Even if his parents had gone over all of this with him already, Bash was more receptive to hearing it from Victor. They didn’t have a boatload of issues between them muddying up the water. Victor’s intentions seemed sincere and Bash had no reason not to trust him—he’d spent more time outside Point Pleasant than Bash had, after all. “Less danger’s gotta be a good thing, right?” Bash said with a little laugh. It should be a given. Hopefully it wouldn’t make his trips back home stressful. He knew the town didn’t work like that, that something bad wasn’t going to happen the second he crossed the city limit, but he could see how people might avoid it if that was the case. But then it couldn’t be, right? People came back all the time. And they had a decent tourist season. For whatever reason, people couldn’t stay away. “Why do you think so many come back? After they leave?”
One of Victor’s brows lifted briefly and then he gave a little shrug. He’d vaguely heard of the phenomenon of many people moving away from Point Pleasant only to return down the road, but he obviously hadn’t experienced it nearly as much as the natives. “It’s a powerful place,” he said to Bash, glancing over with a wan smile. “I know you can feel it. Doesn’t really surprise me that it draws people back, even if they don’t really know why.” Victor didn’t think it was just people who could sense magic coming back, which was slightly unsettling -- did the town just give off a magnetic aura to anyone and everyone? Was there some sort of purpose behind that, or was it some kind of natural thing, like those areas in the world that made compasses go crazy for no discernable reason? He definitely didn’t have those answers. “Hell, it worked on me, I guess. I just bought a house here, and the longest I’d stayed was ... what, three months that one summer?” Victor gave a chuckle, but it did feel a little weird.
“That’s true,” Bash said with a little laugh. “That was a good summer. Though, honestly, they’re all pretty good. For all the crazy shit that happens, I kinda like it here.” That might have been why he was so anxious about going off to college. He’d never lived anywhere else and everywhere felt bigger than Point Pleasant. Though there would be some benefit to meeting new people, it was also daunting. Everyone around him he’d known his entire life. New people appeared occasionally, but it was easy to take them in. Bash wasn’t used to being the new person. He just had to keep reminding himself that everyone at college was in the same boat. “It’ll be nice seeing more of you. And learning from you. One more reason to come home.” He knew he shouldn’t come home every weekend, but it was looking like he’d be fairly busy when he did.
Victor had grown up in a higher-population area, but it still hadn’t been some metropolis like NYC or anything. Going to college and meeting all those different types of people had been a head trip at first. Bash would definitely have some adjusting to do, especially leaving a boyfriend he was really into behind. Everybody went through growing pains like that though, in one way or another, and he had faith his cousin would end up adapting better than he probably thought he would. “We’ll practice some cramming before you go, it’s a skill you’ll need for sure,” he said, shooting Bash a little grin. “And then I better not see you home every weekend, give yourself some time to build a life outside of this place, you know? You might end up liking other places too.” They’d reached the top of the Overlook hill, and a moment later Victor pulled the car into his new driveway. “You ever been in this house?” he asked as he undid his seatbelt. Bash grew up in this neighborhood and Victor wasn’t even sure who’d lived there before him, so it was possible.