Chapter 4
Chapter four
Paisley
Ten years ago. . .
I shouldered my backpack and gripped the handle of my scuffed brown suitcase until my knuckles turned white. All my worldly possessions were right here. I’d shaken off the dust of Oregon with a good riddance and moved on.
My final act had been to send Mr. V, my old social worker, a postcard and tell him not to worry about me. He was one of the good ones and the only thing I’d miss about my home state.
And I’d picked Seattle—the University of Washington, specifically—for my grand adventure. Something in me couldn’t leave the wild call of the Pacific Ocean behind. I had salt in my veins despite the scars.
But I’d be alone. And that was what I hated most. Even if I should have been used to it by now after eighteen years of no one truly being in my corner.
“You got this, Paisley Grace,” I whispered, hand on the cold doorknob of my dorm room.
“You belong here.” After working my tail off in high school to get a scholarship, I’d made it.
I had a place here. On the other side of this door were my roommates, Juliet Satterfield and Sabrina Carville. I could do this.
Channeling Jo March’s bravery, I twisted the knob and ushered myself into a new chapter.
The inside of the room was fairly militant, not like the cutesy dorm rooms I’d seen on teen drama sitcoms one of my foster sisters had been obsessed with.
A bonafide Barbie wrestled with her fitted sheet on the bottom bunk of one of the beds, and “Goodbye Earl” blared through the room on a portable speaker.
My options were “fear for my life” or “I just found the Mary Anne to my Wanda” because I had to respect a fellow teenager who appreciated The Dixie Chicks.
Potential-Mary-Anne spared me a single glance and a grunt as I stepped inside. “Paisley McBride?” she asked, her voice huskier than I expected for her age.
“Uh, yeah.” I hiked my backpack higher on my shoulder. “How’d you know?”
She won the battle with the final corner of the sheet and faced me, standing straight up.
Bagels and broomsticks, she was tall! I was five-six, which was nothing to sneeze at, but she was lofty.
Amazonian. At least six feet. Curvy, unlike me, in all the right places with the most stunning pair of aquamarine eyes.
Next to her sleek all-black ensemble like she was prepared for a funeral at a moments notice, my khaki skirt and blouse with an oversized cardigan were downright frumpy.
“You don’t look snobby enough for a Sabrina. I’m Juliet.” Her lips curved into a slight smile, like she was out of practice. “Hope you don’t mind, I already started unpacking.”
“Not at all.” I glanced around and dropped my stuff on the lower bunk opposite hers.
She returned to folding her sheet corners with forty-five-degree precision. She was better prepared for boot camp than university. “What are you here for?”
I almost laughed. Her phrasing made it sound like we were in jail. “English literature, so I can get my master’s in Library Science. You?”
“Lawyer.” Her eyes were firm, though her mouth softened into a bit more of a smile. “This was the best law school I could find within a day’s drive of home.”
That made my heart twist. Home. Must be nice having a place you didn’t want to leave. A place you belonged. “And where’s that?”
“Serenity Springs, Idaho. Just south of Caldwell.”
Geography wasn’t my strong suit. Mostly because I didn’t have my driver’s license yet—there’d been no one to teach me—and I’d never traveled outside of Oregon before. But give me a fantasy map of Middle Earth, and I was a regular Lewis and Clark. “You’re close with your family then?”
“Something like that. I’ve got five older brothers. Two are married and popping out kids and a third one’s engaged, so I kind of wanted to be around for that.”
Family. Belonging. Nieces and nephews. The whole-package deal, like the storybooks. Just thinking about it clogged my throat, and I wrangled my sheets since it was easier than wrangling my emotions. “Sounds perfect.”
Juliet shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. If only she knew. “What about your family?”
“Don’t have any. Just me.”
Mr. V had told me last summer that Mom had died of liver failure, thanks to all the alcohol. I’d aged out of foster care and was officially alone in the world.
Juliet studied me, her head tilting. “And where’s home?”
Where indeed. Middle Earth probably, but that wasn’t an accepted zip code. “I lived in Oregon, but it isn’t home.”
“Why Library Sciences?”
The abrupt conversation change gave me whiplash. Something I sensed was common with this girl. “Oh, I love books. They’re . . . home, I guess.”
She nodded, like my reasoning made total sense. “Do you have a favourite? Or is that a terrible question?”
Little did she know she’d uttered the magic words. Give me the chance to talk about books, and I would never shut up. Don’t be weird, don’t be weird, don’t be weird.
“The Lantern Bearers, but no one’s heard of it.
” The tattered copy in my backpack was well loved and nearly falling to pieces.
But I’d found it secondhand, and it had gotten me through years of foster care and was the one book I wished I could reread for the first time again.
It resonated so hard it hurt sometimes. “So, I say The Lord of the Rings.”
Juliet nodded knowingly. “One of my brothers is a Tolkien nerd.” A hint of sadness cloaked her expression. “But he’s a Marine and never home. Always too busy saving the world.” After helping me with the fitted sheet, she added, “Want to grab dinner?”
Looked like I found my Mary Anne after all.