Page 7 of Home Is Where You Are

“Please,” I begged and removed my hand from his arm I hadn’t realized was still there through my anxiety-filled racing heart.

“I don’t know why you’re so scared to go in there.” He stopped the truck again.

I turned to face him and watched as his eyes flared with worry and question as they quickly darted between mine before every emotion abruptly vanished. The tic of his eyebrow was his only prompting as he waited for me to explain.

But I couldn’t describe it. My head was too much of a jumbled mess, my body wracked with nervous energy.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, my eyes looking right into his as I inwardly pleaded for him to understand.

I was at his mercy for understanding that I needed this one moment to get myself prepared to see everyone again.

I didn’t know what I was walking into.

And I hated the unknown.

“Try me, butterfly. It’s not like you don’t know the people inside. Who cares if they might still be mad at you for leaving? You’re home now. That’s all they will care about.”

How could he be so sure?

I shivered at that nickname. The tears I withheld finally fell, and I quickly brushed them away.

“I just don’t know what to expect. I missed everyone so much, but…” I managed to choke out, but I didn’t know how to voice my racing thoughts.

I wasn’t sure of anything at this moment except that I might pass out if I didn't calm down.

Inhale for four seconds. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.

I repeated the mantra I’d learned in therapy over and over. The repetition of those words along with the breathing technique helped ease the anxiety.

You’ve got this, Ainsleigh.

I looked over to him and nodded.

It was now or never.

“Everything is going to be fine. You’ll see,” he assured me.

Slowly, he drove the truck forward.

My palms grew sweaty, and my heart began to race. My knee shook so fast the closer we came to the place I’d left behind. I was nervous to see my family again. I shouldn’t have been. They all said they supported my decision to stay away, but I felt uneasy the closer his truck came to reaching the house I used to call home.

Dirt flew around us as he drove a little faster down the driveway. My parents talked about paving it but never had. It remained the same dusty driveway I used to speed down on the four-wheeler as a child. It was crazy; the things that seemed so unimportant were the memories that you remembered the most.

The vast front yard of the home I’d left behind was still neatly manicured, and images of my brothers and me running around playing tag entered my mind. My mother and father used to sit on the front porch and just watch all four of us chase each other about. I swear I could still hear our laughter echoing into the evening sky as they all would manage to end up ganging up on me since I was the youngest with the shortest legs and could never outrun them.

Gentry slowed to a stop when we reached the front of the house. He placed the truck in park but remained seated behind the wheel. Looking over, I noticed how his hand clenched and unclenched the steering wheel.

I wanted to ask what he was thinking. Why he seemed so worried about me going inside. But it wasn’t my right to know anymore. The most important question I wanted to know the answer to was why he remained so close with my parents. So much had apparently changed while I’d been gone.

“You ready to get this show on the road?” he asked as he turned toward me.

Was I?

No I wasn’t, but I couldn’t stay out here forever. They’d surely heard us arrive, and any moment now they’d come out to greet me.

“Who all is in there?” I choked out, my gaze stuck on the house that built me.

I had to get better prepared before I could make myself leave the confines of the truck I didn’t even want to enter in the first place.