The Outskirts (The Outskirts Duet #1)

He pointed to the frame. “Maybe even HER, before I ran you off with tales of the past.” Critter looked to the door like he was remembering watching her walk through it for the first time all over again.

Critter took the photo from my hands and slid it back into the frame which he leaned against the pillar on the bar like he wanted mom to be a part of the conversation.

“So, tell me,” I started, “who exactly was my mom to you?”

Critter leaned forward, resting his forearms on the bar. He laced his fingers together and stared at mom’s picture when he spoke. “Everything.” His eyes then found mine.

“Your mother was everything to me.”



“You might not think that your mother wasn’t strong enough because she never left that bastard who called himself your father, but you’re wrong. She did leave him. Once,” Critter explained. “Which was why she came here.”

Critter knows about my father?

I couldn’t even process that my mother would tell anyone about Father or the way he treated us. She never told anyone.

Ever.

“When?” Was all I could think to ask from the barrage of questions hitting me all at once.

“A long time ago. Before you were born.” He looked around the bar like he was seeing it again for the first time. “When she came here.”

“I…I didn’t know,” I whispered, mulling the revelation over in my head. “Mom never told me much about her past. All I know is what I got from a box she left for me, but besides the keys to the truck and camper and the deed, it was mostly trinkets.”

“Makes sense. She was a very private woman. But when she came around I couldn’t help myself. I knew she was married, but while she was falling in love with the town…I was falling in love with her.”

“Then the land she left me wasn’t just some late-night auction purchase on TV or a stopover. It was part of her life.” I looked up to Critter whose eyes were glistening.

He smiled and looked up at the tings. “This place WAS her life.”

“Why would she leave then if she loved it so much?”

Critter looked to the ceiling at the hanging notes. “There’s one above the door dated May 6th, 1996. Go take a look.”

I slowly slid off my stool and made my way over to the door. I glanced up and sorted through a bunch of them which were mostly drunken notes about the best night ever when I found the one dated May 6th 1996. It was in my mother’s distinctive cursive handwriting.

I don’t have a choice.

I’m so sorry.

-Caroline



I turned and walked back to Critter who had his back to me, leaning over the bar. I walked around and slid back onto my stool so that we were face to face again.

“When she first left, I thought she decided to go back to him. To the church. I was devastated. But years later I found that behind the register when I was installing a new bar top. Must have fallen down. She was never great at attaching those damn things.” Critter sniffled. “I’ll tell you more.” He shook his head and rapped on the bar with his open palm. “Just give me a few minutes to…clear my head.”

There was still so much I wanted to ask and Critter must have sensed it. “Just a few,” he repeated.

“Okay.” I finally took a sip of the whiskey and coughed when the liquid burned my throat.

“Thought you didn’t drink whiskey?” he asked. His eyes glimmered with unshed tears.

“Tonight feels like a whiskey night,” I said, using his earlier words.

“I’ll be right back.” Critter pointed to the back window and suddenly the time of reminiscing was over and my boss was back. “In the meantime, there are a bunch of new notes over by the window. Some rookie hanger didn’t have a clue how to use a stapler. Tack them back up for me would ya?”

“Sure.” I took another sip of my drink and coughed again.

Critter untied his apron, set it on the counter, and grabbed a full bottle of whiskey from the bar. He didn’t say another word before disappearing through the swinging doors. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

I wanted to follow him and beg him to tell me more but the look on Critter’s face was heartbreaking and I knew he’d tell me more when he was ready although it had to have been over twenty years since my mother had been there, considering how old I was, and he wasn’t ready yet.

I took my tumbler with me and shuffled over to a fallen note. I bent down to pick it up and pulled out a stool to attach it back to the ceiling and when I did I spotted three different tings all tangled together.

I keep falling in love with the same moron.

-Josh, a.k.a. The Hot Cop



Cool kids don’t write the dates.

I got my friend back.

We didn’t even need a friendervention.

-Miller



Cool kids still don’t write the dates.

Today I invented the word ‘friendervention’.

-Miller



Even though my stomach was a pit reading Miller’s ting about Finn, I couldn’t help but chuckle at Josh’s and Miller’s tings about each other. They did love each other. It was a unique kind of love.

Just like mine and Finn’s.

His name in my thoughts was enough to make the pit in my stomach grow.

It was easy to spot the other recently hung tings Critter mentioned. The string colors were still bright and hadn’t yet faded like a lot of the others. Plus, the ink on the paper was still dark and bold. Critter was right, there were a bunch of new ones. At least ten, all hung one after the other in a row and instead of tacked with a staple like all the others, these were flimsily held to the ceiling with small strips of clear tape.

I grabbed the stapler from the bar and hopped up onto a chair which I slid across the floor. I tacked the first note to the ceiling when the air conditioning kicked on and the note fluttered around toward me. The message was at eye level.

May 10th

I saw the most beautiful girl ever.

I was a complete dick to her.

-Finn



I gasped. The date was the day I came into town. But this wasn’t here then. I moved to the next one as my heart began to pound in my chest.

May 20th

I kissed her for the first time.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about her lips…

-Finn



My eyes stung with forming tears as I continued.

June 15th

I made her smile.

Freckles became my new favorite thing in the world.

-Finn



June 25th

I made her MINE.

-Finn



I felt the tears pouring down my cheeks by the time I read the last one which I plucked from the ceiling and dropped down on the chair to read over and over again as the tears continued to fall.

Date: Unsure exactly when

I fell in love with Sawyer Dixon

-Finn



The swinging doors from the kitchen creaked open and that feeling of awareness I used to think was dread but now associated with Finn flitted down my spine. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come back,” I said, turning with happy tears still spilling down my face, fully prepared to jump from the chair and into Finn’s arms, only to come face to face with Critter who had an apologetic smile on his face.

Critter ducked under the bar and I jumped down from the chair I’d been standing on. “What’s going on?” I asked when Critter poured himself half a tumbler of whiskey and downed it all in two gulps.