Chapter 4
Then
As if my day couldn’t get any worse. Casey’s dirt bike was locked to a lamppost in the nearly empty parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly.
Shit. I crumpled Aunt Hattie-May’s shopping list in my damp palm.
It was too hot for October, and sweat prickled my upper lip as I ran through the schedule ingrained in my head. Today was Wednesday. Casey wasn’t supposed to be here on Wednesdays.
He stocked shelves at the feedstore during the week. The Pig was his weekend job. He’d had the same schedule throughout high school, mixing in lawn work whenever he had free time.
But today was definitely Wednesday, and that was definitely his bike.
No one else tooled around our small town on a dirt bike, and besides, I’d recognize that cherry-red helmet strapped to the handlebars anywhere.
If I were to walk to the other side, I’d see my name doodled in faded Sharpie, a remnant from the beginning of junior year, back when things between us were still easy.
Milly+Casey BFF. Before senior year, I’d thought nothing of leaving my mark on any of his possessions: his notebooks, his book bag, the soles of his sneakers.
From this angle I could see my most recent scribble.
A lone wonky star near the helmet’s visor.
Not even six months had passed since I’d drawn that star at the start of summer, but it felt like a lifetime. Because somehow, in that short time, everything had changed between me and my best friend.
And now he was the last person I wanted to run into.
Not while I was sweaty and red-faced from helping Aunt Hattie in her garden.
God. Especially not after what happened at Jordan Clement’s party last weekend.
I grimaced, replaying the moment in my head.
Me standing outside the group of kids pressed around an empty wine bottle in the center of a folding table, still sticky from games of beer pong.
Someone noticing me trying to slip away, grabbing my wrist, voices taunting me to spin spin spin.
The way time stopped when the bottle pointed toward Casey.
The catcalls and chanting of kiss him kiss him kiss him!
How someone said I was too afraid to do it, so I’d charged forward, grabbed Casey’s cheeks, and kissed him. Sharp and awkward.
And then his eyes. The complete surprise followed by my instant mortification. Me bolting, while everyone laughed, because somehow, I was always the butt of the joke.
God. The bottle could’ve pointed at anybody else. It would’ve still been embarrassing, but not like this. Why hadn’t I laughed it off? The way I’d ran out of there had been humiliating, made worse when Casey hadn’t immediately followed.
I’d only gone to that stupid party because Casey said he would be there. And okay. Maybe I’d hoped we would kiss before the night was over, but not like that.
Spin the bottle was a stupid game played by middles schoolers. As a senior, it should’ve been harmless fun. Yet once again I’d embarrassed myself like the awkward loser everyone thought I was.
I tilted my face to the cloudless sky and groaned. This was just great.
I stared at his dirt bike, biting my bottom lip as I considered my options.
There were none. Hattie-May was waiting for me.
If I left without purchasing what she needed, she’d pester me until I confessed why.
I wasn’t ready to admit to her or anyone else that maybe I’d developed the tiniest, most ridiculous crush on Casey.
The same boy who, in ninth grade, had tackled me in our front yard and farted on me.
Also, he was the only person outside of our family who’d never judged me even once. Not for the leaves. Not for my aunts. Not for being not quite as smart or beautiful as my sister. Not even for the circumstances that dumped me in Puddle Creek.
Hell. He’d even been nice about the kiss, which somehow felt worse, because I suspected my embarrassment led him to pity-invite me to homecoming just after. As just friends, of course. The clarification ringing in my brain.
Just friends.
I’d been avoiding him ever since. I didn’t know what to do with the feelings left churning through me: humiliation mixed with yearning mixed with something else. Something new and exciting and terrifying. Something unnamable.
God, I wished I could talk to Frances about it.
But while I was avoiding Casey, my sister was avoiding me. All because Frances, with all her mathlete trophies and science fair wins, was finally being stupid.
On Sunday, Hattie-May and Frances had bustled into the house, Hattie-May’s excitement whipping the room’s energy into a buzz as she spun about, the frayed hemline of her housedress fluttering around her ankles.
“Well, spit it out,” Ruth had said, setting the dishes down for dinner. “What’s got you all worked up?”
Hattie-May’s grin had grown so big that the apples of her cheeks nearly eclipsed her eyes. “We’ve got great news. Frances?”
I’d tried to catch her eye, but Frances busied herself scooping mashed potatoes onto her plate. Things had been off between us for a few weeks, and I couldn’t figure out why. We’d always been close, and this new distance felt like a slap across the cheek.
My sister shrugged. “I—”
“She got in! Full scholarship!” Hattie-May had clapped her hands.
She got in. The words still felt like relief. Frances getting into the prestigious Tennessee High School for Math and Science was the first step toward the future we’d always whispered about.
We’d all burst into chatter. The only person not speaking was Frances.
The feeling settled in. The dread. That place within me behind the door cocking its ear. A whisper in my head. Something bad.
I’d turned to my sister, narrowing my eyes until she met my gaze. “What is it?”
“Actually.” Frances had spoken carefully. “I’m thinking I might not go.”
No. No no. Not only was getting into the gifted school an honor, something my sister had dreamed about since seventh grade, it was an essential part of our plan to leave Puddle Creek in our rearview mirror. I loved my aunts, but our life could not be in this town.
How many collective hours had we spent together, daydreaming about escaping everything? About building something new? Living normal, boring lives where we decided who we were with no legacy or last name to make the decision for us.
We’d both wanted it so desperately that we’d treated it as a done deal.
Frances had picked up extra tutoring clients because she was saving up for a new lavender bedspread for her dorm.
She wanted a mini-fridge and an oversized whiteboard.
From our bunk beds we’d whispered back and forth into the night about how my salutatorian scholarship would pay for me to go to the nearby college, and she and I would meet up all the time.
“I think,” she’d mumbled. “Maybe I’ll stay here. Graduate with my class in a few years.” She’d dropped her gaze then. “I’m thinking after that, I could go to the community college over in—”
“No.” My fork clinked onto my plate. “Absolutely not. You’re going to the gifted school.”
“I think—” Frances had begun again, still not looking at me.
“No.” I’d shaken my head, not giving her a chance to talk. “Not going is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Graduate with your class? You don’t even like your class. And that community college? With your grades? Frances. Be for real.”
She shook her head. “God, Milly. For once can’t you butt out of my life? I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m not a baby, okay?”
“Girls,” Ruth had said, the word sharp with warning.
We ignored her.
My voice grew louder. “I don’t think you are. I just—”
“People change,” Frances said. “I changed. You’d know that if you bothered to see me for who I am instead of who you want me to be.” She again shook her head, her face glowing like a red Christmas light. “I’m not some damned broken baby bird!”
“Do you know how many people would kill for this?” I’d asked, my palms flat on the table. “God, do you realize how stupid you sound? You’re going to screw around and blow your chance!” Our chance.
Because that was the thing: I couldn’t leave without her, and I had to get out of here as soon as I graduated or I’d suffocate.
“Oh, so now I’m stupid?” Frances had scoffed. “News flash, sister: I’m not stupid, and maybe you should work harder on your own life and quit trying to control mine!”
My mouth had hung open as my sister had pushed back from the table, standing so quickly her chair tipped to the ground.
She’d given me the cold shoulder ever since.
So yeah. Life was just peachy at the moment. With the way things were going, why wouldn’t I run into Casey on a random Wednesday?
I sighed and marched toward the automatic door. It slid open, blasting me with icy, air-conditioned heaven, and I grabbed a buggy. The list wasn’t long. If I was careful, I could get in and out undetected.
My buggy’s wheel squealed as I pushed it toward the back of the store, because of course it did. Of course I chose the cart that would draw attention. Everything is so screwed up.
Besides Frances, Casey had been my best friend since second grade, when I’d punched a boy for calling him names and making him cry.
We’d been inseparable ever since. He and I with Frances tagging along.
And now I was skulking through the grocery store hiding from him, and Frances wasn’t talking to me.
Why did he have to go and get…hot? It had kind of felt like a betrayal, the way he’d gone from being the person I confided in to the person that gave me butterflies.