I didn’t know the exact way to get to the trailer park, it wasn’t a place I’d frequented during my summers spent at the lake, but a few wrong turns followed by a few more right turns and the help of one gas station employee, and I was pulling into SouthView Trailer Park, where The View’s Better Down Here, according to the sign.
It wasn’t a big park, only two rows of trailers running down a quarter mile or so of road. There was no view I could see, unless you counted the rusting walls of your neighbor’s trailer, and there wasn’t a single pot of flowers or one hanging basket to be seen. I noticed because this was the first year we hadn’t had flowers on our front steps. People who were worried about paying their electric bills and putting ramen noodles on the table didn’t buy flowers.
It was an odd thought to have given everything running through my mind, but it stuck with me.
I parked at the end of the park in a spot where the street lamps wouldn’t illuminate my car, hoping he hadn’t beat me here. Hoping he wasn’t going to show up at all because if he did, if I had to watch him shimmy into some other girl’s trailer late on a Thursday night, I’d know the truth. I’d know everything I’d believed we had was false. I’d question any and all love I’d experience in the future.
Despite knowing better, I held onto one last balloon of hope that I was wrong and Jude wasn’t going to come knocking on Holly’s door after eleven o’clock at night.
I let that balloon float away not even one minute later as I watched a familiar form cut through a couple of trails and lumber down the weed lined driveway in my direction. He passed beneath the street lights, flashing light, then dark, a couple of clear plastic bags hanging from his wrist.
He was almost at the end of the road, the Mazda was only a couple trailer lengths away in the dark, when I realized he wasn’t here to make a trailer visit, he was here for me. He’d caught a glimpse of me weaving around town like a woman on a mission and somehow followed me here and was going to talk some sense into me. I didn’t care about the questions he’d ask or the explanations I’d have to give, because he was here for me. Sawyer could shove his trust nugget up his ass.
I was remembering how to smile as Jude passed the last trailer. I was about to open the door, tackle him to the ground, and kiss the sense out of him when he turned a sharp corner around the last trailer. Leaping up the stairs of the rust can in front of me, he tapped on the door.
My heart broke. It actually broke. An x-ray would have confirmed it.
I couldn’t breathe as I waited in the car for who was behind that door, although by now I already knew.
The door screeched open, illuminating Jude in soft yellow light. I told myself that wasn’t the man I was falling for. And then a girl, right about my age, appeared in the doorway wearing a pretty summer dress and a prettier smile. She kind of looked like me, but her hair hadn’t been burnt off to her shoulders.
She threw her arms around Jude and he did the same, lifting her off her toes.
This was not happening; it was a dream, a nightmare. I’d, somewhere along the stake out, fallen asleep and this was the result of a night spent agonizing that my boyfriend was seeing someone behind my back.
The air in the car started to suffocate me, so I whirred down the window, sucking in mouthfuls of cool air.
“You’re late,” the girl, who I knew in my heart was Holly, said after Jude lowered her down.
“Walking a few miles on foot after playing the late game can make a man late,” he said, leaning back into the stair railing. “I made it though, didn’t I?”
Holly rubbed Jude’s arm, looking up at him like he was the sun, moon, and the stars. I knew that look and, after tonight, I never would have it again.
“You always do,” Holly replied, flashing a coy grin. “How was the game?”
“Good,” Jude answered. “We kicked Valley’s ass.”
“Valley needs to get their ass kicked,” she said, sliding out of her sweater. Both arms were covered in intricate tattoos, from her wrist to her shoulder. It would have made me feel better if she was tipping the ugly scale, but she wasn’t. She was pretty, prettier than me. “I wish I could have come, but that’s a whole lotta drama I’m not ready to deal with yet.”
“Yeah, it’s probably for the best.”
Then a cry cut through the door, disrupting the quiet night. A cry that made the pit in my stomach expand.
“Un momento,” she said, lifting a finger and disappearing into the trailer.
Jude stayed where he was, staring up into the night sky, when suddenly, he tensed. Shoving off the railing, he looked to the side, then the other side. He was just about to turn around and I was about to peel the hell out of this place when Holly reappeared in the doorway with something in her arms.
A baby.
This was the part where I knew I should jump out of the car, march up those dilapidated stairs, and give Jude Ryder a piece of my mind and the back of my hand. But I didn’t because I realized Holly and the baby had come long before me. They’d had the claim to Jude before I’d even known I wanted one.
“Isn’t this guy supposed to be asleep by now?” Jude said, making a funny face at the baby. The baby squealed in delight, flapping his little hands.
“Teething,” Holly said, sighing.
“Trade me,” Jude said, dropping the bags at Holly’s feet and holding out his arms. She handed the baby over and he stopped crying immediately as Jude started bouncing and patting his back.