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  Hometown Heartless

  Carrie Aarons

  Copyright © 2020 by Carrie Aarons

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing done by Proofing Style.

  Cover designed by Okay Creations.

  For my hometown. Thank you for the heartbreak, the memories, the happiness and everything you taught me.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

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  Also by Carrie Aarons

  About the Author

  1

  Kennedy

  My orange and white cheerleading skirt spills over my thighs and onto the driver’s seat of my Jeep Wrangler.

  In the passenger seat next to me, my pom-poms ruffle with every gust of wind that blows through the car. As does my hair, which I shouldn’t even have bothered tying back in a ponytail. I’m eating chunks of my long chocolate locks, but it’s worth it to keep the doors off my truck until it’s so cold I’m forced to put them back on.

  Khalid’s voice bumps through my speakers as I hang a right, my pom-poms coming dangerously close to falling onto the street below. Indigo Drive comes into view in all of its picturesque glory. It’s almost like the street I grew up on is trying to boast it’s all-American, tree-lined, white picket fence, well … street cred, for lack of a better word. When I was growing up on Indigo, there was a dog in every other yard, kids riding bikes until dusk, block parties; you name the Stepford suburb activity and our street had it. Each house includes some red brick in its design, sports an ample lawn that isn’t too close to the neighbor’s yard, and a range of expensive flowers dotting the front walk. My parent’s even put in a porch swing to add curb appeal.

  Although, let’s not get too judgmental on clichés. I am the captain of the cheerleading squad who just ended her first day of senior year by sitting on the hood of her truck with her friends in the parking lot before cheer practice because it’s the first year we’ve been allowed to drive to school and congregate after the final bell.

  As I slow my speed, one of the newer mothers on the street swings a glare my way as her baby wails in her arms. Whatever, I lived here first. And it’s only three p.m., I’m allowed to turn my car speakers to the max. It’s practically a teenage rule of law.

  Why are there so many people on the sidewalk? I wonder idly as my hands turn the wheel skillfully and practiced into the driveway of number nine Indigo Drive.

  Grabbing my black backpack, with its Brentwick High School logo stamped on the front pocket, in one hand and my pom-poms in the other, I hop out of the truck. After a long day of school, the expectations of teachers, running cheer practice on my own, and already feeling the pressure of the college application process, I could use a snack. And maybe a nap. But I have homework, on the first freaking day, and my best friends want to grab sodas at the diner. Since my curfew has been extended to midnight, even on a school night, I better make the most of the last year in my hometown before college.

  “Kennedy! Oh, Kennedy. They found him! He’s alive.”

  Right before my mother’s body slams into mine, I can see the rivulets of tears running down her face. She looks mad, like she’s on the brink of a psychotic episode, and I’m so confused as she sobs into my shoulder.

  I’m a carbon copy of this woman, same height, same brown hair, same big brown eyes. She blushes when strangers in public ask if she’s my older sister. It just makes me glower, though I love her to the moon and back.

  “What? What are you doing?” I try to push her back, because I genuinely have no idea what she’s talking about.

  Mom hiccups, sucking in a lungful, and a stinging awareness passes through me right before she opens her mouth. The words she just spoke finally penetrate my brain, soaking into the nerve endings and cortexes and all the tissue that is there to help you process, well, everything.

  He’s alive.

  “Everett, honey. They rescued him. He’s alive. Oh, thank God. Marcia and Grady got the call two hours ago, that he was on US soil. He’s coming home. Everett is coming home.”

  Have you ever been so shocked that all you can do is laugh? It’s a morbid reaction to emotional news, especially horrible news. Not that this is horrible news, this is incredible news. But I’ve always been one of those people who cackles hysterically in high-pressure, sad, emotionally charged, or otherwise situations. It’s a defense mechanism, like my soul can’t take the seriousness of the matter so it revolts against societal norms.

  Well, my tried and true behavioral technique doesn’t fail me now. While the rest of the neighborhood stands on the street crying tears of joy and weeping with relief, I double over, spill my pom-poms on the driveway, and laugh my goddamn head off.

  “He’s … coming … home.” I giggle, holding my hand over my mouth to make it appear like I’m crying.

  “Oh, Kennedy, not now!” Mom scolds, chiding me.

  As if I can help this. I want to roll my eyes at her, but I’m too caught up in my fit of chuckling to do so.

  It’s comical, if you think about it. For an entire year, I’ve mourned the death of the boy I’ve dreamed about since I was old enough to have crushes. Laughter is the only way to react to the news that the prisoner of war, the hometown hero the entire town wept over, is coming home. That he’s alive.

  Everett Brock. And just like that, my memory jumps back two years’ time, to the last time those bright green eyes held mine.

  The rumbling of the truck coming down the street is unmistakable. No ordinary car sounds like that. It isn’t the sleek, black car of death that visited the house next door just nine short months ago. That vehicle had been silent and vicious in its attack on our street.

  No, this one announces its presence, causing everyone on the street to whip their heads toward it.

  I make out the camouflage paint on the old Ford pickup before I even realize that it’s headed straight for me. Everything feels like a dream right now, as if my life is moving in slow motion but my heartbeat has settled somewhere between manic and atrial fibrillation.

  I straighten, my mouth sobering to the point that not only will laughter not come out, I’m not even sure breath is escaping past my lips.

  He
’s in there, I know it. Why else would an army vehicle from the base about an hour from here be driving down the street we both grew up on?

  “Oh my Lord …” Mom gasps, because everyone is watching this like some kind of car crash they can’t look away from.

  None of us have any idea what he might look like.

  A car is fast on the truck’s tail, and this one I would know anywhere. Marcia and Grady Brock come screeching around the corner in their navy blue BMW, and the car slams into park on the street. They’re out in a flash, dashing across the driveway, and Marcia sends a watery smile Mom’s way.

  The door to the truck opens in the driveway next door, an officer pulling the handle.

  I see a boot first, black, scuffed. Part of me wants to look away, wants to wait until he’s fully out of the car. I’m not sure I can handle it bit by bit, or if seeing him full-on for the first time in two years will be worse.

  But I am helpless at this point. I wish I could stop time, have a minute or two more to process this.

  A long leg follows it, and then another, and then he’s appearing from the truck as if he hasn’t risen from the dead.

  No longer the boy I waved goodbye to as he drove off to basic training, Everett stands before me in the body of a man. Ropey muscles coat his arms, the height I thought he possessed before now put to shame by the couple extra inches he miraculously sprouted since eighteen. A scruffy beard masks most of his face, and his hair is too long and greasy, but anyone can see how intensely handsome he is, even under the coarse forest.

  It’s one of those moments in life, when you look back on it, that will be set to music in the memory. As my eyes trail up, hitting every part of his long, lean body, a sorrow-filled, haunting melody plays in my ears. The kind of tune that departing lovers dance to before they’re separated. A harmony with only one note of hope thrown in at the end, only a singular note of uplift.

  I swear, I almost lose my balance when my face is level to his.

  Because there are dozens of people on the street now. His parents are practically sobbing over him. My own mother is calling his name, yelling her congratulations. The army officers are murmuring to him, and I hear the slamming of doors as I know that local reporters must have rushed to get the news on the missing hero who has just returned.

  But Everett is only looking at me.

  The whole world might as well have vanished, that’s how soul-deep his exploration of me is. My feet are rooted to the ground, every cell in my body completely paralyzed by the direct, familiar gaze he’s pinned on me.

  I look at him, trying to memorize every pore. Yes, he resembles the boy who left to serve his country. But this man is no one I truly recognize.

  And those eyes, the blazing green clovers that I’ve daydreamed about for years, are … dead. In them, I see only ghosts and horror.

  Everett Brock is back in Brentwick. And nothing will ever be the same.

  2

  Kennedy

  “He’s back.”

  “Did you hear how he came back?”

  “I wonder if he was tortured …”

  “Is he some kind of maniac now?”

  The whispering in the hallways as the first bell rings for homeroom is almost too much for me to handle.

  I slam my locker, biting my tongue because if I don’t, I might lose it on all of these people. No one here really knows him, not like I do. Jesus, half of these freshman have never even seen Everett Brock in the flesh, so maybe they should just shut their mouths.

  “Already fed up with school a week in? Me too, let’s ditch.” A flash of red hair sidles up next to my locker, accompanying the voice that leads the Brentwick High School choir.

  “Yeah, right, Kenny would never ditch. She’d melt into a puddle of guilt and shame before she walked out of those doors before the final bell rung.”

  My two best friends, Rachel and Bianca, stand on either side of my white metal locker, staring into the abyss filled with books, extra clothes, a stray granola bar somewhere and pictures of the three of us littering the door.

  “That’s right, get a good laugh at the expense of your very dear, wonderful, incredible friend.” I pretend to wipe away a tear.

  “Oh, stop it. We’re just busting your balls. Because we know you have them. You may be the goody two-shoes of BHS, but you’ve got steel cojones under that skirt.” Rachel pretends to flip up the hem of the denim skirt I wore today.

  I swat her hand away. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Live a little. I showed my undies to a boy in the bathroom this morning, and it really brightened my day.” Bianca suggestively wiggles her dirty blond eyebrows at me.

  I roll my eyes. “That boy is your boyfriend, and I still don’t understand why you two can’t just go at it in your cars if you insist on foreplay before first period. Nonetheless, that doesn’t quite count as randomly flashing the student body in the hallway.”

  “Foreplay before first period. Sounds like a great porn movie.” Rachel giggles.

  These two have been my best friends since the time we all decided to shove tampons up our noses at cheer practice in fifth grade. Someone told Rachel it would stop the bloody nose that were sometimes caused when we flew, the thing cheerleaders did when other members of the squad launch them into the air using nothing but their collective hands. So, giggling like morons, we tried it. And took about seventy-three hilarious selfies, one of which is still hung up on the inside of my locker.

  Ever since that moment, we’ve been inseparable, though we all play our roles. Rachel is the wild child, the redhead who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is, or try something that could potentially end with us in the emergency room. Though, she is the one with the longest relationship, she and her boyfriend, Scott, have been together since the beginning of sophomore year. The contradiction, of her big, open heart, and the daredevil within, makes being friends with her like an extreme sport. One I thoroughly enjoy, though aside from cheer, I’m not much of an athlete.

  Bianca is the sweet one, a natural charmer with Disney princess-sized blue eyes and gorgeous blond curls. She’s the extrovert of us all; whereas I don’t mind interaction but prefer quiet, and Rachel is an obnoxiously loud introvert, Bianca could talk her way through a football field of people and genuinely never have one mean thing to say. Then, she’d ask to do it all over again. Rach and I always joke that after she graduates college, she’ll be some kind of social worker, customer service rep, or salesperson; Bianca will work in a job where rejection is copious and other people would cower at the mere thought of their ass being handed to them by whoever they were serving. But not our Bianca.

  She’s also dating a fellow senior, Damien, who shares her affinity for public hookup spots.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter.” I cluck my tongue at her, but loop my arm through hers as we all walk toward our homerooms.

  And me? Well, my best friends already hit that nail on the head. I’m the straight-laced, academic one. The nerd.

  Brentwick High School is much like any other high school in the suburbs of New Jersey. Or any other suburb around the country for that matter. You have your rich side of town, your nice middle of town, and the affordable housing units the township was contracted to build due to state law. Not that I roll like that; I have friends from all walks of life. I’m just saying, that’s how it is.

  I may be the head cheerleader, if you want to call me that, but I’m also an honor student, an EMT on the local rescue squad, and have been volunteering with my mom at our local church since I was in middle school. No, I’m not trying to brag or sound like a goody-goody … okay, so maybe I am a goody-goody according to Rach and Bi. In fact, if you talk to some of the kids at school, they’ll probably sneer and call me some uptight perfectionist or something.

  That’s all right. I know who I am, have from an early age. Maybe it’s the side effect of being an only child with a type A personality, or parents who instilled self-confidence in me. Either way, I’ve developed s
ome kind of Teflon armor when it comes to how cruel the high school world can be. Something I’m both thankful for and cursed with.

  Sometimes, I wish I could be more of a teenager. My dad swears that I’ve been an old soul since I arrived in the world, blinking up at the doctors with a wise look on my face instead of crying. While my friends are mooning over boys, drinking warm beer in cornfields, and generally being reckless and eighteen, I’m standing in the background wondering why I can’t do the same. Something inside has always held me back from completely letting go, from letting mistakes happen, from letting the crazy take over.

  “It’s permanently stuck there, I can’t help it. Someone has to think of questions to shock you when we’re playing Never Have I Ever. Who else could make you chug an entire can of beer in one sitting.” Rachel gleams proudly.

  “Oh my God, that was amazing. Can we do that again this weekend? Party at the tree house!” Bianca claps her hands as if it’s not eight a.m. on a Tuesday.

  “Yes! I’ll tell the whole crew. We’ll go after the football game. Do you think your cousin can get us a keg?” Rachel turns to me.

  “I can’t ask for that again.” I shake my head, almost stomping my foot to show them just how down it is.

  Crap, I should not have done that for the last party we had right before the school year. I knew it would come back to bite me in the ass. While I’m not the “let’s do ten shots and get buck naked” kind of party girl, I can let my hair down and have a good time. So, when Scott couldn’t come through with his alcohol supply for the end of summer barn party the seniors threw, I called in a favor to my cousin. She lives a town over, is twenty-one, and has offered to buy me whatever I want a number of times.