and heal, to remain with the people and things familiar to him and I hadn’t let him. I was the one who’d caused the trail of wreckage in our wake. Me.

Travis reached out. “Haven, please,” he said, “Let me make this right. I’m so sorry.”

The loud whir of a plane flying low overhead could be heard above the murmurs. “It’s trailing a banner,” someone near the window could be heard saying.

Travis’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear God, no,” he gasped.

“It’s an ad for parasailing lessons over in Calliope,” another person answered, turning away from the window back to the more interesting drama unfolding in front of the crowded room. Travis’s eyes closed briefly and his shoulders dropped and he exhaled a big gust of breath, evidently relieved about something.

Most unwanted.

Us.

Travis looked at Easton and then back at me. “Let me explain this,” he said.

My gaze moved slowly over the room, the people a blur, hurt a gray pulsating fog before my eyes. Perhaps Travis hadn’t meant this to happen, or perhaps not to this extent, or in this way, but he’d had a hand in it nonetheless, and now the damage was done.

Give us a chance, Haven.

His words, they’d been lies.

And I’d been lied to over and over and over and yet I’d kept on hoping.

I’m clean.

I’ll never use again.

I won’t spend the grocery money on drugs.

And the worst of them all: I’ll be there this time.

All those old wounds ripped wide open and I bled, fresh pain in the light of this betrayal. He’d said he cared for me and he’d let this happen. Somehow.