Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
The smoky barbecue smell drifts all the way from the backyard to where I’m hiding on the porch.
I’ve made it ten pages into a book I snagged from Margot’s room, but concentration has been a never-ending battle since the accident.
At first, the concussion paired with the grief gave me a pass at school, and while my grades took a nosedive, I still passed all my classes.
I used to pore over sheet music, too, but the notes make my head hurt.
I’ve never been a straight A student, more of a middle-ground coaster, but when school starts back up, I can’t imagine my GPA will improve.
Two voices headed up the driveway shatter the last of my measly focus. Holden and Cecily, the first with a bowl full of something that might be mashed potatoes and the latter with a foil-covered plate.
“Hey, Jo,” Holden says, pleasant as ever. He gives the bowl a little shake. “We come bearing gifts.”
I force a smile, abandoning my book altogether, and nod toward the door. “You can head on in. My mom has all the food on the table near the back door if you want to drop those off.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Holden says, taking the plate from Cecily and slipping past me and into the house.
“Hi,” Cecily says. She shifts her weight and tucks her hair behind her ears. As eager for a night of social interaction as I am.
People always assume that quiet or shy people naturally gravitate together or make the best pairs.
But I’ve found it to be the opposite. Harper was an extrovert through and through, and if I didn’t want to fill the silence, she had no issue doing so.
She didn’t take my silence for indifference.
With Cecily and me, though, all the things we probably should say fill the air like a fog, and neither of us has the energy to try.
“Hi.”
Cecily’s eyes dart to the steps I’m perched on. I scoot sideways, a silent invitation to join. She gives me a grateful smile and settles on the step beside me.
After a long few seconds, she asks, “How’s the unpacking going?”
I lick my lips. I spent all day prepping my answers to the inevitable questions. Even if it is just Holden and Cecily in addition to my family.
“Mostly done. Me more than my family. They’re the sentimental type. More boxes to go through.”
“And you’re not?”
The ever-present lump in my throat pushes up. “Not anymore,” I say.
Cecily nods.
“Blackridge bore you to death yet?”
“It’s…quiet. Quieter than I’m used to.”
Cecily nods again. She watches the street, though at the end of the block, cars and passersby are rare. “It’ll pick back up in the fall. People get weird during the summer.”
“I kind of expected the opposite.”
Cecily clears her throat. She draws her knees up, arms looping around them.
“How are the kittens?” I ask, remembering her conversation with Nora at the store.
Cecily exhales like she’s relieved I’ve changed the subject. I guess the town’s oddities and superstitions aren’t as comfortable a topic for her as they are for the other locals. “Good. They’re eating on their own now. It’s nice not to have to get up every two hours.”
“I bet you’re happy to be sleeping through the night.”
Cecily scrunches her nose. “Yeah, not really. I’ve never slept well. Always tossing and turning. Weird dreams or…” She stops before she says nightmares. Sneaks a glance at me and straightens. “It’s just a side effect of my treatment. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“My mom mentioned that you were really sick when you were a kid. But you seem okay now,” I say, knowing how naive it sounds coming out. Not all sickness is visible; sometimes the most dangerous things are the ones you can’t see.
“Uh, yeah, I’ve been on this experimental drug since I was little. It’s…”
The door creaks open behind us, and Paige steps out wearing an apron with big block text that reads Hi Hungry, I’m Dad. Her face is all splotchy and red from standing over the grill out back, and she smells like she took a meat bath.
“There you two are. Come on, food’s ready. Get in here before Ollie eats us out of house and home.”
“Ignore your aunt, Jo.” Holden pipes in, coming up behind Paige in the doorway. He stands a little too close to her, and it twists Cecily’s placid expression into a pained one. “Only one of us here has won a hot-dog-eating competition, and it ain’t me.”
“I was nineteen,” Paige says, rolling her eyes.
“And it was impressive as hell.”
Paige swats him, and the pair heads back down the hallway, chattering and laughing like teenagers. It leaves a sour taste on my tongue, and from Cecily’s face, I can tell she isn’t the biggest fan either.
Cecily pushes to her feet. “Shall we?” she asks.
“Don’t think we have a choice,” I say, and follow her up the steps.
—
My mom dug out an old folding table from the garage and laid one of those plastic checkerboard covers over it, hiding all the Sharpie scribbles and paint globs left over from years of using it as a craft table.
A bunch of mismatched chairs, some dragged from the kitchen and dining room, are scattered around it.
The table is full of plates, potatoes and macaroni and all the fixings for the burgers and hot dogs Paige spent the afternoon on.
Mom even lets me and Margot have a glass of wine, though Paige warns us to not get too excited as it was on sale for seven dollars at the store and will taste just as cheap. Everyone but Cecily and Jasper gets a glass.
Paige sets the plates of hot dogs and burgers on the table, and for a few minutes it’s a mad dash of grasping hands and nearly toppling condiments as everyone fills up their plate.
“So, Jasper, are you excited for school to start in the fall?” Holden asks.
Jasper, half a hot dog jammed in his mouth, grins and says, “Yeth,” without chewing or swallowing.
“What grade are you in? Tenth? Eleventh?” he asks.
This makes Jasper giggle, and he nearly chokes on his hot dog, swallowing with a nudge from my unamused mother. “Second grade!” Jasper says.
“Wow. I remember second grade. Good times,” Holden says. “Addition, subtraction, all that fun stuff.”
“You’ve got a good memory. Second grade was a lifetime ago,” Paige says. She pats Holden’s arm. “For you.”
Holden scoffs. “You forget we’re the same age, Griffin.”
“It’s Dansby now, Ollie.”
“Dansby doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?”
Paige laughs. The put-together, mature aunt I’ve come to know has slipped away in Holden’s presence, and the pair could be my or Cecily’s age, the way they take shots at each other and snort with laughter, endlessly impressed by their own crappy jokes.
It’s kind of cute, if you get past the whole neighbor-coming-on-strong-to-your-aunt thing.
Cecily, though, isn’t smiling. She glares at the potato salad on her plate.
“Margot’s going to be a sophomore. Wild, isn’t it?” Paige asks.
“Before you ask, no, I’m not excited,” Margot deadpans.
Inevitably, the attention shifts my way. There’s a pit in my belly before the words reach the air.
“What about you, Jo? Have you decided on any plans for after you graduate?” Holden asks.
The question kills the smile on my mom’s face, and even Paige’s expression is grim.
Once upon a time, I had plans. A list of schools with the top music composition programs in the country.
The idea of me in a big city—preferably with Harper at my side, taking classes on music theory and composition techniques and music history—lived as a melody in my head for years.
I had the beginnings of a portfolio in the works. The dream was to compose for movies.
Then Harper died, and that song cut off mid-chorus, and for what feels like forever, I’ve been too focused on getting through the day to consider what comes next. No one has pushed me on it either.
“I, uh—” The words get caught behind my teeth. “Not really. Still figuring it all out.”
Holden, smart enough to realize he’s stumbled into an off-limits corridor, easily backtracks. “Well, you’ve got time.”
Paige goes on to ask Cecily how her classes are going and what her next steps are, but all the future talk leaves an ashy taste on my tongue. The conversation turns to static around me, and I focus intently on the food in front of me.
“God, that smells amazing,” someone says over my shoulder. I jerk up, looking back to find Finn leaning between me and Margot, eyes closed, nose inches from the half-eaten burger on my plate. “I’d chop off my foot for a burger.”
“I’d chop off your foot for a hot dog. Ketchup, relish, mustard, maybe some chili. And I didn’t even like hot dogs before,” says Sloane. She appears like Finn did, out of the blue, next to Margot.
I fight the urge to respond to them. I clear my throat, reaching for the wineglass and taking a long swig. The wine is warm on its way down to my belly.
Margot meets my gaze. Her brows arch in question.
I wave a hand dismissively.
“You good?” Finn asks.
I don’t dare look at him.
“Jo. Oh, come on, ignoring me? Childish,” he says, clucking his tongue.
“Stop being a menace,” Sloane replies.
“Don’t know how to be anything else,” Finn says.
“That’s for damn sure,” says Sloane.
“Go away,” I say under my breath. Or not as under my breath as I think, because half the eyes at the table snap to me.
I push to my feet, knocking my glass and catching it before it spills across the plastic cover.
“I’ll be right back.” I don’t give any more of an excuse for my exit from the table and escape into the warm yellow light of the kitchen.
I find my way to the counter and curl my fingers around it.
Apparently, the ghosts need ground rules.
The back door creaks behind me. I flinch, but it’s only Cecily.
“Everything okay?” She steps into the kitchen, giving me a light smile.
“Yeah. I’m good. Just…” I gesture around at nothing, hoping Cecily decides on something herself.