“Oh man, this is strange,” Brenna murmured.

Justin glanced away from the road to find her staring out of the car window. “What?”

“Just seeing everything again. It’s like I never left.”

He looked back to the road. “And yet it’s been over three months.”

She continued to look out the window. “Yeah.”

“Think your mom’s gonna be surprised?”

“Yep. Yours?”

He chuckled. “Oh yeah.” Neither had told anyone in Shelby Forest that they were coming back for a few days and he knew his mom would flip out when he saw her.

He leaned back in the seat and adjusted the cruise control a bit as he drove down the highway in the rental car. They were only a few minutes outside Shelby Forest and he was anxious to see his family.

“Do you wanna stop by my house first or yours?” he asked as he tapped his foot on the brake to take the car off cruise control.

“I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

He slowed down his speed as they entered Shelby Forest. “Let’s go to mine first. My mom should be home.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t take too long to get to his house and it was quiet the whole time. Brenna was back to staring out the window and he didn’t interrupt her, knowing she was deep in thought. When he pulled into his driveway, she turned her head forward and undid her seatbelt.

“Your mom’s gonna be so excited,” she said, getting out of the car.

He smiled. “I know.” He followed her towards the house and used the key his mom kept hidden under a flower pot by the front door to let them in. He went through the house, looking for his mom before he finally saw her through the screen door in the kitchen. He went towards it and Brenna followed behind.

Lynn looked up from the newspaper when he opened the door and stepped onto the patio. She stared at him in surprise for a second before jumping up.

“Justin, what are you doing here?” she asked, coming over to give him a tight hug.

He laughed. “We came for a visit. Did I surprise you?”

“I thought I was imagining things. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

Lynn pulled back and went to hug Brenna. “You look gorgeous, Brenna. How are you?”

Brenna hugged her back. “Really good.”

Lynn pulled back and looked them over. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming! How long are you staying?”

“Until Tuesday,” he answered. “Almost a week.”

“Does you mom know you’re here?” Lynn asked Brenna.

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“She’ll be so excited. I was talking to her just the other day and she was saying how much she wanted you to visit. Did Trace come too?”

“No, he can’t take time off school right now. He said to say hello, though.”

“How’s school going for him?”

“Good, I think.”

“That’s good.” Lynn smiled. “It’s so great to see you two again. Everyone’s been asking how you are, Bren. The Fairweather’s will get a kick out of seeing you.”

Brenna smiled. “Yeah. I can’t wait to see them.”

“Well are you two hungry? I could make something for lunch.”

Justin looked over at Brenna and caught her look. “I was gonna drive Bren to her house, Mom. We never stopped there.”

“Oh, of course. Will your mom be home, Bren?”

“Yeah, it’s her day off.”

“Alright. Why don’t you two come over for dinner tonight? I could whip something up.”

“Sure.”

“Perfect.”

Justin began toward the door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Mom.”

“Alright, Hun. Six o’clock, Brenna.”

“Okay.”

They went back inside the house and to the car.

“Yep, she was surprised,” he said as he backed out of the driveway. “She totally wasn’t expecting that.”

“No kidding.”

He drove the short distance to Brenna’s house and parked in her driveway. Jumping out, he grabbed her suitcase and followed her to the door. As they went into the house and shut the door, Elizabeth Michaels came from the kitchen. A shocked look came over her face.

“Brenna?!”

Brenna smiled and Justin watched as she and her mother hugged. Elizabeth had a million questions and Brenna laughed as the answered them all.

He stayed there for about ten minutes before deciding Brenna probably wanted some time alone with her mom. He excused himself and drove back to his house where he spent most of the afternoon with him mom and later, his stepfather when he got home from work. By five o’clock he had a bit of a headache from his lack of sleep the night before and his early flight and he decided to go upstairs and sleep. By time he was woken up at six for dinner, he felt better and the remainder of his night was spent with his family, Elizabeth, and Brenna.

It was four days later when Brenna left her house early in the afternoon and walked to the pond. Her mom had had a business meeting she couldn’t get out of so Brenna had the house to herself for a lot of the day. Not really wanting to stay at home, she had decided to go to the pond. The walk there was almost therapeutic. She had walked the path so many times over the years and it was familiar and peaceful.

When she reached the clearing, she found the pond free of any people and walked down to the edge of it. She slipped off her sandals and let her feet be covered in water.

It was hard to describe what it was like to be back in Shelby Forest. It was all so familiar but very strange at the same time. Nothing had changed and yet she had changed so much. She felt like a completely different person but being back in her hometown brought a bit of the old Brenna back. It was strange to her that simply being in Shelby Forest could do that to her.

People had seemed to notice the change in her. She had had a few people comment on it. Catherine Fairweather had told her that she seemed happier and Brena couldn’t agree with her more. She was happy in LA. With Justin and Kate and her new job and everyone she had met. At that point, she really couldn’t see herself ever coming back to live in Shelby Forest again. She had caught the “city bug” as Kate had often called it.

The sound of gravel crunching drew Brenna out of her thoughts and she turned her head to the side to see who was there. She really didn’t know how to describe the emotions that went through her when she saw Jake Murphy coming towards her. Her first instinct was to leave but she fought it off. For the first time, she had a strange desire to hear what he had to say.

Jake never broke eye contact with her as he came towards her. When he stopped beside her, a slow smirk came over his face.

“I knew you’d be back.”

She didn’t reply and turned to look back out at the pond.

“I knew you’d get tired of LA and come back here. I’m surprised you held out for three months.”

“I’m only here for six days,” she finally replied, still watching the water.

He was silent for a minute and a small smile briefly came to her lips as she realized he had nothing to say.

“You still came back,” he said after a minute. “You must have missed it to come back.”

“I must have,” she murmured.

“I mean, come on, Bren. This is Shelby Forest. This is where you belong. I’m sure you had fun playing pretend in LA but really, give it up.”

She looked over at him. “Why does it matter to you if I stay here? You don’t even like me.”

His lips turned up and he shrugged. “I gotta have someone to entertain me.”

His smile created the dual emotion of anger and pain in her and she stared at him for a minute before slipping her sandals back on. “That’s awfully nice of you, Jake,” she said softly, starting to walk away.

His hand grabbing her arm pushed her too far. She whipped around to face him. “What?!”

His eyebrows rose a bit. “Woah, calm down there, Brenna.” His smirk returned. “When did you get so hot tempered?”

She gritted her teeth together. “Let go of my arm,” she said evenly.

“Let go of my arm,” he mocked, tightening his fingers. Too many memories came back when he did that and she felt her heart beating a little faster.

“I’m not kidding.”

He raised a challenging eyebrow at her and gripped her arm a little tighter.

It was simply too much to take after being away form him for so long. It only took a could seconds in between when he tightened his hand and when she shot her knee up between his legs as hard as she could.

“Shit!” he gasped and she felt some satisfaction go through her when he dropped like a dead weight to the ground. “You bitch!”

She stared at him for a moment before speaking. “Find someone new to entertain you,” she said and then turned and walked away. Jake yelled at her a few times but she ignored him and didn’t break her steady pace until she reached the Harless house. At that point, the adrenaline coursing through her veins slowed and she realized what she had done. In a bit of a daze, she rang the doorbell and waited. Justin answered a minute later.

“Hey, I was wondering if you were gonna come over today,” he said, stepping to the side so she could enter the house. “What have you been doing today?”

She slipped off her shoes. “I saw Jake.”

Justin’s expression immediately changed. “What did he do? I told him if he touched you again I’d kick his ass. Did he hurt you?”

“No, I…” She reached up a hand to run through her hair. “I kind of canned him.”

Justin began to smile. “Serious?”

She nodded.

He laughed. “That’s awesome! No one deserves it more than him. So why’d you do it? Just for the hell of it?”

“No, I was leaving and he grabbed my arm and I told him to let go and he wouldn’t.” She shrugged. “So I canned him.”

“Good for you.”

“Okay, and when did you tell him you’d beat him up if he bothered me.”

Justin began to look embarrassed. She followed him into the living room. “Um, right before we left for LA.”

She rolled her eyes. “Trying to protect me?”

“Well it’s not like you were doing a very good job of it at that point.”

A bit of annoyance went through her at his remark but she pushed it aside because she knew it was true. She shrugged and went over to the couch, stretching across it on her back and staring up at the ceiling. “I guess. Actually, today’s the first time I think I’ve ever really stood up to him.”

Justin sat down in an armchair near the end of the couch where her head was. “So why did you never stick up for yourself? What made you just let him walk all over you?”

She sighed. “Because I didn’t want to lose another person. Right after my dad died I really just withdrew and all my friends from high school had gone to Memphis and I lost contact. That really was my fault because they tried to keep in touch but I basically ignored them. When I finally came out of my slump, I had no one left. I didn’t want to be all alone. And when we broke up I didn’t know how to make him stop treating me bad.” She absently ran her fingers over the hem of her t-shirt. “Pretty stupid I guess.”

“Sometimes you just get into situations like that and eventually you get so deep into it that it’s hard to change it until you get away.”

“You think?”

“Well yeah. I mean, would you have ever stood up to him if you hadn’t gone to LA?”

“Probably not.”

“See, it just took a new environment to get some clarity.”

She lifted her head to look at him and began to smile. “Thanks, Dr. Freud.”

He smiled as well as he realized their positions, with her laying on the couch and him in the armchair. He crossed his legs. “You’re more than welcome, my dear,” he said in a bad accent. “My analysis is that your problems are caused by a deep unresolved sexual conflict from your childhood.”

She laughed and moved her head to stare at the ceiling again. “Uh huh.”

Justin moved to sit on the other end of the couch, lifting her legs and then setting them on his lap. It was silent for a minute before he spoke. “Tell me, Brenna, do you have penis envy?”

She burst out laughing at his words.

“Come on, do you?” he asked, tickling the bottom of her foot. She tried to jerk it away but he simply began to tickle up her body.

“Do you, Bren?” he taunted, his hands reaching her stomach. “Do you have penis envy?”

She laughed and shook her head, trying to bat his hands away. He placed one knee on either side of her hips and kept tickling her.

“Say it! Say ‘I have penis envy’!”

She gasped for breath in between giggles and shook her head. “I am NOT saying that!”

His hands moved under her shirt to tickle her stomach and she laughed harder. “Say it!”

“No!” She squirmed harder against him, still giggling. A few tears of laughter escaped her “You’re gonna make me barf!”

“Is it because you have penis envy?”

She laughed and moved to the side to escape his unrelenting fingers. The edge of the couch was closer than she had thought and since she was laughing too hard to grab something to stop herself, she fell away from Justin and landed on the floor with a thump. Her laughter stopped immediately as pain went through her arm.

“Ow…”

“Shit, are you okay, Bren?” Justin asked in between laughter.

She slowly sat up. “No. I hurt my wrist.”

“Let’s see.” He grabbed her wrist and she yelped.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.” He touched it again, this time more gently. “Can you move it?”

She tested it and pain went through her arm as it moved.

“You might have sprained it.” He got up and pulled her up by her good arm. “You should put some ice on it.”

She cradled her wrist in her hand as she followed him to the kitchen. He pulled an icepack from the freezer and she hissed when it touched her wrist.

“Does that hurt?”

“It’s cold.”

He began to smile. “Uh oh,” he joked.

She frowned at him. “Shut up. This is your fault.”

“Hey, I didn’t push you off the couch.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t been going on about your stupid penis envy I wouldn’t have fell.”

“Yours, not mine,” he corrected. “I don’t need to have penis envy.”

She glared at him. “My wrist still hurts.”

He laughed and gave her a bright smile. “I’ll go get you a tensure bandage.”

She sighed as he left the room. Using her good hand, she hoisted herself up on the counter. She tested moving her wrist again and while it still hurt, the ice had helped numb it a bit.

Justin came back into the kitchen when the tensure bandage. He came over to stand in front of her. “Hold out your arm.” She complied and he began to carefully wrap the bandage around it. In the middle of it, Lynn arrived and came into the kitchen carrying some grocery bags.

“What happened to your arm, Hun?” she asked, setting the bags on the counter.

Brenna glanced up at Justin and raised her eyebrows. He answered for her.

“She fell off the couch.”

Lynn frowned. “How did you manage that?”

Brenna narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah, Justin. How did I manage that?”

He rolled his eyes. “I was tickling her.”

Lynn made a tsking noise. “You need to be more careful, Justin.”

His brow furrowed as he secured the bandage with a safety pin. “Why am I getting the careful speech?” He jerked his thumb towards Brenna. “She’s the one who fell off the couch.”

“With your help,” Lynn replied.

Brenna jumped off the counter. “Told you so,” she smirked at Justin, laughing at his expression as she went to help Lynn with the food.