Chapter Two: The Ride Back

Isla Pov

Public transportation really knows how to humble you.

I tugged my hoodie over my head and sunk into the sticky plastic seat of the train, the wheels rattling beneath me like bones in a blender. 

Everyone else had drivers and plush leather seats, champagne probably waiting in cup holders. I had a duffel bag crammed between my knees and a flickering light above my head that blinked like it was mocking me.

Welcome home, Isla Walker. You're truly living the dream.

I watched the scenery blur through the dirty window—gray buildings, broken fences, and graffiti that had more personality than half the people I went to school with.

Funny, isn’t it? How you can climb all the way up the ladder, pretending you belong with the ones who were born on the top rung, only to fall right back to the bottom like you never left.

And somehow... I always knew I’d come back to this. To him.

My dad. The man, the myth, the walking beer bottle.

God, if there was ever a man who could break a daughter’s spirit and still ask her to pick up smokes on the way home, it was Arthur Walker. 

A man who used to build garden benches and fix broken fences with calloused hands and soft eyes. Until Mom left.

And he never stood back up after that.

Ten years old. That was the last time I saw her. Her perfume still clings to my memory—vanilla and cigarettes and something warm I don’t have a name for. She didn’t even pack a suitcase. Just kissed my forehead, wiped away her mascara, and walked out the door like it owed her something.

Then came her.

The leech in mascara—my stepmother, Jolene.

Ugh. Even thinking her name made me gag a little. Jolene was what happened when bitterness wore cheap lipstick and knew how to fake tears for alimony. She was never a mother, just a woman who latched onto my father’s grief and bled him dry.

And when he had nothing left?

She started stealing from me instead.

Every time I scraped together money from odd jobs—tutoring bratty kids, sculpting commissions, or working late at the diner—she’d magically need it. For rent. For groceries. For a “loan” she conveniently forgot to pay back.

If it weren’t for the scholarship, I’d probably be serving fries in a visor instead of attending Saint Valeria’s School for the Creatively Gifted.

So yeah. Maybe I should be grateful.

Maybe I should be thankful that someone out there saw a spark in me, handed me a ticket out of that hellhole, and gave me something to believe in again.

But the truth?

That spark is flickering.

And I’m going back to the place where dreams don’t just die—they get buried alive.

---

The subway jolted to a stop with a screech loud enough to wake the dead. I dragged myself off the seat, slung my bag over my shoulder, and took the stairs two at a time. The air outside hit me like a heatwave of regret—smoggy, loud, and painfully familiar.

My neighborhood hadn’t changed. Still the same sagging fences, sun-bleached lawn chairs, and kids screaming through sprinklers like they didn’t know better. A place stuck in the past, with no real future to speak of.

And there, sitting on the sagging porch of our peeling blue house, was Jolene.

Bathrobe. Cigarette. Sunglasses.

At 4 p.m.

Charming.

“Oh look who crawled back,” she said, blowing smoke toward me like it was her version of a welcome mat.

I didn’t answer. I just walked past her and into the house I never asked to return to.

The place smelled like stale beer and expired promises. The wallpaper curled at the edges, and the same stain on the carpet greeted me like an old frenemy. My room was exactly as I left it—minus the missing lamp and half my jewelry box.

Of course.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and let out a slow breath, already counting the days until I could leave again.

But little did I know… this wasn’t just a summer visit.