Locked Heart 10

Harveys POV -

The highway stretches out endlessly in front of us, a ribbon of asphalt cutting through California like a scar, and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Auntie Michelle’s Honda CR-V watching the landscape blur past while my entire life sits in three duffel bags in the trunk. Three bags. Eighteen years of existence, of surviving, of clawing my way through every single day, and it all fits into three fucking duffel bags. Lucy’s stuff takes up even less space—two bags, because what does an eleven-year-old really accumulate when she’s been shuffled around like a piece of luggage her entire life? I glance back at her through the rearview mirror, and she’s got her headphones on, staring out the window with that blank expression she’s perfected over the years, the one that says she’s here but not really here, present but protected, and I recognize it because I taught her that. I taught her how to disappear inside herself when things get too heavy, too real, too painful to process.

Michelle’s been trying to make conversation for the past hour, asking questions about school, about what I want to study, about whether Lucy likes her new backpack—the one Michelle bought her last week when she came to get us from that godforsaken foster home—and I’ve been giving her one-word answers because I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to let someone in, especially not a woman, especially not someone who’s supposed to care. She’s Dad’s sister, and I remember her from when I was a kid, from before everything went to shit, but that was a lifetime ago. That was when Dad was alive, when we had family barbecues and Christmas dinners and some semblance of normal, and then he died and Mom made sure we never saw Michelle again because she never liked her anyway, never liked Dad’s family, never really liked Dad if I’m being honest.

Five hours from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. Five hours to think about everything I’ve lost, everything that’s been taken from me, everyone who’s left. Five hours to sit here and pretend like I’m okay with this, like I’m grateful, like I’m not completely fucking terrified of what happens next.

I was ten years old when Dad died. Ten. Lucy was only three, barely more than a baby, and she doesn’t remember him at all, which is probably a mercy because at least she doesn’t have to carry around the weight of missing someone she actually knew. I remember everything about him—the way he smelled like coffee and Old Spice, the way he’d ruffle my hair when I did something that made him proud, the way he’d pick Lucy up and spin her around until she was dizzy with laughter. He was a good dad. He wasn’t perfect, but he was there, and he loved us, and then one day he wasn’t there anymore. Heart attack. Sudden. No warning. Just gone. I came home from school and there were ambulances and neighbors standing on the lawn whispering and Mom was sitting on the front steps with her face in her hands, but she wasn’t crying, not really, and even at ten years old I could tell something was off about her reaction. She was upset, sure, but there was something else underneath it, something that looked almost like relief.

I found out later, years later when I was old enough to understand, that Mom never really loved Dad. She married him because she got pregnant with me, because it was the “right thing to do,” and she spent the next ten years resenting him for it, resenting me for it, resenting the life she felt trapped in. When he died, she didn’t have to pretend anymore. She went through the motions for a while—the funeral, the condolences, the casseroles from neighbors—but I could see it in her eyes. She was already gone. She was already planning her escape.

It took four years. Four years of her being physically present but emotionally absent, of her looking at Lucy and me like we were reminders of everything she’d lost, everything she never wanted in the first place. She worked long hours, came home late, barely spoke to us except to tell us to do our homework or clean our rooms. I learned how to take care of Lucy during those years. I learned how to make mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, how to help her with her reading homework, how to braid her hair even though I was shit at it. I was fourteen and playing parent to a seven-year-old, and I didn’t complain because what was the alternative? Let Lucy feel as unwanted as I did? Let her see that Mom couldn’t stand to look at us?

Then one day, Mom drove us to Grandma’s house. It was a Saturday morning, and she told us we were going to visit for the weekend, which wasn’t unusual—we’d stayed with Grandma before, and I liked it there because Grandma actually seemed happy to see us. But when we got there, Mom didn’t come inside. She parked in the driveway, helped us get our bags out of the trunk, and then she looked at Grandma standing on the porch and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.” And then she got back in the car and drove away. Just like that. No hug goodbye, no explanation to Lucy who was crying and asking when Mommy was coming back, no acknowledgment that she was abandoning her children like we were nothing more than an inconvenience she’d finally worked up the courage to discard.

Grandma took us in without hesitation. She was Dad’s mom, and she loved us fiercely, the way Mom never did, and for three years she gave us stability and safety and something that almost felt like home. She was getting older, though—she was already in her seventies when we moved in—and I could see her slowing down, getting tired more easily, forgetting things. But she never complained. She never made us feel like we were a burden. She cooked our meals and came to Lucy’s school plays and helped me study for my exams, and I started to believe that maybe things would be okay, that maybe we’d finally found a place where we belonged.

Then, two months after I turned seventeen, Grandma had a stroke. She was in the hospital for a week before she passed, and I sat by her bedside holding her hand while Lucy slept in the chair next to me, and I watched the only women who’d ever truly loved us slip away. I wasn’t angry at her—how could I be? She was old, she’d lived a full life, and she’d given us everything she had until she couldn’t anymore. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. It didn’t make the loss any easier to bear.

Lucy had just turned eleven. I was seventeen, still a minor, still legally a child even though I’d been acting like an adult for years. We had no other family—or at least, no other family that Mom would let us contact, and by that point we had no idea where Mom even was. Social services got involved. They were kind enough, I guess, but they explained that we’d have to go into foster care until I turned eighteen, and then I could apply for guardianship of Lucy if I wanted. If I wanted. Like there was any question. Like I was going to let my little sister get swallowed up by the system, bounced from home to home, separated from the only family she had left.

The foster home wasn’t terrible. I’ve heard horror stories, and ours wasn’t like that. The couple who took us in were older, empty-nesters who seemed to genuinely care, but it wasn’t home. It was temporary, a waiting room, a place to exist until I turned eighteen and could figure out what the hell came next. I kept my head down, went to school, made sure Lucy was okay, and counted down the days until my birthday.

And then there was Jess. Jessica fucking Martinez. I met her when I was sixteen, before Grandma died, back when I still believed that people could stay, that love was something real and not just a temporary illusion before the inevitable abandonment. She was pretty and smart and she laughed at my jokes, and for a while she made me feel like maybe I wasn’t completely broken. We dated for two years. Two years of me actually letting someone in, of me being vulnerable and honest and stupid enough to think she’d stick around. But after Grandma died, after Lucy and I ended up in foster care, after my life became even more complicated and messy, Jess started pulling away. She stopped answering my texts as quickly, stopped wanting to hang out as much, and then one night, about two months after I turned eighteen, she sat me down and told me she was done.

“You’re too much, Harvey,” she said, and I can still hear her voice in my head, can still see the way she looked at me like I was something pitiful and exhausting. “You’ve got too much baggage, too many problems. I’m eighteen years old—I shouldn’t have to deal with all of this. You’re not worth my time. I deserve better than this.”

And just like that, she was gone. Just like Mom. Just like Dad, even though he didn’t choose to leave. Just like Grandma. Everyone leaves. Everyone decides I’m not worth the effort, not worth sticking around for, and I learned my lesson. I learned that love is bullshit, that trust is a weakness, that letting people in only gives them the power to destroy you.

So I stopped letting people in. I turned eighteen and I started going to bars with a fake ID, started going to college parties even though I wasn’t enrolled yet, started hooking up with girls whose names I didn’t bother remembering because what was the point? They were temporary. Everything is temporary. At least this way I was in control. At least this way I was the one doing the leaving, the one walking away, the one treating people like they were disposable before they could do it to me. I became exactly what Jess accused me of being—a fuckboy, a player, someone who didn’t give a shit about anyone except himself and his sister. And you know what? It felt good. It felt powerful. It felt like armor.

But then Michelle found out about us. I don’t know how—maybe social services tracked her down, maybe someone from Dad’s side of the family finally noticed we’d fallen through the cracks—but she showed up at the foster home three weeks ago, furious that she hadn’t known sooner, furious that we’d been in the system at all. She’s Dad’s younger sister, only thirty-six, and I barely remembered her until she walked through that door. She hugged Lucy first, and Lucy just stood there stiffly because she doesn’t remember Michelle at all, and then Michelle turned to me and tried to hug me too but I stepped back. I couldn’t help it. I don’t do hugs. I don’t do affection from people I don’t trust, and I don’t trust anyone anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” Michelle said, and she had tears in her eyes, actual tears, like she genuinely cared. “I should have been there. I should have fought harder to stay in your lives after your dad died. Your mom made it impossible, but that’s not an excuse. You’re family. You’re my nephews—my nephew and niece—and you should have been with me this whole time.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. What do you say to someone who’s apologizing for something that wasn’t really their fault? Mom was the one who cut off contact. Mom was the one who made sure we never saw Dad’s family again. But Michelle was here now, and she was offering us a home, and I was eighteen which meant I could legally refuse, could take Lucy and try to make it on our own, but I’m not stupid. I’m eighteen with no job, no money, no place to live. I can’t take care of Lucy on my own, not really, not the way she deserves. So I said yes. I agreed to move five hours away to San Francisco, to live with Michelle and her son Sam who I haven’t seen since I was nine years old, to start over in a place where I don’t know anyone and don’t belong.

And now here we are, driving up the 101 with everything we own in the trunk, and I’m trying not to think about how much I hate this, how much I hate needing help, how much I hate that I have no choice.

“You okay, Harvey?” Michelle asks, and I realize I’ve been staring out the window for the past twenty minutes without saying anything.

“Fine,” I mutter, because what else am I supposed to say? No, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay in eight years. I’m terrified and angry and so fucking tired of losing people, of starting over, of pretending like any of this is normal.

“Sam’s really excited to see you,” she continues, and there’s a hopefulness in her voice that makes my chest tight. “He talks about you all the time, about how you two used to play together when you were kids. He’s been getting the guest rooms ready all week.”

I remember Sam vaguely—a kid with dark hair and a loud laugh who was a few months younger than me. We used to build forts in Michelle’s backyard and play video games until our eyes hurt. But that was before. That was in another life, when I was a different person, when I still believed in things like family and permanence.

“That’s nice,” I say, because I don’t know what else to offer.

Michelle sighs, and I can feel her looking at me, trying to figure out how to reach me, but she can’t. Nobody can. I’ve built walls too high, too thick, and I’m not tearing them down for anyone. Not even for her, no matter how genuine she seems.

I glance back at Lucy again. She’s still staring out the window, her small face reflected in the glass, and I wonder what she’s thinking. She’s been so quiet through all of this, so compliant, and sometimes I worry that she’s too quiet, that she’s holding everything inside the way I do. She’s only eleven. She should be worried about homework and friends and what to wear to school, not about whether this new home will be permanent or just another temporary stop before the next inevitable loss.

“Luc,” I say, and she pulls one headphone off her ear and looks at me. “You good?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Harvey. I’m fine.”

But she’s not fine. I can see it in her eyes, the same guardedness I feel, the same fear of hoping for something better because hope has only ever led to disappointment. She’s learned that from me, and I hate that I’ve taught her to be this way, to protect herself by expecting nothing.

“We’re going to be okay,” I tell her, and I don’t know if I’m trying to convince her or myself. “I’m not going anywhere. You know that, right?”

“I know,” she says quietly, and then she puts her headphone back on and returns to staring out the window.

Michelle clears her throat. “We’ll be there in about an hour,” she says. “I thought we could order pizza for dinner tonight, let you guys settle in. Tomorrow I can show you around the neighborhood, introduce you to some of the neighbors. Sam’s best friend lives next door"

I seriously doubt that, but I don’t say anything. I just nod and go back to watching the highway, watching the miles disappear beneath us, taking us further and further from everything we’ve ever known and closer to a future I can’t predict and don’t trust.

The thing is, I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want to be angry and closed-off and incapable of believing that good things can last. But I don’t know how to be anything else anymore. Every person I’ve ever loved has either died or left, and I’ve learned that the only way to survive is to not love anyone at all. Except Lucy. Lucy is the exception, the only person I’d burn the world down for, the only person who makes me feel like maybe I’m not completely hollow inside.

But everyone else? They’re temporary. They’re disposable. They’re just bodies and faces and voices that will eventually fade into nothing, and I’m not going to let myself care about any of them. Not Michelle, no matter how hard she tries. Not Sam, even if we were close once. And definitely not some girl named Lottie who lives next door and is apparently “really sweet.” I’ve met sweet girls before. I’ve fucked sweet girls before. And then I’ve walked away without a second thought because that’s what I do now. That’s who I am.

The San Francisco skyline starts to appear in the distance, hazy and golden in the late afternoon sun, and Michelle points it out excitedly. “There it is! Home sweet home.”

Home. The word feels foreign, like something from a language I used to speak but have since forgotten. I don’t have a home. I have places I’ve stayed, places I’ve survived, but home implies something permanent, something safe, and I stopped believing in that a long time ago.

But I look at Lucy in the rearview mirror, and I see the tiniest flicker of something in her expression—maybe hope, maybe curiosity, maybe just exhaustion—and I make myself a promise. I’ll do this for her. I’ll move to this new city and live in this new house and pretend like everything’s fine, because she deserves a chance at something better. She deserves stability and safety and a childhood that isn’t defined by loss.

As for me? I’ll keep my walls up. I’ll keep my distance. I’ll go to college and join the football team and hook up with girls whose names I won’t remember, and I’ll make sure nobody gets close enough to hurt me again.

Because that’s the only way to survive.

That’s the only way to make sure I’m never the one left behind again.