One night. A split second is all it takes to change someone's life forever. For Scott Aldridge, it was having his last shred of hope taken from him. On a long road to redemption from his dark and embittered past, he later meets Lily Rezza who may be...
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Seaside, California May 1994
Scott
SEASIDE was nothing like I had remembered it. What was once a small coastal town now grew into a noisy, bustling city.
To my ears at least.
I drove my Camaro through the streets of Seaside. Despite the thing sitting in storage for almost two decades, it ran just as it did the day I got it. Adelaide sat to my right in the passenger seat.
On the way, she started to tell me about her family that also lived in Seaside. Distant relatives that she would check up on from time to time.
I had only visited Seaside a few times during my childhood, my mother's family had lived here for years. My grandfather moved to Seaside in the late 1920s and later had my mother and uncle Nathan.
It was hard to believe that my mother married a man like my father. They were complete opposites. A carefree woman who spent all her younger years roaming the world only to end up marrying an uptight doctor from Boston. He was stern but my father was a good man, especially to my mother. If they ever quarreled over something, they were good at hiding it.
I wonder what my life would have turned out if I had never met Seana. Perhaps I would've become a doctor and opened my practice or stayed the drunk I had become after the accident.
I was just as lost right now as I was then. Just as the woman beside me was, despite all her talk of coming here and helping me find some meaning in life. Whatever that may be.
As we approached the road I remembered from my childhood, Adelaide leaned forward, gazing out of her window.
"Is that it?" she asked.
Following her gaze, I saw the sight of the house.
In the middle of all the sprawling bright beach houses was an old dark wooden one that was long neglected. I'm surprised it hadn't been torn down; that was how bad it was. Years ago, it was the only house that was here. Acres of land that were nothing but dunes and one beach house that was built long before I was ever born. Now it was in the middle of a goddamn subdivision.
"It hasn't changed a bit," I murmured to myself quietly as I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine off.
Adelaide smiled over at me as she got out of the car. She walked up towards the front porch; the wood was dry rotted from hell.
"It is so, uh," Adelaide paused. Turning her head, she grinned at me.
"A complete shit hole?" I retorted as I walked up onto the porch steps, the wood creaking with each step I took. I could hear the wood cracking under my weight, but it was slight. Eventually, the whole porch was going to collapse with continued usage.
