Sweet Cherry Cove: The Complete Series

Alba

Sure, he sent me mail. When Dalton first went on tour, when he was just starting to make it big, he wrote me a postcard from every town he stopped in. Did that for a long time.

Then there were the letters every New Year’s Eve, explaining his hopes and dreams for the coming year, and asking about mine. Another one of our traditions.

There were birthday gifts, and care packages when I was sick. Sometimes a funny little stuffed animal or an ugly fridge magnet just because.

For years and years after he left, Dalton sent me mail.

And I wrote back. Like an idiot.

Early on, I sent him cut-outs from my college campus magazine, and articles from the local newspaper I knew he’d like. ‘Goose terrorizes middle school over recess’, stuff like that. Dalton always loved anything absurd.

I sent birthday gifts and holiday cards. I wrote out my hopes and dreams too every New Year’s Eve. One humiliating year, I sent a Valentine. Did his agent roll her eyes as she sorted his mail?

On and on, we kept up this charade—this shared lie that Dalton was just off to seek his fortune, but someday, somehow, we’d meet again.

I should have stopped it all sooner. For my heart, if not my pride. But you have to understand that for all those years as Dalton and I grew up next door to each other, changing from scabby-kneed kids to awkward, gangling teenagers, he was it for me. The sun in my sky. My best friend and my crush.

And boy, did he crush me.

Yeah, I should have stopped the letter thing sooner.

Maybe it would have been less weird if we were texting or emailing too. Keeping in contact in the normal ways. But it’s like as soon as Dalton Meadows hit it big, burning a meteoric trail through the charts, he lost my number. Ghosted by a rock star. Well, I can’t be the only one, can I?

And still I wrote back. Still I hoped. On and on and on.

Until three years ago at my college graduation, I swore to myself: no more. This was my fresh start, my first step into real-deal adult life, and I couldn’t bring the Dalton thing with me. It was too heavy, dragging around all that unrequited love.

So I stopped opening the things he sent. Stopped writing back. Kept his unopened letters and packages in a box at the back of my closet, buried under a mound of scuffed shoes.

Ancient history.

* * *

It takes forever to get off the plane, and everyone’s hot and cranky and tired. We’re jammed in like sardines, passengers wrestling carry-on cases down from the overhead lockers and huffing when they clip each other’s heads, waiting for the air steward to open the plane doors already. The recycled air is stale.

I don’t have a case. Only my battered college backpack, grabbed in a hurry from my closet and stuffed with my passport, my laptop, a few handfuls of clothes, and the printed out manuscript I’ve been reading for work. The crinkled pages are scrawled with my notes in red pen.

Don’t know why I brought it, because I didn’t read a single word of it on the flight. I only read the piece of card in my pocket, over and over and over, until I got lightheaded and had to stare out of the window at the clouds.

RSVP.What the hell?

The rumble of the plane engine dies, and the nearest door swings open. Sunlight! Fresh air! I’m a dozen rows of seats away, and it feels like a mile. We all shuffle forward, inch by cranky inch.

Everyone else grumbles about baggage claim and running for connections, but it all washes over my head. I’m in my own world, chewing on my thumbnail as I file toward the exit.

What on earth is Dalton thinking? Is this some kind of prank? When I get to this Sweet Cherry Cove place, will a reality TV crew jump out at me and film my reaction? I can’t think of any other explanation.

Dalton was never cruel, not once when I knew him. But maybe fame has changed him, you know? Twisted him up into someone who’d mess with their childhood bestie for money and attention.

If so, this prank is pure evil.

I grip the invitation in my clammy hand. I’ve held and squeezed and thumbed it so much the words are blurring, but you can still read them: You are cordially invited to the wedding of Alba Hernandez and Dalton Meadows. RSVP.

RSVP my ass. I don’t care that Dalton’s a big time rock star these days, I’ll kill him for this. No security detail will stop me.

Sunshine warms my face as I climb down the creaky wheeled staircase, the fresh breeze lifting my hair. I’m too worked up to speak as I wander through the small airport, flashing my passport and fiddling with the invitation in my pocket.

Seriously. What is he thinking? How could he do this to me?

Forty minutes later, my cab swings around a curve on the cliff path and a seaside town comes into view, nestled down by the beach. It’s sprawling but cute, with pastel-painted terraced houses and white boats bobbing in a marina. The ocean is so blue.

“That’s us,” the driver rasps. He’s craggy and dark-haired with feathery eyebrows, and his whole cab smells like cigarette ash. “Sweet Cherry Cove. So. You meeting anyone special?”

* * *

Dalton sent three things alongside the wedding invitation: a first class plane ticket (already ignored), a stack of fifty dollar bills with a note that said ‘For the cab’, and a wooden hotel room key carved with a tiny sunrise.

Well, I may have squeezed myself into economy class on that plane out of my own stubbornness, but I’m not spending any more money on Dalton Meadows. Editorial assistants earn peanuts, even working for a big name like El Dorado Press. I hand over half of Dalton’s bills to the cab driver, even though that means a crazy-big tip, and tuck the rest away for the journey home.

“Woah,” the driver says, stuffing the bills into his shirt pocket like I might change my mind and snatch them back. “Thanks, doll.” The slam of the passenger door echoes across the town square, and heads swivel to look at me as the cab peels away with squealing tires.

A seagull cackles. A little kid licks his mint chip ice cream and stares.

Awesome. If there is a reality TV crew lying in wait, this is their shot. I’m tired, blushing, my blue t-shirt has pit stains, and I have no freaking idea where to go from here.

Even worse, my chest aches like crazy. It’s like my body knows that Dalton is near, that we’re in the same town for the first time in years, and it’s pining for him already. There’s a knot lodged under my ribs, right where my heart used to be.

It was always like this. Back in high school, whenever I caught sight of Dalton in the corridors, my heart would thump harder and harder as he got close, and by the time we drew level, my insides were one big bruise.

I felt his presence so keenly. Sometimes, I knew he was nearby even before I laid eyes on him—all because of the way my pulse skittered. Living next door to each other was the sweetest torture.

Back then, he’d smile so wide for me, cheeks dimpling. Sometimes he waved from his bedroom to mine, when night fell and our windows were lit up gold, facing each other across our driveways. Dalton was blond haired and blue eyed—this musical Adonis who chose me as his best friend, even when he could have picked anyone. The football guys, the brainiacs, the student president, you name it. They’d have all been thrilled.

He was smart. Athletic. Creative and funny and kind.

And he picked me. Average Alba.

Everybody loved him, like I said. But no one loved Dalton Meadows like I did.

No one else would be dumb enough to go on this wild goose chase either, but hey ho. Shouldering my backpack, I set across the cobblestones to the only hotel in sight: Daybreak Inn. It’s white-washed stone, with net curtains hanging in the windows. The painted wooden sign is carved with a sunrise that matches my wooden key ring.

Inside, the hotel is beach themed, with fishing nets and shells hung on pale blue walls. The receptionist is a red-headed lady in her thirties with laugh lines and a swollen baby bump, and most of her counter is taken up by a half finished ship-in-a-bottle. Tubes of wood glue and tiny brushes lie across her bookings sheet.

She turns my room key over in her hands, smiling a secret smile, then hands it back with a wink. “Room thirteen, hon. Lucky for some.”

“Thanks,” I say. My body turns to leave, but I linger. “Is, um. Did—did my friend leave a note or anything?”

The receptionist shrugs, her fluffy pink cardigan slipping off one shoulder. Her eyes sparkle, and she’s enjoying this way too much. It’s the smug joy of someone who’s in on the joke. “Why don’t you go on up and see?”

I swear to god, if there’s a TV crew in room thirteen and this receptionist is in on it, I will… fine, I won’t yell at a pregnant lady. But I will leave a very harsh review online. Probably.

Okay, I’ve never done that in my life. But I’ve never been ritually humiliated by my ex-crush before either. Who knows what I’m capable of?

There’s no elevator, and the hotel staircase has a dark blue runner and hand-smoothed oak banisters. The stairs shriek with every step. Room thirteen is on the third floor.

It’s like an out of body experience, watching myself climb these stairs past paintings of shipwrecks and krakens and mermaids. I watch from the ceiling as my sweaty, tired body fumbles with the room key, nudges the door open, and freezes in the doorway. Gentle guitar music floats from the balcony, where white drapes flutter in the breeze.

“Dalton?”

That’s what I would say, if my tongue worked right now. Instead I’m a statue, mute and rigid. The wedding invitation is still gripped in my clammy palm. I’m so dizzy.

It’s him. It’s really him.

After a long minute, the guitar stops. A chair scrapes on the balcony, and a deep voice breaks the silence.

“Alba? Is that you?”