Solitude (Magnolia Hollow #1)

1. Summer ‘21

1

SUMMER ‘21

Winnie

My parents forgot my birthday.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Lorelai and Colson Carmichael probably wouldn’t be able to tell their coworkers my birthday, my favorite color, or even my eye color without double checking first.

The toes of my white sneakers dig into the dirt beneath the swing as I stare at the single flame of a gold birthday candle I can’t bring myself to blow out. I found it in the junk drawer in the kitchen, tucked behind a wedding invitation from my cousin that my mother rolled her eyes at, a remnant from last year when my parents took me out to a formal sit-down dinner.

If I’m honest, all I’ve ever wanted was a party at home. Not even a party, really. Just a small gathering where my parents sing a silly little birthday song to me with a smile on their face. I want a homemade cake and sixteen candles, so I can make a wish and struggle to blow all of them out in one breath. I want my favorite meal for dinner and a movie marathon with my best friend.

I haven’t actually seen my parents since school let out for summer break three days ago, which isn’t unusual. I naively assumed that when your only child turns sixteen, your parents would make time for it. Isn’t sixteen one of the big ones?

I would’ve settled for a text message even.

A glance down at my phone tells me the same thing I’ve seen the last hundred times I checked it. There’s nothing from them. Just a text from Sienna wishing me a happy birthday with six party emojis.

That’s how I ended up on this rusted red swing set in my t-shirt and cutoff shorts staring at a lit candle on a single strawberry cupcake that I bought from a new bakery that opened on Main Street.

The summer breeze tastes salty when I lick my lips and tilt my head back, enjoying the gentle wind as it blows softly over my bare arms and legs. I wonder briefly if I should’ve grabbed a light jacket before I left the house. The sea breeze gets cool and damp at night even though it’s unbearably hot all day. Despite the shiver that occasionally racks my body, I can’t bring myself to walk home yet.

The metal chains creak under my slight weight as I swing back and forth gently, barely moving, and it sounds eerie in the night’s silence. The park is technically closed at night, but the fence is a measly three bar enclosure that’s not very good at keeping unwanted guests out. I’ve been shimmying underneath the bars and between the gaps for months and spending late nights in this rundown park for a couple of months now.

That’s the thing about living in Magnolia Hollow when you’re not really living here. The people are kind and generous; always asking me if I need anything as I pass them on my walk to and from school.

Somehow in a town so small you can sneeze and seven of your neighbors will come out to check on you, I’ve learned how to live a life with minimal questions. I think some of it is out of fear of my parents, so I get it. Lorelai and Colson are terrifying.

For that reason, no one ever interrupts my solitude.

That’s what I like about it. The quiet peace this town holds for me. But it’s also what I hate the most. Like it’s too still . My skin feels too tight and thin, wondering constantly if they can see through me. See just how lonely I am.

If I looked their way when I walked by, would I see pity in their eyes?

As if the universe is listening to my thoughts, a light voice speaks behind me. “Am I interrupting something?”

An embarrassing screech bursts from my mouth, loud and jarring in the quiet, and the shadowed man visibly takes a step away from me at the sound as I jump off the swing. The cupcake flies from my hand without a second thought, arms slinging back and hurling it as close to his head as I can manage.

Fight or flight.

Color me surprised when not only does the cake fall more towards his left shoulder, but then he also easily sidesteps out of the way before the cupcake collides with his body.

He has the nerve to stand there and chuckle, hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts as he stares down at the smashed cake, and I think I hear a small sound leave him. Something akin to disbelief.

“Did you just throw that at me?”

Lifting my chin, I fist my hands at my sides. “It’s rude to sneak up on people.”

His head lifts as he glances my way then back at the ground. Something about him is familiar but somehow not at the same time.

He bends down at the waist to pick up my obliterated birthday treat, inspects the damage with a grimace, then tosses it in the garbage can a few feet away. Just plops it right into the smelly garbage without a single thought. My hand lifts, mouth opening and closing to stop him, to say literally anything, but I catch myself, the words die in my throat.

I’d planned to throw it away, but it feels like a punch to the gut to watch him do it instead.

How embarrassing.

Then to make it all worse, he strolls closer, brushing dirt and leftover cupcake remnants off before leaning a shoulder against the swing set. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets again, and my heart drops as I finally get a good look at his face.

Holy heck .

Beckett Hale.

My next-door neighbor.

My crush.

I haven’t said a word to him in the four years he’s lived on the other side of the fence with his ever-growing family. I’ve seen him, of course. How could I not? But I’ve never actually been able to muster up the courage to say anything to him. Not a hello. Not even a small wave or smile.

Now, in five minutes, I’ve potentially burst his eardrum and thrown a flaming cupcake at him. Well, in his general direction.

I want to die.

Is it too late to make a new birthday wish? I’d like for the ground to open and swallow me, please.

“What was the busted cupcake for, anyway?” He probes, ignoring my previous sentiment.

I cross my arms over my chest. “It didn’t look like that before you got here.”

Beckett shrugs, a lopsided grin on his face that makes my heart squeeze. He’s never smiled at me before. “The damn thing was practically mush in your hands, Winnie, and you were just letting candle wax drip all over the icing.”

My mouth immediately opens to protest, defend myself against his not-totally incorrect accusations, but I pause.

Two things happen. First, I realize that Beckett had been standing there a few feet away watching me for a while before he spoke to me. How long had he been standing there just behind me while my grip slowly tightened on the cupcake?

Second, did he just…?

“You know my name.”

Not a question. I don’t need to ask. Clearly, he knows it from the way he just let it roll off his tongue like he says it every day: practiced and poised. I want to hear Beckett Hale say my name every day.

He tilts his head, eyes me curiously, and I swallow harshly under his scrutinizing gaze. “We’ve lived beside each other for years in a small town. Of course, I know your name.”

“Right.” I nod, unable to stop the motion. Up and down. Up and down. My brain finally catches up, and my hands begin to twist and tangle in front of me. “It’s surprising, I guess. We’ve never talked.”

At that, Beckett snorts. “Yeah. Kind of hard to talk to you when you run away every time one of us looks in your direction.” He looks at me pointedly, referencing his entire family. “You know we don’t have some kind of freaky germs or something just because there’s a lot of us, right?”

I cough to cover the laugh that wants to escape at his wording. He’s not exaggerating. There are a lot of Hale’s running around Magnolia Hollow. His mom and dad just adopted a two-year-old little girl, Millie, which makes nine kids living in the two-story home beside mine. I’ve been lucky enough to watch them grow throughout the years.

And I watched it all from my bedroom window.

It sounds creepy, and well, maybe it is a little.

From my resting spot in my second-floor bay window, I saw Stella, the oldest Hale, leave the nest, Andy, the second oldest and wild child, graduate and leave for some backpacking trip before college, and the twins—Beckett and Bennett—stumble their way through hockey and girls. I’ve watched Tillie and Spencer, two of the middle children, grow from little kids to preteens and watched Gabe and Nick, the younger Hales, start elementary school.

The Hale family has always been my favorite tv show, and lucky for me, it’s always on right next door.

I love their imperfectly perfect life. It’s full of all the things missing from mine. Two loving parents who kiss each other hello and goodbye. Toys scattered in the yard. Big meals laid out over a huge oak table I can just barely spy through a window above their sink.

There’s something welcoming about them and their chaos.

“I know,” I finally mumble, unsure of my words, so I lie. “I’m just always busy.”

Beckett nods his head and sits on one swing. “Right. What’re you doing out here by yourself, anyway? You don’t have a bedtime?”

“I…excuse me?” I sputter. A bedtime? Is he serious? “ I’m sixteen, not twelve. It’s my birthday actually. That’s why I’m here.”

He grins and pushes his toe into the dirt and propels himself forward in the swing. He goes back and forth a time or two before he speaks again. “Why are you celebrating your sixteenth birthday in a park? All alone? At night?”

Huffing out a breath, I tighten my arms around my body. “Why do you ask so many questions?”

“I’m a curious guy. Always have been.”

He says it honestly. Like the answer is just that simple. He asks questions because he genuinely wants to know the answer.

It makes me brave for some reason.

“If you really want to know, my parents forgot my birthday, okay?” I confess quickly, eyes falling to the ground as I kick at a patch of grass.

He says nothing for a long time. So long that my eyes flick upwards to make sure he’s still there.

And he is. He’s still swinging gently, and I notice his face is pensive. His thick, dark brows are lowered, and his mouth twists as he looks at the stars.

“Damn,” is all that tumbles out of his mouth.

I chuckle at that, surprise lacing throughout my body, and I walk closer until I can plop down in the other swing beside him. I don’t push off, though. Sitting there, I comb through my thoughts and try to figure out why I even told him about my parents in the first place.

Silence has never bothered me, but suddenly I hate it. That must be why my mouth begins moving before I can stop it. “They’re important people, you know? It’s not unusual for them to miss things. It’s not really a big deal… I know they’re saving lives or something.”

“Do you do that a lot?”

“Do what?”

“Make excuses for them.”

My head snaps in his direction as he swings again, full force, and my eyes follow him back and forth for a few moments. His bluntness feels comforting in a way.

Once again, his honesty gives me courage.

“Yes,” I reply.

Why lie?

I thought I’d want to keep that humiliation locked up tight, but I do the opposite. Whenever Sienna, my best friend, questions me about my rocky relationship with my parents, I avoid the topic because it feels too…personal.

I don’t want to be that vulnerable. I don’t want to admit that my parents’ lack of interest in me, their only child, burns me from the inside out. Makes me feel lonely and worthless at times.

But this moment with Beckett Hale feels like a fever dream. I can say or do whatever I want because in the morning I’ll wake up and none of this ever happened. I can pretend it wasn’t real and go back to avoiding him.

I can tell my secret: Lorelai and Colson Carmichael are bad parents.

My mouth opens to spill all of the words I’ve kept buried deep down, but Beckett cuts me off.

“I had to get away from my family for a while.” He’s staring off, no longer swinging. “That’s why I’m here. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just too much sometimes.”

He kicks the dirt then resumes his momentum like he didn’t just admit something to restore the balance between us after our uneven exchange. He passes me, swinging forward as I push backwards.

I ask, even though I know the answer, “How many of you are there now?”

We pass each other again. “Eleven. We officially adopted Millie six months ago.”

“She’s precious…” I mumble.

In truth, I attended the celebratory party Mayor Taylor, a long-time friend of Beckett’s father, held at Bluebird Ranch on the outskirts of Magnolia Hollow. The entire town came out to welcome Amelia into the Hale family, and it was a fun time.

Beckett had danced with his siblings all night until he jetted out of the barn with Holly Franklin, one of his classmates, and his twin brother and best friend hot on his heels with their own girls trailing behind. I had watched them run down the sloped hill leading toward the small pond towards the back end of the ranch, laughter filling the air. It was like a scene out of a movie.

I wanted to be a part of it. A part of something for once.

Instead, I went home to an empty house, ate cookie dough out of the tube, and watched old romantic comedies until I passed out. I woke up the next morning with smeared chocolate spread all over my sheets where I’d dropped the bowl when I fell asleep. I thought I’d crapped my pants some time during the night, which only added to my intense, swirling thoughts.

I don’t know why I felt so left out that night.

Beckett Hale and I aren’t friends, obviously.

He smiles bashfully at me, and I’m pulled back to the present.

His dark hair is buzzed close to his scalp, like it has been for years now. He runs a hand over the fuzzy ends, and I’ve noticed that he has a habit of doing it when he’s nervous. But this time when he does it, he launches into a fast-paced momentum, making me flinch, then jumps out of the seat.

He lands on his feet and throws his hands in the air like a gymnast before turning back to face me, still grinning.

In the moonlight, I can’t see the two dark freckles that are on his cheek underneath his right eye, or the scar that runs through his eyebrow from a hockey accident that rocked the town a couple of years ago. I can only see the outline of his tall, lean frame, and for some reason, that’s when it fully hits me that Beckett Hale is swinging with me in the park at ten o’clock at night.

“I never asked,” Beckett pants, catching his breath, “if you know my name.”

“Do I know your name?” I parrot back at him.

Beckett chuckles. “That is what I asked, yeah. ”

I chew my lip and stand up. “Beckett. Of course I know your name…” I try to grin, but I feel like it comes out like more of a grimace. “We’ve been neighbors for years, you know?”

And he laughs.

It floats between us and soothes a part of my wounded pride unbeknownst to him. My parents may have forgotten about me, but the universe gave me a gift in the form of Beckett Hale to make up for it.

“Beck,” he says finally with a cheeky grin, and I inhale softly when I see his dimples. “Just Beck.”

A nickname.

He doesn’t go by Beckett. I knew that, but it didn’t feel like something I would ever be allowed to call him. He’s always held celebrity status to me. I wouldn’t go up to Bradley Cooper on the street and call him Brad.

“Just Beck,” I repeat with a nod. It feels strange on my tongue. “Nice to meet you, Beck.”

He takes a few steps until he’s standing in front of me and extends his hand out towards my body, and I stare down at it like he’s just offered me an alien baby. Beckett Hale wants to hold my hand.

Okay .

Maybe he’s not technically asking to hold my hand. It doesn’t matter.

My hand, small and soft, slides into his slowly, and he wraps long, calloused fingers tightly around my own. Not to be dramatic, but it’s like a few of my loose pieces finally slot together .

“Winnie?” He says my name, soft and inquisitive, like he’s making sure it sounds okay. When my eyes meet his blue orbs, he says, “Nice to meet you, too, Winnie.”

I begin to believe a new friendship forms then and there, taking shape in front of my eyes with the eerie creak of the rusted swings behind us and the sea breeze all around.

“Maybe I’ll see you around this summer?”

I blink. “Oh. Yeah, maybe.”

“You’re allowed to have friends even if your parents are dicks.”

“I have friends.” I scrape my teeth along my lip and cringe. “I have a friend. Sienna. I don’t know if you know her.”

Beck nods, “Sienna Russell? Shiny, red hair?”

“Yup. That’s the one.”

“I think she hooked up with Gus at a party once.”

My eyes widen. “No way… She would’ve told me that.”

Beck shrugs. “Maybe not. Hooking up with Gus Taylor has to be at the top of most people’s most embarrassing things that could ever happen list.”

“Know from experience?” I ask before I can stop myself, and my cheeks heat at Beck’s chuckle.

“Not me, no.” He looks towards the park exit then back at me. “But it’d have to rank pretty high up there for me if it did happen. Guy couldn’t keep it in his pants if he tried. ”

“Are you shaming him?” I can’t actually bring myself to say the word slut .

Beck hums. “I guess I am. You know I think he fucked a teacher in the locker room.”

My nose wrinkles. “Gross.”

“He’s a gross guy, Winnie. Better stay away from him.”

“Not a problem.”

“Let me walk you home,” Beck says suddenly, gesturing toward the fence with his chin, and I follow him home quietly.

We walk side by side, like old friends, and I have to physically chew the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something embarrassing. Beck fills the silence instead. He chatters about something silly Gus and Bennett did the other day involving a peach from Bluebird Ranch and a broken arrow Gus found at home. I’m happy to listen to Beck talk all day, so when he stops by the large, privacy fence separating our homes, I swallow nervously.

“Well, goodnight,” I say, scratching my arm.

Beckett smiles, his dimple flashing me. “Goodnight, Winnie.”

I spin on my heel, and it’s not until I’m on the porch that I hear Beck call after me. I look back at him. “Hm?”

“Happy birthday.”

My cheeks heat, and I nod slowly. “Thanks.”

It’s not until I’m safely tucked away in my room that I truly allow myself to freak out about the entire ordeal.

And when I say freak out, I don’t mean the dancing around, silent squealing, smiling so hard it hurts kind of freak out. I mean the kind of freak out where I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror with a toothbrush hanging out of my mouth for six minutes, foam dripping down my chin while I replay every moment of our interaction seven times in a row.

By the eighth time, I’m groaning and spitting toothpaste down the drain, my limbs heavy as I try to stop myself from banging my head on the wall.

By the twelfth time it replays in my mind, I’m calling Sienna to make anguished noises into the receiver for four minutes before she threatens to hang up. I recount the entire situation to her with all the theatrics worthy of a Korean drama, and she listens intently until the end.

Like a good friend.

“You’re an idiot,” she giggles into the phone, and I’m almost ready to retract my comment about her being a good friend. “You’re making a big deal about nothing. He walked you home and warned you to stay away from his best friend. It must mean something”

“We’re neighbors, Si,” I counter. “Also, he didn’t warn me away from anyone…”

I’ll admit it did send a flutter throughout my belly to think about Beck asking me to stay away from his notorious sex fiend friend. He could’ve just been saying it, like he says it to everyone he meets, but I think I’m choosing to be oblivious and believe he could be jealous at the thought.

Crazy. Insane. Outlandish.

I bite my lip to keep from giggling .

She sighs dramatically. “Okay, but he still walked you home. He could’ve veered into his yard and left you to continue on your five-hundred foot journey home.”

I roll my eyes. “Now who’s being crazy…”

“My point is that you shouldn’t worry about it, Winnie. You didn’t say or do anything embarrassing, which I’ll be honest…is surprising.”

I laugh lightly, “Yeah…”

I might have left out the parts where we confessed a few secrets that even Sienna doesn’t know about me, and she knows me better than anyone else in my life.

Flopping down on my bed, I look towards the window I’ve been watching the Hale’s out of for years now and ponder the idea that maybe, just maybe, there was a time that Beck looked over at my house and wondered about me, too.

Doubtful.