3. Thirteen Years Ago
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
I t is not easy to procure real-life mistletoe at eight in the evening on Christmas Eve.
It’s not easy, but I did it. Because I’m Juniper Bean, and I can do whatever I put my mind to.
Tonight I put my mind to finding mistletoe.
Although it wasn’t actually that hard to find the mistletoe.
Getting permission to take it was what required finagling.
Bonnie’s Blooms is the only flower shop in Autumn Grove, and they close at six, but I figured they’d probably have some.
So I stole Bonnie’s number from my mom’s phone when she was passed out, and I gave her a call.
She confirmed that she did indeed have a few sprigs left, and that I could come by and pick one up tomorrow.
But I kind of needed it tonight.
Anyway, what followed was a long road full of wheedling and begging until Bonnie gave in and grudgingly told me the pin number for the keypad at the shop.
She told me to let myself in, grab a sprig of mistletoe, and then let myself out again without touching anything else, Miss Juniper, or I’ll drag you by the ear straight to your mama and she’ll sort you out.
Bonnie knows as well as I do that my mama isn’t the sort you out type, but I understood the sentiment. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; I would never steal from Bonnie. And she knows that, too, or she wouldn’t have told me the passcode.
I look over at the little box in the passenger seat of my car, sighing at the iffy wrapping job. Count your blessings, I guess; at least I found some mistletoe, and at least I can deliver it to the dreamiest guy that has ever walked the face of this planet.
When Aiden Milano first started tutoring me for my senior English class, I had mixed feelings. He was gorgeous, and interesting, and he had this dry sense of humor that I loved. But I was worried he’d recognize me. I recognized him straight away.
But he didn’t, and for the most part, I was glad. I didn’t want his pity or anything like that. Though there was a tiny, itty-bitty part of me that wondered if I just wasn’t very memorable, and that hurt a little, mostly because I’ll remember what he did until the day I die.
It’s okay, though. I don’t need him to remember the past. Maybe we can just make new memories together.
I don’t know how he’s going to react when I tell him how I feel—I’d say seven times out of ten, his go-to reaction to me is a confused-looking frown—but I’ve reached the point where I don’t want to hold it in any longer.
Every time I see him, my heart feels like it’s going to explode from my chest. It’s not just that he’s good-looking—although like I said, he’s dreamy—it’s that he’s the best. He’s in college.
He’s patient when he’s teaching me. He explains things over and over if I don’t understand them. He believes in me.
And he treats me like my own person, instead of like Nora Bean’s daughter. I like that most of all.
I pull into the parking lot of Aiden’s apartment complex and find a spot, then kill the engine.
I’ve never actually been here before; I only know this is where he lives because I heard him on the phone one time, complaining to his landlord that the thermostat in unit three of Briarview had been broken for forty-eight hours and maintenance still hadn’t come.
So here I am, at the Briarview apartments in Sunshine Springs, which is right next to Autumn Grove and is where Aiden attends college.
I check my hair in the rearview mirror, tucking a few blonde strands back into my ponytail.
Then I grab the little box from the passenger seat and get out.
I lock my car—a secondhand yellow VW Beetle named Sunshine that took me four years to save up for—and begin scanning the numbers on the sides of the complex buildings.
I find his building easily enough, and it only takes me a minute to reach unit three.
I stare at his front door for a solid two minutes before I work up the courage to approach, and some of that courage only comes because it’s freezing cold out. I’m nervous enough that I might stand here all night otherwise.
I suck in a deep breath of the cold evening air, pushing it back out in a little cloud that dissipates in front of me. I imagine my nerves doing the same thing—disappearing into the darkness, vanishing into the night.
I clear my throat once. Twice. And then I knock. The whole scene plays like I’m in a movie—the heroine rushing to her man, looking dainty but bundled up in her perfect winter outfit, confessing her love and kissing in the falling snow. I am that heroine; she is me.
Except it’s sort of anticlimactic, because no one answers when I knock.
Well. That’s okay. I’ll just knock a little bit harder.
But no one answers when I knock a second time. In fact, it’s only when I pound on the door with my fist—like instead of a movie heroine, I’m the police—that anyone answers, and it’s not even Aiden.
“Uh,” I say, looking up at the bespectacled guy glaring down at me. “Is—is Aiden here?”
Aiden’s roommate gives me a brief once-over before rolling his eyes. “Aiden,” he calls, already turning around and walking away. “Door!”
From somewhere inside the apartment I hear the padding of feet, and then Aiden appears.
And oh, he’s handsome like this—a simple white t-shirt and navy sweatpants. His hair is wet, like he just got out of the shower.
“Hi,” I breathe, clutching his gift closer with my sweaty hands. Maybe he won’t notice the damp spots on the wrapping paper.
He blinks down at me with surprise. “Juniper?”
“Uh, yes. Hi.”
He leans against the doorframe, folding his arms and looking skeptical. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
“Of course not,” I say. I force my words to sound casual, unaffected. “She’s passed out on the couch.”
Aiden’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything. So I rally the part of my brain that’s in charge of conversing and say, “I just wanted to bring you your Christmas present.”
Aiden’s eyebrows hitch up his forehead. “My…present?”
“Here,” I say, shoving the little box into his hands. “For you.”
He holds it up, looking warily at it. I see his eyes find the sliver of visible cardboard where I ran out of wrapping paper because I only had scraps; I see him take in the wonky bow that refused to cooperate, even after I tried to make it look nice three different times.
I put myself in his shoes for a second and then look down at the gift I’ve handed him, and suddenly my cheeks burn with humiliation. ? *
This is so stupid. What am I thinking? I can’t give him a present that looks like this. I reach out to take the box back. I should have had Bonnie help me wrap it?—
But he doesn’t let me take it; he lifts the box above his head just as I’m about to grab it.
“No,” he says gruffly. “You said it was for me.”
“I—fine,” I say. “Open it, then.” I swallow as his fingers begin pulling delicately at the wrapping paper. “I didn’t have a lot of paper to wrap it,” I say. “And I know the bow looks dumb?—”
“It looks nice, Juniper.”
It might not sound like glowing praise, but from Aiden, that’s a massive compliment. So I shut my mouth and watch anxiously as he pulls off the wrapping paper, crumpling it up and shoving it into his pocket. Then he takes the lid off the little box.
I watch his forehead for the little v-shaped wrinkle that’s going to show up—and sure enough, there it is. It comes out when he’s confused and his brows furrow, drawing together.
“Open it,” I say, pointing to the tightly folded piece of paper that’s on top.
He glances at me for a second, then pulls the paper out. He passes me the little box and then uses both hands to unfold.
“Eighty-eight percent,” I say, my smile breaking free.
“On your English final?” he says quickly, looking at me again and picking up the pace with his unfolding. “So that means you got?—”
“I got a B in the class.” I nod, beaming as he scans the print-out of my English grades for the semester.
He smiles then, a real, true smile, and my heart squeezes almost painfully. His teeth are so white, and his eyes are so gorgeous when he’s looking at me, and I want to marry him and live happily ever after.
“And now this,” I say, holding the box up in front of his face.
This is it. This is my moment. That heart in my chest that was squeezing painfully now starts to pound, an uncomfortable thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump .
I can hear my heartbeat whooshing in my ears, and my smile is wavering out of pure nerves. The mistletoe has wilted a bit, I notice when Aiden holds it up, but I’m not taking that as a bad omen.
Although the look on his face as he stares at the little plant…well, that might be a bad omen. Only one way to find out.
So I go up, up, up on my tiptoes, place my hands on his broad shoulders to steady myself, and then kiss him straight on the lips.
Or I try to, anyway.
I’m maybe one centimeter away from the most perfect lips in all of existence when Aiden grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me away, gentle but absolutely firm. I stumble back, wrenching out of his grasp and letting out an unladylike yelp of surprise when I trip and then fall, right onto my bum.
“Are you insane?” Aiden says. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I—”
“You’re a student!” he cuts me off.
I look stubbornly up at him. All hope is not lost yet, though admittedly my dignity has left the premises. “I’m old enough?— ”
“I don’t care. I don’t even care if you’re sixty with a beer gut,” he says firmly.
“You. Are. A. Student.” His mouth snaps shut, and in the illumination of the porch light I can see his jaw muscles flexing, his nostrils flared as he breathes, his head turning this way and that as though to check if anyone has seen us.
“I just—” I begin, my voice small. “I just—I wanted?—”
“ You thought? You wanted? It’s not just about you, Juniper,” he says, exasperated. “I could get expelled if someone saw this. They could kick me out of the university. Heck, I could go to jail. You aren’t even legal, are you?”
He doesn’t even know how old I am? My vision goes blurry as hot tears fill my eyes; I swipe them away furiously, just in time to see Aiden squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep, steadying breath.
“I’m not angry at you, okay? I’m not mad.” He pauses. “I’m proud of you for that English grade. You worked hard, and it shows. But I don’t ever want to see you at this apartment again,” he says finally, “and you are never to pull another stunt like this. Got it?”
I nod, scrambling to my feet. I have to go; I have to get out of here before he sees me cry. I stumble away, away, away, finally turning on my heel and running.
I think he calls after me as I flee, but I don’t turn back.
* ? I couldn’t tell you why, but I teared up writing this. My precious Juniper, trying her best.