Chapter Forty-Nine Julia
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Two weeks later
“Melancholy hits harder in autumn. The gloomy skies, the shedding trees, the awareness of the unavoidable frost—those things insulate the sadness.”
—Remington
Julia
I said goodbye to Carl Sr. (who was in a hurry because of a “hot date” with Ida the librarian) before locking up the store. I flicked on the timer for the window display lights and got into the pickup truck.
I pulled away and started driving home, making lists in my mind of the things I needed to order the next day. I’d been obsessed with updating everything since I’d returned, obsessed with the distraction of throwing every bit of my energy into the store.
Thankfully, my parents thought it was a “good use of my time” and were all in on allowing me to run wild, so now the market had a Great Pumpkin window display, a newly expanded cheese inventory, and a bakery table dedicated to New York’s finest babkas.
I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life after high school, but now that I was allowing myself to consider the market as a possible option, I was focusing on exploring the concept.
Unfortunately, all distractions seemed to wear off whenever I drove the short stretch of road between my house and the store.
Because now, thanks to Damion, the sight of it hurt my heart every day when I saw it through the windshield. No matter how hard I worked to block it out, that day always popped into my head.
Every. Single. Time.
Damion’s smart-ass grin when he joked that the big blue Victorian house had to belong to the mayor. The way I’d been distracted by his cologne when we’d walked past the gray ranch on the corner.
“Stop it,” I said to myself, but when I pulled up in front of my house, all I could see was Damion dangling off the trellis because he didn’t like getting interrupted.
Oh God.
I didn’t want to miss him, but I did. Every damn day.
After the scandal at the ball, it was decided that some time at home—my Nebraska home—would be best for me.
I’d been an emotional wreck when we got back to the house that night, collapsing on the staircase. We were on the brink of ruin, maybe losing everything, all because I had led them into Damion’s trap.
The beautiful rebel in glasses had betrayed me.
I bawled like a baby while my mom held me close, as I stressed about what I might’ve gotten my family into.
“The lawsuit,” I said, my voice gravelly as I struggled to make it work. “Do we know—”
“Forget about the lawsuit,” my dad interrupted. “We’ll figure it out.”
Liam and Bernard had stood behind him, nodding in agreement.
I’m so sorry was all I could keep thinking about. That and Damion.
His face wouldn’t stop popping into my head, making my chest feel like it was being squeezed when I heard his deep, patient, oh-so-sweet voice on repeat.
I’m so damn deeply into all of you.
LIAR!
Those thoughts had me chanting Shakespeare and trying to catch my elusive breath.
“It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun,” I whispered.
“You need to calm down, sweetie,” my mom said, her hands gently grabbing my shoulders. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not… okay. Nothing is okay.”
“Honey,” my dad said sympathetically. “I promise. Take a deep breath, everything is going to be fine.”
“Nothing is going to be fine!” I cried, shaking my head as my hands got tingly and my breath got faster. “Nothing is ever going to be fine here. It isn’t. I want to go home.”
“Home?” Liam had asked, giving me that look, the one that told me he could feel exactly what I was feeling.
“Home,” I said, my voice cracking on a sob. I pictured our house in Springfield, so far away, and I cried, “I just want to go home.”
After a call with Mr. Green, it was decided that I would take online classes for the time being, which ensured we still met our stipulations. He was reassuring and sympathetic to the fact that I was feeling a lot of pressure, agreeing that my time at Gardenwood had indeed been difficult.
News to my parents, which led to an honest conversation about the bullying, which led to my parents apologizing for not seeing what was going on with me.
And the very next day, holy shit, I got a text from Coco Chattingham.
Just heard that your social experiences as a student at GA have been… less than satisfying. If you’re ever back and want to talk, let me know and we can grab a coffee. —Coco
It was very formal, likely insincere, but something about it felt oddly satisfying.
Especially because, according to Jasmine and Donovan, Headmaster Green met with multiple students—and their parents—after my departure, and he didn’t hold back. Apparently he said that “Gardenwood Academy has zero tolerance for bullying.”
That was two weeks ago. Since then, I’d settled into the comfort of Springfield. After Gardenwood, the decency and simplicity of life here felt like a refuge.
I felt safe.
But I also couldn’t shake the feeling of being out of sorts. Like I didn’t quite belong here anymore, but I didn’t belong in New York, either.
I was lost.
Where do I fit?
My lostness kept leading to moments like this, to me backing out of my driveway so I could just drive around aimlessly while rehashing the everything of my life. I cranked the stereo, singing along to “The Hudson” because it reminded me so much of the city that I loved and hated, all at once.
I missed the house, the neighborhood, my bench, Clank; I was crazy homesick for those things. Online classes from Nebraska were great, truly, but my heart couldn’t forget my Upper West Side, as hard as I tried.
This never-ending search for a kind of “happy place” was the only explanation as to why I pulled up in front of Lou’s cabin a few minutes later. I almost felt surprised to find myself there, even though I’d been the one driving.
I shifted the pickup into neutral, letting my eyes drink in the sight of that little cabin. It looked exactly the same as it always had, the home of a kind old man, but now it just left me with this aching emptiness I couldn’t escape.
It made me miss Lou and that easy pre-Manhattan life, but it also brought back a million moments with Damion. Sneaking around inside, taking out the boat, tear-filled hazel eyes…
No.
NOPE.
No more.
I had been crying too much over that guy. Too many nights thinking of him and his kisses, of broken promises and confessions of how much he cared for me.
NO.
No more tears over him, over his lies.
I sighed and flipped on the truck’s heater, my hands cold as I wondered how it’d all gone so wrong. That day had been perfection, that night pure magic, so it was almost impossible to believe that everything fell apart so badly after that.
But I knew exactly when it’d gone off the rails, right down to the minute.
It was when I’d decided to trust him.
My head had known better, but my heart had refused to listen.
Foolish, silly girl.