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  Stay With Me

  Alivia Grayson

  Stay With Me

  Copyright © 2019 Alivia Grayson

  The contents of this novel are pure fiction.

  All names, places and events are in no way associated with any persons dead or alive.

  Places and events are used for fictional purposes only.

  Any similarity's to real life events, places or persons are pure coincidence.

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

  All rights reserved.

  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

  About the Author

  Also by Alivia Grayson

  Chapter 1

  Ricky

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been here — many years since I walked the streets of this sleepy little town of Haven Falls. I swore to myself I would never step foot in this town again after running away from it nine years ago. This small town might be picturesque, the pretty little postcard town, but it holds some of my worst memories.

  Nothing about this place has changed. The little stores are all the same, and by the looks of the windows, they’re all still selling the same things. The bakery still sells the same pastries. The hardware store still sells the same hammers and tape. The toy store at the end of Main Street still has all those toys in the windows; the one’s stores deliberately put there knowing little kids will scream and scream until parents buy them the damn things to quiet their little ones, even though they can’t technically afford them.

  I smile involuntarily as the snow begins to fall around me.

  It’s a Christmas card cliché, isn’t it?

  Snow falling around the girl as she walks along the bustling streets of her home town, woolen hat on her head, thick scarf around her neck, waist-length red trench coat wrapped around her, gloves on her hands, and nose red from the cold. Big red Christmas bows tied up on street lamps. Holly wreaths just below them and on shop doors, and bells, jingling somewhere in the distance as the wind blows.

  However, that’s precisely how it is, and I have honestly never seen anything so beautiful as Main Street right now.

  This was my home once upon a time. This was the place I grew up, and this was the place I saw myself raising a family one day.

  Where did it all go wrong?

  I fell for my best friend and lost my family, that’s where it all went wrong.

  Bryan Spencer and I were best friends from the second we laid eyes on each other. Our mothers were also best friends. We spent all of our time together, school, after school, parties. Bryan was a year older than me, but he, along with his friends, welcomed me into their group as if I’d always belonged there. In high school, being one of the guys is not always a good thing. Especially when every other girl believes you to be a soccer-playing lesbian, I couldn’t help the fact I was a tomboy.

  I didn’t feel comfortable being one of those bimbo type girls. I liked comfort, and wearing high heels, short skirts, and having my tits out did not make me comfortable. I loved playing soccer, baseball, hockey. I liked riding my bike and climbing trees.

  When I was a little girl, I was always covered in dirt, always out with Bryan doing what boys do. I even liked fishing. People used to make comments about me and about the way I looked. However, I didn’t care; I was just happy to be who I was.

  God knows I couldn’t be me at home.

  Bryan was always there for me, always my rock. My home life wasn’t completely terrible, but it wasn’t exactly happy either.

  Okay, it was utterly terrible. My father was super strict. Strict in the way that if he was in a bad mood, then our house was not a nice place to be. He believed God guided him through his life, and he thought that the devil had somehow swooped in and invaded his daughter’s body.

  I was just a little girl. I may have been a tomboy, but did that really make me the devil incarnate?

  My father will never know how messed up I am inside because of him. He will never know how his oppressive rule, his lack of compassion, lack of empathy, and a fundamental lack of emotion has left me precisely the same. I’m emotionally detached, and I don’t even try not to be.

  No one can hurt you if you don’t allow them close enough.

  There was a time I wore my heart on my sleeve. A time where Bryan pulled me out of my misery with my father and taught me how to be who I really was. He showed me what fun was all about. That’s why I enjoyed fishing, climbing trees, and sport so much. It freed me. Being around my best friend meant I didn’t have to think about what was waiting for me at home.

  There were a few times where I would climb out of my bedroom window and run across the street to Bryan’s house. I’d climb up the side of his house, onto the porch roof, and hike myself up into his bedroom window. He always left it open ajar, just in case.

  Once I was inside, I would kick off my shoes and climb into bed with him. It was like he just knew I was there, and he’d instantly wrap his arm around my waist and pull me against him. There were never any words, never anything sexual about it, Bryan would just hold me while I fell asleep safe in his arms.

  A few times soon turned into every night. I needed him, and he was there for me more willingly than anyone else ever was.

  You would think we had some wild love affair, wouldn’t you?

  Well, we didn’t. That’s not what Bryan and I were about, we were best friends, and we’d do anything for each other. Being together would have been out of the question. However, it didn’t stop me from falling in love with him.

  Falling in love with him hit me hard. I was sixteen when I realized that’s what I was feeling. I pushed it aside because I never believed he could love me the way I loved him. Bryan was gorgeous, the school heartthrob, every girl wanted him, and a few dated him.

  I, on the other hand, did not date. Boys don’t date the tomboy, aside from one boy, Robbie Kennedy, who asked me out to the movies. I thought at first he’d been dared to ask me. It turns out he actually liked me, tomboy or not.

  We ended up dating for a few months, because unlike other girls, or so he said, I was fun and easy to talk to. It might have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t try to impress anyone. Yes, when we went out, I dressed like a girl, just not in skirts. I knew how to look nice when the occasion called for it.

  I ended things with him because I’d fallen in love with Bryan and couldn’t stop thinking about him. Even when Robbie kissed me, I would think about Bryan. I didn’t tell Robbie that fact, and we ended amicably. We were still friends. However, we weren’t in love, and our relationship wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

  I knew I couldn’t go on much longer without telling Bryan how I felt about it. It seemed to be eating me up inside.

  I was sat on Bryan’s bed while he showered one night. I’d snuck into his bedroom like always, and he wasn’t there, so I waited for him. He
walked into his room a few moments later, towel around his waist, water dripping down his body from his hair.

  I remember swallowing hard as I tried not to look at his muscles. Being the quarterback of the football team meant his body wasn’t like other seventeen-year-olds. I had seen him topless many times in the past, but that night I saw him in a whole new light, and everything inside of me changed.

  However, thinking about Bryan and what I did hurts too much. He was my whole world, and I haven’t seen him once since the night I left this place and never looked back.

  Now here I am walking toward my parent’s house, having parked my car at the only hotel in town, not wanting to drive my rented white Lexus NX to their home, and have verbal abuse yelled at me for thinking I’m better than my family.

  I don’t think I’m better than them. I don’t think I’m better than anyone. However, I have worked my ass off these past nine years to better my life after my family cast me out of theirs. That’s not to say it was easy, and I’ve had some pretty fucking shitty times over the years. However, I’m not here to drag up the past. I’m here to attend my grandmother’s funeral.

  There it is my parent’s house. Two stories, whitewash walls, hanging baskets outside the green front door, flowers in both downstairs front windows. It looks like a good clean house - a house where a couple lives with the children they love more than life itself. That’s what other homes look like.

  This house is just a house, a house that is clean and smart both inside and out. However, this house is anything but a home where good people live. There are no swings in the garden for children to play on, no warmth from within. No echoes of memories of children’s laughter. Just memories of anger and lots of tears.

  Deep breath, Ricky, you’re a grown woman now. His words are just words, and words can’t hurt you unless you allow them to.

  “Hello!” I call out as soon as I’m through the front door.

  Another thing my parents never do, lock the damn front door. I swear they believe themselves immune to crime. Haven Falls is a small town, and there’s hardly any crime here to speak of, not vicious crimes, at least. However, the town of Haven Falls, Colorado, isn’t on another planet; crime still happens!

  Whatever, it’s their house.

  “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Hey, Kenny.” My big sister is standing just feet away from me, tight black jeans encasing her legs, red sweater covering her torso and arms. She’s not so different from me. We both have long dark hair, dark eyes, slim figure, long legs. However, where I carry a lot of guilt and shame, she carries a lot of hate and resentment. She resents me for leaving her behind. I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t given a choice.

  “Nine years, and all you have to say to me is, ‘Hey Kenny’?”

  “This isn’t the time to be mad at me, Ken. Where’s Mom?”

  She tips her head toward the kitchen.

  I remove my coat, hat, scarf, and gloves and hang them up on the hook beside the door.

  I know from what my grandfather told me a while ago that my sister still lives at home with our parents. Thirty-years-old and she still hasn’t moved out. She’s not married, doesn’t even have a boyfriend, and no children.

  I can’t imagine why she would want to spend her life at home forever. She hasn’t lived. She’s spent her whole life in this little town.

  “For the record,” I say as I walk past my sister, “I missed you.” I hear her huff, but I keep walking.

  My breath hitches in my throat; the second my eyes locate my mother. She’s wearing her usual long skirt, matching pink shirt, and an apple covered apron, I smile; some things never change.

  I wonder what she’ll make of me now. I tried to dress conservative before coming here. I know how my mother hates young girls showing flesh. That’s why I chose black slacks, a long sleeve t-shirt, and black boots. I’ve tied my hair up in a high ponytail because I know my father hates women leaving their hair loose. That’s what whores do.

  Why in the hell should I care what my father thinks?

  However, I do. I don’t want to give him any cause to start something with me while I’m here. It was hard enough for me to come here after all this time without a confrontation with my father.

  Raymond Vaughn is now a retired firefighter. He retired because he became sick with cancer a couple of years ago, and it meant he didn’t have the strength to continue working.

  What kind of cancer, you ask?

  Fucked if I know. I got a call from my grandfather to tell me my father was ill but that he didn’t want me to know anything, nor did he want to see me.

  Did it hurt me?

  Not really.

  Such is life.

  My grandfather was the only person I gave my new number to when I had finally settled after leaving this place. I couldn’t cut ties with him because in this life, aside from Bryan, my grandfather was the only person who gave a damn about me, and my grandmother, of course.

  My beloved grandfather made sure I made it to medical school after finishing high school in another town. It’s thanks to him that I have my degree. It’s also thanks to him that I’m now a doctor. Something I worked so hard to become. He paid for my education, and I will be forever grateful to him for that because only God knows what would have happened to me if he hadn’t.

  Of course, I wanted to keep in touch with my mother and sister after I left – was forced to go – but my father made it damn clear I wasn’t to contact any of them again. So I didn’t.

  I guess I can see why Kendal would be angry with me. She thinks I walked out and didn’t want to know her after the fact. That’s not the case at all, I would have given anything to take her with me, but she just wouldn’t have left. Hell, I wasn’t even old enough to go, but they cast me aside like I was nothing, my own sister told me never to contact her again, so why should I feel guilty about leaving her behind?

  “Hi, Mama.” I finally say.

  “Hello.” She acknowledges without looking at me like she knew I was there all along.

  What did I expect? That I could come home to support my grandfather, pop in to say hi to my family, and they’d give a shit that I was even here? That my mother would embrace me in her arms?

  You really are dumb sometimes, Ricky.

  “Your father is with Bob.” Bob is my grandfather. An amazing man of eighty-two. I can’t wait to see him. I have missed him so much. “Of course, you’d know that if you ever came home.”

  “You and Ray hardly gave me the option to come back here.” I jump out of my skin when she slams the glass in her hand down on the floor, shattering it into a million tiny shards at her feet in anger. Some things never change.

  “How dare you call your father by his given name, you shameless little harlot!” She screams at me.

  Mariella Vaughn has a temper that would rival her husband. Of course, she wasn’t always this way, but it seems she’s gotten even more defensive in my absence where her husband is concerned.

  “You haven’t even been here five minutes, and you’re already upsetting my mother.” My sister pushes past me. Knocking my shoulder and almost knocking me off my feet.

  I fold my arms around my waist while watching my sister wrap her arms around my mother, rubbing her back in comfort. This is really strange. I’ve never seen my mother or sister show affection to anyone, not even each other. They sure never showed me any love when I was around.

  What the hell happened while I’ve been gone?

  “It’s okay, Mom. She’s going now.” She turns her eyes to me. “Aren’t you?” She practically snaps between her teeth.

  Wow, this is possibly the shortest visit on record.

  “She can’t be here when your father gets home, Kendal. You know what will happen.”

  I watch with narrow eyes, the strange scene unfolding in front of me. My mother reaches up and takes my sisters face between her hands. Kenny towers over my mother, making her look so small all of a sudden. I don’t remember
my mother being so small.

  “Make her leave, Kenny. We don’t need her, remember? Just you, me, and Daddy. We don’t need anybody else.”

  What the fuck?

  “Shh. Don’t get upset, Mom, she’s leaving now.”

  My heart is pounding. I don’t know what I was expecting when I came here, but it wasn’t this. I know my father would be angry with me being in his house, I knew that when I came here, but I wanted to see my mother and sister. It looks like they don’t want to see me. I should have known.

  “Get out. Grandpa Bob might not be able to see you for the devil you really are, but we do, an...”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up!” I yell. Like I’m going to stand here and let either of them speak to me like this. I didn’t get to where I am today by being a pushover, and I will be damned if I let my so-called family do that now!

  I am not a disrespectful person; I’m really not. However, I am not stupid or a doormat either. These women are no family to me. I have never meant anything to either of them. I won’t stand here and let either of them speak to me like I’m shit on their shoe.

  Who the hell does that? This woman gave birth to me, yet she acts like it was the worst thing to have ever happened to her.

  Both my mother and sister are looking at me wide-eyed.

  The trouble with my parents is that they take their faith too seriously. All my life, they drummed into me the fact that I was the child of the devil, that God wouldn’t love me if I didn’t conform to their ideas of living.