All It Takes

All it Takes

a novel

Sadie Munroe

All it Takes by Sadie Munroe

Copyright ©2015 Sara Eagleson

Cover design by Sara Eagleson

Cover Photo: Mikulas Zacok - Miobi Photography

Editor: Danielle Webster

Typesetting: Christa Seeley

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, organizations and locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictiously.

All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Epub ISBN: 978-09938942-2-0

Kindle ASIN: B00YM1CF42

For my amazing family.

Thank you for always supporting and believing in me.

I won't let you down.

. . . you can all stop reading now. None of you read Romance. So just stop. No, seriously. Stop. Put the book down and just walk away.

I'll know it if you don't

Chapter 1

Star

L
ike everything bad that has ever happened in my life, it started with a phone call. But sometimes just a simple phone call is all it takes, and that innocent ring that breaks through the smiles and laughter beforehand can interrupt more than your day. It can change your life.

The first call came when I was five. I was playing in the fort I had made out of the old green sofa cushions and every blanket I was able to lay my hands on. I remember the taste of raspberry jam on my lips as I busied myself with pretending to serve lemonade to my stuffed pony. Awkwardly. There was a lot of splashing and a small puddle of lemonade on the rug that I remember hoping my mother wouldn’t notice. My mother was in the kitchen, washing up the dishes from lunch and singing along to an oldies song on the radio. The sound of the phone ringing barely even registered as I trotted my pony up and down the throw-pillow mountain, but the sound of my mother’s scream was enough for my entire world to come screeching to a halt.

The first call was from the police station.

That phone call came when I was five years old, and it meant that my father was dead.

The second phone call was from child services when I was nine years old and it was almost immediately followed by a knock on the door, by my mother yelling and crying as she hurled things at the men who entered. They had found out about my mother’s hoarding. The second phone call meant that they were taking me away. That was ten years ago, and I haven’t been back since, not until now.

Not until the third call.

I had just turned nineteen when the third call came. I’d been laughing with my friends in our dorm’s common room. I hadn’t even paused when my phone rang. I’d just leaned over and scooped it up off the table, cheeks still aching from smiling so much, and had said hello.

I wish I could say that the third call had held better news, but I should have known better.

Because sometimes a single phone call is all it takes.

It’s been over a month, but that third phone call still doesn’t feel real to me.

First my father. Then my mother.

God. Even now it’s almost impossible for me to say it. For me to even think it.

She’s dead.

My mother is dead.

Ash

G
oddamn, is it ever good to be home.

I don’t know how, but that five-hour car ride somehow felt even longer than the five years I’ve been away. I don’t think I’ve been so jittery, so freaking excited since I was a little kid. I must have driven Mom nuts the entire drive back, bouncing my leg and fidgeting like a five year old, but I couldn’t help it.

This is it. This is my new shot. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to waste it.

I’m out of the car the second it comes to a stop in the driveway, racing down the path and up the front steps before Dad has even turned the engine off.

“Bruiser!”

I drop my bag on the front porch and wrench open the screen door, but before I’ve even laid my hand on the doorknob, I realize something is wrong. There should be a racket. There should be the sound of barking echoing off the hallway walls. There should be the pounding of feet as they rush down the stairs and toward the front door. But there’s nothing.

There’s silence.

I whirl around, still gripping the edge of the storm door in my hand. The metal is cool in the warm summer air, and I grip it tight, desperate for something to hold on to. My chest is thundering.

Something is wrong.

I stand there as my parents make their way slowly up the path and up the front steps. Mom shakes her head and sighs at the sight of my backpack on the wooden planks of the porch. All of a sudden, I’m five years old again, about to be scolded for tracking mud across the carpet.

Fuck that. I’m twenty-eight.

“Where’s Bruiser?” I ask, but instead of answering, Mom just leans over and picks up my backpack by the strap, shaking her head at it like it’s offending her somehow. Neither she nor Dad is saying a word.

What the hell is going on? I loosen my grip on the storm door, and let it fall shut as I turn around to face them. I lean my back against it, closing it behind me. They can’t ignore me. Not if they want to get in the house.

“Where. Is. Bruiser?” I want my fucking dog. I raised him from a puppy and I haven’t seen him in five years. I want my goddamn dog. But Dad just sighs and rubs the back of his neck and looks anywhere but at me. Great. Just great. I turn to Mom. She’s still holding my backpack, but instead of handing it to me and ordering me to put it away like I expect, she just sets it down on the porch swing. Huh. The swing is blue now. It used to be red. Wonder what else they changed while I was gone. I raise my eyebrows at her.

Mom sighs and clenches her hands into fists at her sides. She started doing that years ago, right around the time of the mud-vs-carpet incident. Fist clenching is never good.

“Mom,” I say, trying to keep my words calm and free of curses—the cussing helps me get my own irritation out before it explodes, but I learned long ago that it just makes her more pissed. “Where is my dog?”

She glances up at Dad, but he’s looking over at the stupid hummingbird feeder like it may hold all the answers to life. Unlikely, since they’ve had it since I was a kid and so far, nada. “Roger,” she prompts him, but as usual he’s off in his own little world.

Mom gets mad. Dad zones out.

Lather rinse repeat.

Endlessly.

Fuck.

“Mom—” I snap, but she whirls on me before I can get out another word.

“Bruiser is gone,” she says. “He ran off not long after your trial.”

What. The. Fuck?

I try to take a deep breath, but I’ve got a rhino on my chest.

“And you didn’t look for him?” I yell. It’s not even a question. I know my parents. I know what the answer is.

“Of course we looked for him,” my mother says, her eyes flashing. Liar. Goddamn liar. “But he was your dog, Ash. He was
your
responsibility.”

“I was in prison!” I say. Yell. Whatever. The neighbors are going to be in for a show. It’s been a while for them, with me out of the picture. Guess it’s time for them to get used to it again. I open my mouth.
You said you’d take care of him,
I’m about to say.
You told me he was fine. Every fucking time I asked, you told me my dog was fine.

“Exactly,” she snaps, cutting me off like she always has. “And I think that’s pretty much the height of your irresponsibility, don’t you, Ashley?”

Fuck.

Dad’s finally showing signs of life. “Maybe we should go inside,” he says. “Talk this out.”

“Not a chance,” I snap, moving to shove back harder against the door.

Just as the words leave my mouth, Mom’s head snaps around to glare at him. “We discussed this, Roger. He’s not coming in.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

Dad’s mouth opens, like he’s about to argue, but Mom’s glare shuts him down. I scoff. It’s just like always. Not a damn thing has changed.
Are you ever going to grow a backbone, old man?

Mom turns to me, and as I watch she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. A sick, twisted part of me wonders if they have her on the same anger-management program they had me on in prison.

Raising an eyebrow I cross my arms over my chest. “So you’re not going to let me in, Mom?”

She looks me straight in the eye. “Your father and I have discussed it,” she says.
Yeah right. More like you said what was going to happen and he caved just like always.
“And we think it would be for the best if you didn’t move back in with us.”

“For the best,” I repeat, trying her bullshit words out in my mouth. I don’t like them.

“That’s right.” She glances over at Dad, but he’s off in his own little world again. I wonder how I would have turned out if I was more like him than I was like her. Probably be an accountant by now, have my own little nine-to-five and a goddamn goldfish.

“You mean, it would be better for you,” I say. “Whether it’s better for me hasn’t really been brought up for discussion, now has it?”

“Ashley,” she says, but this time it’s my turn to cut her off.

“It’s Ash,” I say. “It’s been Ash for the last twenty years. And I think you’re more concerned about what the neighbors think of you than about your own son.” I’m standing right in front of her now, my own fists clenched at my sides. I don’t remember pushing up off the door, don’t remember walking across the porch, but here I am, anyway.

I pause, wait for her to argue. Wait for her to tell me she’s changed her mind, to tell me that this has all been a big mistake. But instead she just shakes her head and reaches into her purse and pulls out a key chain. There’s a bright red rabbit’s foot on it. It’s my key chain, from before. But it’s different. The house key is missing. The only one left is the one to my car. It dangles there, glinting in the afternoon light like a beacon, and my gut sinks down to my toes when I realize what it means.

This is why they didn’t fight me when I said I wanted to get my license reinstated, why they told me to do it right away. Why they fucking stood in line with me at the DMV while I jumped through hoops to get it back. They wanted to make sure they could get rid of me.

She reaches out and grabs my hand and slams the keys into it, and glares up at me.

“As far as I’m concerned, my son died in that crash,” she says. “You’re not welcome here.”

Then she pushes past me and yanks the storm door open so hard that it slams against the siding. Then she’s gone, disappeared into the darkened house.

I turn to my father. The rhino on my chest is now a goddamn whale, but he just shakes his head and reaches into his back pocket. Without a word, he pulls out a little stack of bills and presses them into my free palm. Then he’s gone, too.

Fuck.

Chapter 2

Star

T
he day I aged out of the foster-care system was the day I got my first tattoo.

Well, tattoos.

I don’t know if it’s self-serving or if I was just so wrapped up in having my own identity that wasn’t Delaney’s daughter or foster child or what, but I knew from the start what I was going to get.

All my life, I’ve just wanted to be me, to be Star.

So that’s what I got.

Stars.

Eighteen of them. One for every year I’d been trying, and failing, just to be me.

And I’ve adored them ever since.

Seeing them there, winking up at me, it was like a light had been switched on. All of a sudden, I felt different.

I was different. I was going to be whoever I wanted, and no one was going to be able to stop me.

I sometimes wish I’d thought it through a little better, gotten them placed with purpose. Sometimes I wish I’d found a constellation to arrange them in, instead of just having them scattered across my skin, any which way. But then again, sometimes I’m glad I got them done that way. They’re my own constellation, dancing up the top of my left foot from just above my baby toe, up toward my ankle. Eighteen tiny stars, all in black.

That was the day I found my bravery.

And damn it, I’m going to need it.

I stare down at my computer screen and sigh, trying to figure out what to say.

Star2274:
Cleaning out my mother’s house now that she’s passed away.

Star2274:
Had no idea it’d gotten so bad.

LuckNGlass:
I can only imagine.

LuckNGlass:
My parents house is out of control.

LuckNGlass:
Sorry for your loss, btw.

Star2274:
. . .

The cursor for the chat window on the hoarding message board blinks expectantly at me, awaiting my response. But I’m stumped.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

There are a thousand things running through my mind. I could go on and on to LuckNGlass about what I’d found at my mother’s house, the boxes upon boxes, the million articles of clothing still in their original shopping bags, tags intact, the sheer amount of
junk
as far as the eye could see. But I don’t have the words.

Finally, I sigh and type
you don’t know the half of it
into the chat window. And then, as an afterthought
thanks
before logging off and closing my laptop.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

This is worse. This is so,
so
much worse.

I’m so frustrated, I feel like any second now I’m going to start screaming and crying and throwing everything I can lay my hands on, smashing it against the wall. And if I start, I’m never going to stop.

How did this even happen? How the hell had it gotten this far? Why didn’t the lawyer warn me? Why didn’t he make
certain
I knew what I was getting into
before
he handed over the keys? I have half a mind to track the guy down and give him a piece of my mind. And a brick through his windshield. He’d mentioned my mother’s clutter problem, but he’d brushed it off like it was nothing.

This? This isn’t nothing. This is the biggest load of
something
I’ve ever seen. And he’d let me think I could do it on my own. What a load of crap.

Clutter, he’d said. When I pictured clutter—my mother’s own brand of clutter, even—I was picturing the house I’d left when I was nine, the one with the piles of junk that were a little too high, a little too tippy, the ones that could only be navigated by the paths that my mother had left between them. I remember my bedroom being so full with toys that there wasn’t any place to play, the kitchen that had too many dishes for my mother to cook in.

I’d thought I was prepared when the lawyer handed me the keys. I’d just nodded along when he spoke, all smiles and reassuring little “I’m sure you’ll do just fine”s as he ushered me out of his office like he had a train to catch.

Now I know why he was in such a hurry to get me out of there. Because now I’ve seen what’s happened to the house I spent my childhood in, and it’s nowhere close to what I remember.

It’s so much worse.

I shove another bite of bacon into my mouth and try to hold back a sigh. The keys to the house are still in my pocket, and they dig into my thigh with every movement I make. They’re the goddamn albatross around my neck, and I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve been sitting in this diner for the past hour. Mary-Lou’s Place. I
think
I remember it from when I was a kid, but if I’m right, it looked different back then. It was a lot more commercial back then. Almost like it had belonged to a chain of truck stops. Now it’s all ’50s revival, all gleaming chrome and teal vinyl. There’s a juke box in the corner, but instead of 45s it plays CDs. They gleam in the light when they shift around in the machine with every song change. It’s all so sickeningly charming. I can’t imagine my mother here.

I can’t even imagine myself here.

If there was anywhere I didn’t belong, this place was it. And it was obvious, apparently.

The waitress who’d taken my order had given me the dirtiest once-over I’ve ever had, her eyes lingering too long on my eye makeup and the tattoos on my arms. She’d huffed and rolled her eyes at me, and had gotten half of my order wrong when she’d finally brought it out.

I sigh and lean back in my seat, draining the last of my coffee from the bottom of my mug. The vinyl is sticking to the backs of my legs and it’s making me itch like crazy, but it’s not like I have anywhere better to go. It’s either the diner, the house from hell, or the freaky little B&B I checked into when I got into town. The town of Avenue isn’t exactly a bustling metropolis. I chose that particular B&B because it was the only B&B in the city limits. If there was another one, I’d have moved already. The owner’s this little old lady who never blinks and seems to be a little too fond of her miniature poodle for my comfort. She had the thing up on the counter when she checked me in, and it yapped at me the whole time. It reminded me of one of my old foster moms’ Pomeranian, aka
the devil.

If that poodle was the sign of things to come, then I’m pretty much doomed.

I raise my hand in the air and try to flag down my waitress, but she ignores me and moves across the room to top up the mug of an old man who’s sitting in a booth with a little boy. They’re playing Go Fish, their discarded cards littering the table between them. It’s adorable, but it’s no reason to ignore me.

Another waitress, a blonde about my age walks by me with a tray of plates in her arms, and I reach out to touch her arm before she gets too far. She jumps at my touch, but doesn’t lose her hold on the tray. It’s impressive.

“Sorry!” I say, drawing my hands back before I do any more damage. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just wondering if I could get a refill.” I waggle my empty mug in her direction. Her gaze darts between the mug and my face, and the tray in her arms wobbles a bit.

“Star?”

My heart stutters a bit at the sound of my name. How the hell does she know my name? My gaze darts around the diner. I feel like everyone’s looking at me. By now the news about my mother’s . . . condition must have made the rounds through town, not to mention her passing. Stupid small towns. I look back up at her, and she’s smiling down at me, expectantly. “Star Collins?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, baffled, “do I . . . ?”

“It’s me!” she says, and lays the tray down on a nearby table before sinking into the seat across from me. “Lacey Kendall.”

I blink at her stupidly for a second before the name finally clicks into place somewhere in the back of my memory.

Holy shit. I can actually see it now. Her face has slimmed out since childhood, all that baby fat melted away to reveal the woman underneath. The hair is the same, though, bright blonde just like mine is under all the black dye. I can’t believe it.

“Holy crap,” I say. It’s the only thing I can say. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me when I decided to come back here. I spent the first nine years of my life in this tiny town. Of course someone would recognize me. Especially the girl I used to spend nearly every afternoon in the sandbox with.

“How are you?” she says, face breaking out into a smile. She leans her elbows on the table between us, somehow managing to carve herself out a little spot between my giant lunch platter and my abandoned laptop. I’d been trying to email my roommate earlier, to update her on what was happening, but I’m not sure that my email actually went through. Wi-Fi is apparently hard to come by in town, and while the sign in the diner’s window boasts its availability, its signal strength left something to be desired. I can only hope that I got through. Otherwise my stay here is going to be pretty lonely. As sweet as Lacey seems, all bright eyes and smiles, I’m not really interested in mingling with the locals. Especially if news of my mother’s problem hasn’t passed around town yet.

What they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Or, more importantly,
me.

I don’t know how, but if it’s possible, I’m going to keep the house and the hoard under the radar. Just the thought of what the house is hiding has me getting all worked up again. I don’t need any other distractions. I just need to get it cleaned out.

Even though I have no fucking idea how I’m going to do that.

I look back up at Lacey, and I realize she’s waiting for me to say something, but I have no idea what she just said. My mind’s a total blank.

Before I can stop it, a nervous laugh bubbles up out of me. God, I’m so awkward.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head and rubbing a hand over my burning face. “I completely spaced. What did you say?”

Lacey just smiles at me, all bright eyes and tanned skin and super-straight white teeth. God, she’s grown up to be the spitting image of a small-town girl, all bubbly and blonde. It’s bizarre. “It’s okay,” she says. “I just asked how you were. I mean—” her eyes dance over me, and I can’t help but wonder exactly what she thinks she’s seeing when she looks at me “—you just look so . . . so different!”

Yeah
, I think.
No kidding.

When I’d last seen her, Lacey and I had looked more alike than we did different. Long blond hair. Big smiles with missing baby teeth. We’d even been the same height. I’ve grown taller than her, but I am by no means a giant. She just . . . stopped. She is all tiny and dainty and golden. I . . . am not.

I reach up and tug at the ends of my dark hair. I’ve been dyeing it for years. I don’t think I could go back to blonde ever again. It just isn’t . . . me.

“Yeah,” I murmur, “I guess I do.” Her smile is hesitant even as her gaze darts over the tattoos that wander down my arms, the names inked on the fingers of my right hand, the names of the people who have been a positive influence in my life.
Roth
on the inner edge of my right pinkie,
Autumn
on my ring finger, my old foster brother and first boyfriend
Brick
on my middle finger. The word
climb
I had tattooed on the inside of my wrist when I’d gotten into college. Everything. She wants to say something. I can tell. So I shift back in my chair and wait. I just want to see if she’s actually going to mention them.

She doesn’t. But that might just be because the diner door swings open, tinkling the little bell that’s hanging just above it, a guy walks in who looks like he fits in even less than I do.

If that’s even possible.

He’s not very tall, not for a guy, at least. He’s maybe a couple inches taller than my five-foot-six, and he’s wearing ripped, baggy jeans that seem to be holding onto his body by sheer force of will, like at any second they’re going to make a break for it and just fall right down. Over that, he’s wearing a T-shirt and the ugliest army jacket I’ve ever seen in my life, and just beneath the cuff, I can see the black ink of a tattoo as it snakes down his wrist to cover the back of his left hand.

His dirty-blond hair is cut short, but not in any particular style. More than anything it just looks like he took a pair of scissors to it and started hacking, and his jaw is covered in a few days’ worth of scruff. He has a face that looks like if he’d cleaned himself up, he’d look pretty good. But he has a long way to go.

And judging by the way Lacey has tensed up in her chair as she looks over her shoulder at him, she agrees.

The guy kind of hovers in the doorway for a minute, looking around like he hasn’t seen the place in years—
Did I look like that when I walked in?
—then his eyes clap on the waitress behind the counter, the one who’d given me and my tattoos a dirty look earlier, and he shoves his hands into his pockets and kind of shuffles in her general direction.

Lacey whips back around to face me, her pale ponytail slicing through the air so fast I’m amazed she doesn’t take her own eye out. She plants the palms of her hands flat down on the table top. “Excuse me for a minute, Star. I’ll be right back.” Then she’s up and out of the seat before I can say a word. She’s completely forgotten about the tray of food she was in the middle of delivering to the other diners when she spotted me, but, as I glance around the room, worried that someone is going to call her out on it, I realize that none of the diners seem to care about that.

All their attention is on the guy, the one Lacey is making a beeline toward. I can see her face from here, and she looks like a bloodhound who’s just caught a scent, all full of concentration and purpose. It’s a little unnerving to watch. The guy only makes it about two-thirds of the way to the counter when Lacey intercepts him with a—I hate to say it, but
really freaking snotty
—“Can I help you?”

Cold. Really cold. And judging by the look on the guy’s face, he feels the chill.

“I . . . Could I maybe speak to the manager?” He pauses for a moment, and when Lacey doesn’t say anything, he adds an awkward “Please?”

“I can help you,” Lacey says, and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Okay,” he says, and blows out a breath, slowly, like he’s trying his best to ignore her reaction, which, to be honest, is unexpectedly bitchy. He reaches into the pocket of his army jacket, and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “Well, I was just wondering if you guys had any openings.” He unfolds the piece of paper and holds it out to her. It trembles a bit in his grip, and as I watch, he starts chewing on his lip. “I’m looking for a job.”