Lights on the Lake

“Trey, just wait,” Alana almost begged as Trey huffily walked towards the front door of her small apartment.

“I don’t understand,” Trey replied. “You told me you had no family but your dad who supposedly died four years ago, leaving you family-less. But yet on that message your aunt says that he died three days ago? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t want you to know…” Alana replied, running her fingers through her hair. She sighed at sat down on the arm of her couch.

“Know about what?” Trey asked, still standing next to the door, his hand on the doorknob.

“My past,” Alana said quietly, almost inaudibly. Trey had obviously heard because he let out a frustrated sigh that sounded almost like a grunt.

“You know how much I value honesty,” Trey replied. “What else haven’t you told me? Are you really from Iowa?”

“Yes, Lake Vedleu, Iowa,” Alana replied and got up from where she was sitting.

“Did your mother die when you were eight, like you said?” Trey questioned.

There was a pause.

“No,” She replied. “She left my dad after I was born, I never met her.”

“Wow,” Trey responded and grasped back onto the door handle. “You know, I always wondered why you never talked about why you came to New York. I always thought it was a touchy subject, you know? I never thought you’d lie to me.”

“Trey, you’re overreacting a little bit,” Alana said, Trey raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth but Alana spoke before he could say anything. “So, I left out a few details about my stupid life in Vedleu, who cares? All that matters is who I am now, and what we have going on right now.”

Trey scoffed and turned on the door handle.

“You know what? I’m leaving for Germany tomorrow, and I advise you to take a little trip of your own, figure out why you felt the need to hide shit from me. Go back to Lake Vedleu,” He spat and swung open the door. He was almost out of the door when he stopped, his back still turned to Alana. “I’m sorry about your dad.” He stated through his teeth and then closed the door behind him.

“Trey, wait!” She yelled after him, but he was already long gone.

Alana sighed and placed her head in her hands. She was always so sure to cover up her tracks when it came to stuff that happened in her past, and now here she was with it blasting right in her face, and her boyfriend walking out of her door with no intentions of turning back.

She walked over and played the message again.

His funeral is this weekend and it would mean the world to us if you came back to attend it.

He would have loved it.



A little over 24 hours later, Alana was standing with a suitcase in her hand at the small Vedleu airport. She clutched the small suitcase, making sure that she only packed enough for a few days, so it could remind her that she’d only be here for that long. Her breath caught in her throat as people buzzed around her. She turned to look out of the tall clear windows that overlooked the airplane runways, almost wanting to run back on the airplane to ask the pilot to take her back, but it was already moving slowly away from the terminal.

“Why am I taking you to the airport again?” She could almost still hear Julie ask, her randomly painted fingernails tapping against the steering wheel of her old car that was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.

“I’ve just got to take care of some things in Iowa,” Alana had responded.

“Back at your home?” Julie asked.

“Lake Vedleu is not my home,” Alana had replied.

A WELCOME HOME TO VEDLEU! banner hung over the airport’s front doors and Alana scoffed as she pulled her sunglasses on blocking the summer sun that threw itself at her face as she opened up the doors that led to the front of the airport. She looked around and her breath caught in her throat once again as she saw her aunt walking her direction with tears in her eyes.

Her aunt Ker was the definition of a small-town woman. She had blonde hair and naturally tan skin from the sun, was in her early-forties and had three kids. Born and raised in Lake Vedleu and never thought twice about it. Her tacky jean jacket covered her outstretched arms as she walked towards Alana. She didn’t say anything at first, but instead pulled Alana into a tight hug while sniffling.

“Oh my goodness, Alana Bennett, you’ve grown up so much, look-look at you!” She said, tears openly streaming down her face.

“Aunt Ker, don't cry!” Alana said and touched Ker’s arm.

“It’s been, almost three years,” Ker said. “You were only eighteen by two days the last time I saw you, and now you’re-"

“Twenty. Twenty-one in two more weeks,” Alana replied.

“Wow,” Ker replied and pulled Alana into another hug. “Take off those sunglasses so I can look at you!”

Alana took off her sunglasses and aunt Ker sighed while looking at her niece.

“You’re absolutely beautiful, Lana, always have been. Now let’s get in the car before I create more of a scene.”

Alana smiled and walked with her aunt to her aunt’s regular looking car that matched the regular looking town surrounding it.

As they drove, Alana brushed her hair out of her face and looked outside of her window at the sites that used to be so familiar to her but now were just distant memories. She passed the local bar where her and her old friends, still in high school, tried to convince the owner Pete to sneak them some beers during The Festival of Lights her sophomore year. They drove through downtown where people of all ages enjoyed the summer sun while going in and out of little shops that have probably been there through two or three generations.

Alana used to drive her father’s car through the streets of downtown, waving at some friends she knew as she drove by, her hand hanging outside of the driver’s side window, making waves with the wind. Now, she was an outsider, looking out from behind a glass window in her aunt’s car, with the pit of her stomach sinking.

“I’m so glad you decided to come,” Ker said, breaking the silence as she pulled onto a side road that Alana remembered led to her aunt’s house. Alana could see the large lake behind them as they drove uphill.

“I wish I could say the same,” Alana said, trying to stifle a small laugh to make it seem like her statement wasn’t dead serious, which it was.

“Your dad talked about you all the time,” Ker said quietly. “Always said he knew you’d come home. Too bad this had to be the circumstances in which it happened.”

Alana didn’t say anything back as they pulled into her aunt Ker’s driveway.

“Still the same old house I remember,” Alana muttered as she closed the car door behind her.

“Yep, but with another member of the family,” Ker replied. “Little Kimberly turned two last week.”

“Wow,” Alana said with a weird feeling in her chest, knowing that Kimberly probably had no idea who she was and how her other cousins probably had forgotten her existence.

“Paul is out with the kids on the lake, but they should be home by dinner, so just make yourself comfortable, and like I said you can stay as long as you want.”

“No, I’ve got to get back to work and everything, so I should only be here for today and tomorrow,” Alana replied, looking at her aunt’s house, that incredibly hadn’t changed at all. She looked over at the refrigerator in the kitchen and even remembered a few of the same magnets as being there before she left. She felt like she just stepped back in time, and was now stuck in it.

“Oh… okay,” Ker said. “Well, maybe you can squeeze in some time to see some of your old friends? A lot are back here from college. People still talk, and they’re going to wonder if Ned Bennett’s daughter will be home for his funeral, just a little heads up.”

“Yeah, I know,” Alana said with a sigh and sat down at a tall chair by the kitchen counter. “That’s what you get for living in a small town, where everyone talks about things that don’t matter.”

“Are you going to see Leo?” Ker asked quickly, as if she had been holding back that question for some time. Alana immediately tensed at the sound of that name, and looked over at her aunt, who immediately realized she shouldn’t have said anything. “And of course, Abigail, Mackenzie and Weezer and all of them? I heard Weezer got into town yesterday.”

Alana felt her throat almost close up. “Le… Leo is still around?”

“He, well he goes to college only about an hour away. He’s here for the summer helping his dad out at his shop,” Ker said hesitantly. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, no it’s totally fine,” Alana said and waved her hand in the air. “It’s totally fine.”

But Alana had a feeling that when just hearing Leo Cronin’s name had that much of an affect on her, that nothing was totally fine, and she already realized that coming back to Lake Vedleu was going to be one of the biggest mistakes she's ever made.