He Deserved It

CHAPTER 21 – Coming Home

Lia didn’t cry when the bus rolled back into Arroyo Mesa. But she did bite the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood and regret.

Everything outside the window looked exactly the same. Palm trees standing around like bored extras. Cracked sidewalks daring her to trip. The underpass mural half-painted, half-tagged—still stuck in its eternal identity crisis.

It all screamed home. And somehow… none of it felt like it.

She heaved her suitcase off the bus, adjusted the backpack digging into her shoulders, and pulled up her hood even though the California sun still hadn’t decided if it was December or mid-July.

Arroyo Mesa never gets the memo. About seasons. Or about me coming back here.

She dragged her suitcase across the cracked sidewalk, past the same palm trees and the corner liquor store that still advertised $1.50 slushies. A couple kids on bikes sped past her, shouting half-finished Spanish and laughter into the morning air.

Every step felt familiar. And also like she was walking through someone else’s memories.

Before she knew it, she was standing on her own front porch, keys in hand, heart doing that weird flutter like it couldn’t decide if this was relief or panic.

And then—

Her mom nearly tackled her at the door.

“Anak, look at you!”

Perla Navarro’s hands were everywhere—flattening Lia’s hair, pinching her cheeks, checking her face for signs of trauma or scandal. She smelled like hospital soap, fabric softener, and the faint hint of garlic.

“Still short,” Lia mumbled into her mom’s shoulder.

“Still mine,” her mom shot back, and kissed the top of her head like she was sealing a promise.

From the kitchen, her dad grinned, still wearing his neon warehouse vest and waving a spatula like he’d just won an award for Best Dad in a Supporting Role. He walked over to her, squeezing her like he was trying to pop her. Her four younger sisters screamed over one another, a flurry of limbs, ponytails, and half-spoken sentences.

Lia dropped her bag and let herself get swallowed into it all—the hugs, the noise, the smell of sautéed onions. She yelled back, hugged harder, and laughed without meaning to.

It wasn’t fake. Just automatic. Like muscle memory. Like a reflex for survival.

Eventually, the noise shifted to chatter and the clatter of pots and pans. Her sisters scattered, arguing over who got first shower and whether t****k or i********: was more “culturally relevant.”

Lia slipped away while no one was looking. She grabbed her bag, padded down the hallway, and pushed open her door.

Her room hadn’t changed.

Same coral walls that looked cute in middle school and kind of loud ever since. Same bulletin board cluttered with old dance team photos, enamel pins, and one glittery sticker that said Slay All Day even though she definitely hadn’t. The fairy lights drooped across the ceiling like they’d given up halfway through senior year.

She sat on the bed. Looked around.

The posters she used to love seemed flatter now—like the bands had moved on without her. The room felt smaller, stuffed with the ghost of a girl who wore glitter eyeliner to study sessions and sobbed over Olivia Rodrigo songs like heartbreak was a competitive sport.

Congratulations. You grew up. And this room stayed twelve.

She flopped backward onto the comforter, arms spread, and stared at the ceiling.

Or maybe the walls just closed in so I’d finally deal with my feelings. Rude.

San Francisco State had been chaos. The good kind. The holy-s**t-I-have-choices kind.

A beat of quiet. The hum of the house around her.

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift somewhere else. Somewhere louder. Brighter. Less… pink.

She’d danced until 2 a.m. with girls who used their pronouns like power tools—loud, precise, and sometimes a little scary. She’d kissed someone who played bass in a noise band and another person who collected crystals, believed Mercury was plotting against them personally, and smelled aggressively of cloves.

None of it lasted. Obviously.

But she’d laughed harder than she had in months. She’d failed two classes—Introduction to Statistics and the art of pretending she was a morning person—and somehow still felt smarter than before. A professor who dressed like an aging skater boy once called her “brilliant,” and she almost cried about it on a Tuesday.

And the best part?

Nobody there knew her as the girl from the video. Or the kiss. Or the plan. She was just Lia. Which, shockingly, turned out to be enough.

Ten out of ten. Would recommend temporary chaos as a personality cleanse.

But even chaos had an expiration date. And coming home meant remembering the people who knew all the messy chapters she’d tried to leave behind.

She hadn’t talked much to the girls. Not because she was mad. Just… life. And maybe a tiny bit because texting the people who witnessed your villain origin story was exhausting.

Savannah kept posting i********: stories from USC football games, looking effortlessly flawless while pretending to care about first downs. Mila had a thread go viral about murals and memory—and then started fighting strangers in the comments like it was a sport. Imani sent a single meme in October about mitochondria being the powerhouse of regret, then vanished into pre-med purgatory.

They all liked each other’s posts. Sometimes even left a fire emoji. But no one said: Hey. Let’s talk.

Until now.

Because apparently, emotional fallout has an expiration date. Who knew?

And now that she was back in Arroyo Mesa, silence felt heavier. Like the space between her and the girls was filling up with things unsaid.

That night, curled under the same blanket she’d had since eighth grade—the one that smelled faintly like old fabric softener and teenage angst—Lia scrolled through her phone like she was half hoping for drama, half hoping for none.

Her DMs were mostly junk: spam bots offering brand deals for fake eyelashes, classmates sending blurry dorm selfies, and one maybe-girl-maybe-boy from San Francisco she still hadn’t decided how to feel about.

Then:

DM Request: Unnamed Account. No profile pic. No bio.

You look different now. Good different.

Her thumb hovered over Delete.

But she didn’t. Didn’t answer either.

Instead, she locked her phone, dropped it on the pillow beside her, and stared at the ceiling.

Weird. But whatever. People from your past always pop up eventually.

She let the message sit there. Like a door cracked open that she wasn’t sure she wanted to close.

She barely slept. Kept replaying old words, new silences, and inventing worst-case scenarios for sport. By morning, her brain felt wrung out and twitchy—like an over-caffeinated hamster on a wheel.

So when her mom called from the kitchen asking someone to grab the mail, Lia volunteered.

Because nothing says mental stability like volunteering for chores just to avoid your own thoughts.

There were mostly bills. Two glitter-bomb Christmas cards. And one envelope with her name written in loopy script like it belonged on a wedding invite. No return address.

Lia squinted at it.

Great. Either a secret admirer or a weirdo stalker.

She tore it open with her thumbnail.

Inside:

A dried white flower, pressed so flat it looked like paper. And a printed photo.

Her and Jordan.

He was looking at her like she was the only song he knew the words to. She was laughing, head tipped back, one hand resting on his chest like she trusted him not to drop her.

She stared at it.

Cool. Love that for me. A candid from the worst chapter of my life.

But beneath the snark, something twisted in her chest. Because for one second, looking at it, she almost missed who she’d been. The girl who still believed he meant it.

She flipped the photo over. Blank.

No note. No signature. Just silence.

She sat there for a while, the flower fragile between her fingers. The photo heavy in her lap.

Then she slid them both into her desk drawer. Not ripped. Not crumpled. Just hidden.

Because sometimes closure was overrated.

But the problem with secrets was how they stuck to your ribs. All day, she kept checking over her shoulder, half expecting a marching band of consequences to show up at her door.

By nightfall, the quiet felt radioactive. And lying there alone felt like punishment.

She rolled over, pressing her face into her pillow, trying to decide which was worse: silence… or filling it.

She wasn’t the same girl who let things stay unsaid. Not anymore.

That night, she stared at the ceiling until the glow-in-the-dark stars faded into useless plastic dots.

Eventually, she opened the group chat. Typed:

Hey… anyone back in town yet? Or am I the only i***t who came home?

She stared at the blinking cursor for a long time. Debated deleting it. Sent it anyway.

Then set her phone on the pillow beside her like it might bite.

It’s fine. It’s probably nothing. Just a random DM. Just an old photo. No big conspiracy. No plot twist waiting to happen.

But secrets didn’t stay buried forever.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

And wondered if coming home meant digging some of them back up.