Dawn by McKayla Box

Chapter 12

No time like the present to blow up your life.

We finish lunch and before I can change my mind, I drive to Trevor’s house.

Pulling into the driveway stirs an entire cauldron of memories inside of me. I remember the first night we came to his house, when he fooled me into thinking he was breaking into someone else’s place. It’s the place we first had sex. It’s where I saw his artwork for the first time. His house and his room became sort of a hideaway for me when all of the shit was swirling during senior year.

The driveway is empty when I pull into the half-moon shaped drive. I park anyway and get out. I can smell the ocean drifting upward from behind his house.

My stomach churns as I stand in front of the front door and, for a moment, I consider getting back in my car and driving home. I’m not sure I want this confrontation. But I know that if I don’t force the issue, I’ll just keep wondering what’s really going on.

I take a deep breath and stick my finger on the doorbell for a long second, then let go. I’ve already decided I’m just going to blurt out that I saw him in the lot and see what he says.

Except no one answers the door.

After about thirty seconds, I ring the bell again, but get the same result.

I stand there for a minute, unsure what to do. Then I walk down the drive and down the hill the house is built into, alongside the house and down to the bottom floor where Trevor’s room is.

The water sparkles behind the house in the sunlight, and I see several of his boards on the small grassy area immediately adjacent to the patio off his room. I peer through one of the large windows into his room.

The bed is disheveled, the sheets and comforter shoved to the foot. Clothes are scattered on the floor, much like they were when he and I got there last night. The lights are off and I don’t see any sign that he’s home.

I’m about to pull away from the glass when I see movement at the bottom of the stairs to his room.

I wait.

And a girl steps into his room.

But not the one from the parking lot.

This girl is again about my age, but with long blonde hair. She’s wearing a white tank top and what I first think are white bikini bottoms.

But then I realize they are her underwear.

She walks into his room, walks around the bed and goes into his bathroom, running a hand through her hair before she disappears. She’s inside for maybe five seconds before she comes out with her phone in her hand. She sits down on the edge of his bed, studying the phone.

The phone that she’d apparently left in his bathroom.

She’s stupidly gorgeous. Icy blue eyes, perfect skin, the kind of body that can get away with walking around the house in her underwear.

She laughs at whatever she sees on her phone.

And that’s all I can take.

I have no idea what’s going on with Trevor, but he’s meeting strange girls at the beach and he’s got a strange girl in the bedroom we just had sex in less than twenty-four hours ago.

I smash my open palm against the window.

The girl leaps off the bed and scrambles as far away from the window as she can, crashing into the wall on the far side. She stares at the window, her eyes wide.

I stand there for a moment, making sure she sees me.

Then I turn and walk up the hill and go home.