My parents meet me as I come off th

My parents meet me as I come off the jet.
Mom’s eyes are ringed with red and she throws her arms around me and pulls me tight. “My sweet baby girl,” she says. “I was so worried about you. I was so scared you were never going to come home to us.”
I don’t say anything. I hug her back, but I’m only going through the motions.
Dad stands to the side. He has no words for me, and I have nothing to say to him.
But Preston is the one who holds onto me. The moment his arms close around me, I burst into tears. He holds me and lets me sob into his shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to me. “I tried to talk to them and convince them to stop, but they wouldn’t listen.”
Preston takes my small bag and puts one arm around me as we all walk to the car and head home to Fairhope.
In the car, no one says a word. The tension is palpable.
It’s still almost a fifteen minute drive from the small airport here to our house, and on the way, I can only hope my parents will have the decency to give me my space. I did what they asked. I played along even though it meant surrendering my own hope for the future. I hope they will at least give me time to deal with it in my own way.
I pull my legs up into the seat and lean my head against the window, watching the miles pass us by. I don’t think about the future or about the things that happened on the trip. I clear my mind, concentrating on the trees along the side of the road. We’re going so fast, they start to blur together. That’s when I realize I’m crying again. Even if my mind has closed off, refusing to think of the things that will hurt me, my heart still knows.
My heart won’t let me forget what I’ve done.
Preston puts a hand on my arm and when I look over, he motions for me to scoot closer. He opens his strong arms to me and I crawl inside, just like I’ve done a thousand times. Preston is my rock, and I’m so glad he’s here with me.
He holds me as we cross the county line. He holds me as we pass the Solo gas station where Mason and I stopped before we left town. He holds me all the way until Dad pulls the car through the gate and our house appears.
Preston opens the door, but before he lets go of me, he squeezes my shoulder and whispers in my ear. “No matter what, I’m here for you, sis,” he says. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
I hug him back, then get out of the car. I stare up at the house where I grew up. It looks exactly the same as it always has, but it feels different. I guess because I’m different. For the first time, I’m seeing this all through the eyes of someone who didn’t grow up in a place like this. I’m seeing it through the eyes of people like Delores and Walt and Buddy. People who take nothing for granted and who fight for everything they have and everything they love.
Before, this was always just my house. I didn’t see anything special about it. It was just the house where we live.
But now, I see the ridiculousness of it. I can see why people think we act so high and mighty. After all, I just flew in on a private jet, drove home in a special edition Lexus, and came through a gated entrance to a house with over fifteen thousand square feet.
And none of those things could ever be enough to make me happy. None of it could ever replace what I had with Mason, sitting by the fire or holding each other inside a tent, our warm bodies pressed together in the darkness.
“Come inside, sweetheart,” my mom says. “We’ll get you something to eat.”
I nod, but don’t follow her inside right away. I stand there for another minute, staring up at the house, thinking about just how much I’ve changed since I left. How fast I would trade all of this for one more moment with him.
How I might never get the chance to make that choice again.