This is a stand alone story, but is also a continuation of my previous.
If you haven't read it, don't worry.
Landing back in my home town is like learning you've got cancer. It might be terminal, might not be, but it's going to fucking suck until you're free of it.
My parent's greeted me at the airport with their plastic smiles. It was like they were celebrating a windfall of cash. Somehow all of their crazy rage subsided when they learned I might have money. Same old same old.
But I wasn't here for my parents, and the celebration wasn't supposed to be about me. The only reason I flew in was to celebrate Alice's graduation from highschool, and her 18th birthday that I had missed… I guess all the birthdays I had missed, really, but I seemed to be stuck on the last one mentally when I saw her.
I had escaped the hell hole that was that town and that family, and I wanted to give Alice the same opportunity. I hadn't seen her in 7 years, so I was worried that I would arrive to find that she was a clone of my parents.