Chapter Thirty-One Julia
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Nebraska takes its time… all the time.”
—Remington
Julia
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Lauren said as she pulled away from the Omaha airport. “It seems like you’ve been gone forever.”
“Trust me, I know,” I said as I buckled my seat belt, so happy to be in her old yellow rust bucket.
I’d made plans for this little trip—Teanna’s birthday weekend—before we’d even pulled up stakes and moved east. Your best friend only turned eighteen once, and my parents were cool about me missing one day of school to return for the tiny celebration.
Plus, the timing of this trip was so perfect.
Because I couldn’t shake what’d almost happened at the park with Damion yesterday, and I needed this escape. It was messing with me so badly, that thing on replay that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried blocking it out.
What. The. Hell.
I’d run all the way home from the park after… that, so freaked out and more homesick than ever, ready to forget everything and celebrate at the house in Springfield, with our dogs and our ratty sofa that was the perfect napping couch.
It sounded so good that it made me cry.
Because nothing in Gardenwood made sense anymore, not that it ever had. I wanted to go home and be with people who liked me, to be in a place where I knew everyone and felt comfortable in my own skin.
Where pretty boys with pretty glasses and pretty words weren’t following me around.
And I just wanted to blend, for God’s sake, and not be a constant topic of conversation. Damion and I were now the only gossip that was gossiping at school. If I’d foolishly thought things would slow down once Damion’s grand display of chivalry happened in the hallway, well, I was wrong.
It amped them up to an eleven.
Thus the escape. From school and from Damion.
Damion.
God, the moment he leaned down close, his face not flushed with teasing and snarky flirtations but with what felt a lot like something more, something… real, I lost it.
Panic flooded my insides because it wasn’t real.
If I gave him an inch, he would take everything from me.
Just like Will had.
No. Nope. I knew better.
I wasn’t going to be seduced by the New York City lights, by talks of literature and poetry and shared delicious cake under the cover of fall foliage.
And especially not by ever-changing hazel eyes that made my stomach drop.
Those things had tricked my brain into forgetting that as good as things might feel with a boy, it wasn’t worth the crushing blow of the after.
Time had moved on, but I hadn’t.
I’d never be over the shock of how wrong I’d been about everything.
How kisses behind school bleachers at thirteen, declarations of love, and promises of forever had ultimately ended in tears and emptiness.
And if Will Malone, the world’s biggest green flag, was capable of making everything hurt that much, what the hell was I doing, playing with someone like Damion Rutledge, rich playboy and renowned rebel?
But dear God, when he leaned in, his hands playing with my hair, the only thing that’d been on my mind was what it’d feel like to kiss him.
And I’d wanted to know.
So badly.
I am such an idiot.
How can I be so foolish again?
This weekend was going to be a perfect recovery, a forty-eight-hour return to reality.
“By the way,” Lauren said, grinning as she merged onto I-80. “What the hell happened to your hair?”
“What kind of question is that?” I asked, raising a hand to touch it. I’d done my best, with the help of Donovan and Jasmine’s bag of hair products, to make it look like it’d looked at Beckett’s party. “I tamed it a little.”
“I mean, you did,” she said, “But I always thought your wild hair was kind of your signature, like your trademark asset. Now you just look like every other girl.”
“Oh wow, such a nice thing to say,” I said.
“You know what I mean—you look fine, but you don’t look like my fun cousin,” she clarified. “The Jules who flipped the golf cart with me had Heat Miser hair.”
“Is that how you think of me? Your fun cousin?”
She was my cousin, yes, but she was also my other best friend.
Teanna, Lauren, and I had always been inseparable, regardless of familial connections.
“My fun cousin with Heat Miser hair, yes, that is correct,” she said. “The one who used to get me into way too much trouble because she liked doing stupid things but never actually knew how to pull them off.”
“Yeah, thank God for Liam,” I said, nodding. “He usually made our idiotic ideas less idiotic.”
“The smart twin,” Lauren said with a smirk.
Relaxation washed over me as I looked out the window because I knew this landscape.
I recognized the buildings and the billboards and it felt calming.
Warm and wonderful as we got closer to Springfield, and when we finally turned onto Main Street, I was pretty sure I looked like a happy dog, head out the window with my tongue lolling out the side of my mouth.
We passed the market—where the heaping display of fall pumpkins looked amazing—and the tiny little two-block stretch of downtown, and I wondered if it was the prettiest town I’d ever seen or if it was just my nostalgic heart drawing it that way.
I smiled as I saw our neighbors’ houses pass by, and I smiled at the way the town already had the Christmas lights hung in preparation for the season even though it was only October.
The things that’d always been mundane suddenly seemed magically charming.
And when we pulled up in front of the house, I had to blink fast to hold back the tears.
I knew I’d missed it, but as I stared at the old farmhouse with the black shutters and wide porch and white picket fence that desperately needed to be painted, my heart felt hurt and healed, all at the same time.
“Your face,” Lauren said as she turned off the car, “is ridiculous right now.”
I cleared my throat. “I guess I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.”
“It’s a great house,” she said as she opened her door. “I mean, not a Manhattan mansion, but it has its charms.”
It was the only house I’d ever lived in before Riverside Manor, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever really given it a single thought.
It was just home.
My house.
No big deal.
“Oh my God, I can hear the dogs already,” Lauren said with a laugh. “They’ve missed you.” I could see the golden retrievers barking, their noses glued to the window. My heart filled with warmth as I took a good look at the place.
It was old and outdated and the air-conditioning never really kept up on hot days, but suddenly it looked like the most beautiful place in the world.
Later that day, while the sun shone brightly through the big windows over the kitchen table, Lauren and I sat on the kitchen counter and chatted away, me doing my best to fill her in on all my New York City drama.
Papers from last summer were still stuck on the front of the refrigerator with magnets, Liam’s old baseball hoodie was still dangling from the hook on the back of the door, and the photo of our family from the Fourth of July was still smiling out from its frame on the top shelf of my grandmother’s china cabinet.
Everything felt the same. And smelled the same. Somehow, the house still smelled like Downy dryer sheets and fresh air, making me long for the “before,” when life seemed so much easier.
“I don’t get it,” Lauren continued. “Everyone at your school is a prick to you, but you’re going to their ball…?”
“I owe Damion a favor for the tutoring,” I explained, even though I’d already told her that.
“That seems flimsy. I wouldn’t do it.”
“Yeah, but he volunteered his time, and because of that, I’m actually going to pass,” I said. “I owe him hugely.”
It was that massive feeling of gratitude that’d messed up everything.
Because I’d been so relieved by my scores, so overjoyed, that I’d wanted to be nice to him.
Instead of looking at his arrogant smart-ass face and feeling the usual way I felt about him—suspicious and cautious—I’d felt…
fondness for what he’d done for me, an unexpected warmth that challenged me to try and tease him out of his Damion-ness.
To see if he could play.
And God, it’d worked so incredibly well.
Too well.
I fear I’ll never recover.
“You should get a dress at the Satin Hanger while you’re here,” she said, referencing Springfield’s bridal shop.
“I don’t need a wedding dress,” I said, my stomach getting a knot just thinking about wearing a fancy gown in front of those people. “And I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be costumey.”
I told her about the ball’s theme, which made her roll her eyes. “That sounds stupid, and also, it’s a ‘theme.’ If it’s truly like the Met Gala, you wear your interpretation of the theme.”
“You don’t get it—I just need to blend,” I said with a sigh.
“No, seriously,” she said, looking offended. “Why not get a sick dress that makes you stand out? Let those jackals wear bustles and corsets and stupid hats while you show up looking like a fucking queen.”
I loved the idea of that, but who was she kidding? There was no way I was brave enough to pull something like that off. I could just hear the new nicknames the Skins would come up with for me. As if I need more. The though made me sick to my stomach.
“Can we talk about something else?” I said. “What time are we meeting Teanna?”
Lauren looked down at her watch. “One hour.”
“Okay, I’m going to take a shower and change.”
“We probably have time to pop into the Hanger before dinner,” she said as I hopped off the counter. “Just to look.”
“We can look, but I guarantee we won’t find anything.”
“Bet.”