How to Stay Afloat

~37: Where She Visits the Place She Came From~

CHAPTER 37:
Where She Visits the Place She Came From

~~**~~

I was sitting in Colton's BMW. I hummed to myself quietly as I waited for him. We'd drove my convertible back home and then come here to this empty parking lot in Colton's car. He still hadn't told me where he was taking me.

I'd left Archer a text telling him that I was hanging out with Colton and that he should join us but he'd just told me that he had to work overtime again today and that we should go ahead and have fun without him.

I drummed my fingers against the headboard. My eyes widened in surprise when I saw Colton heading towards the car with a large stack of pizza boxes. He placed the boxes in the back seat and got into the driver's side beside me.

"Are you having a party?" I asked him with a pointed look.

He gave me a sly smirk, "Something like that." He revved the engine and pulled the car out of the parking lot without another word.

After asking him a couple of times and not getting a straight answer from him about what he was planning I gave up.

Instead, I asked him how he felt about going so far away to Louisiana State on his swimming scholarship to which he just responded with a shrug and told me that he liked the idea of a fresh start. I teased him about Caroline and laughed in delight when I saw him blush despite his scowl.

Half an hour later he parked the car and told me that we'd arrived at our destination.

When I looked out the car window my eyes widened in disbelief.

I could feel my heart sink to the pit of my stomach as panic started to seize my lungs.

No

Not here

My breath came out in short exhales as a familiar feeling of dread consumed me.

We were parked in front of the St. Lawrence Orphanage.

~~**~~

All those terrible memories I'd tried to repress for so long started to resurface. I was picturing myself as the skinny freckled eight-year-old I used to be. Unwanted images started to flash in my mind

The older children locking me in a stingy closet and calling me names.

The staff and the nuns finding excuses to blame and punish me for things I never did.

My hands and legs burning from the sting of the steel rod for taking a jacket from the donation box because I'd been cold.

My knees bruised and bleeding from kneeling on frozen peas for three hours for bringing a sparrow with a broken wing into the orphanage because I couldn't leave it outside to die.

Me sobbing uncontrollably all night because they had taken my sparrow away and then told me that they had fed it to the dog.

"You okay?" Colton's voice pulled me away from my dark thoughts.

For once Colton didn't look like his smug sarcastic self. He looked empathetic.

"The first time I came back here, it was tough for me too." He swallowed like the admission was hard for him. "I was only here for a couple of months and it was still one of the most traumatic things I went through." His somber eyes met mine. "Makes me wonder how tough it must have been for people who had to stay there for years."

I took a shuddering breath before giving him a small smile, "In the end, we made it out, we survived. That's what matters." My eyebrows scrunched together, "Wait, you just said, 'the first time I came here'. You've visited this place more than once since you left?" I asked incredulously.