Chapter 16 Georgia
Georgia
I catch up to Junie a block before the house. She’s finally out of gas and I hope—to all things good in the world—sobering
up.
“Well, helloooo there, slowpoke.” Junie turns and curtsies in my direction.
I land a palm on her head and ruffle her hair as I pass her.
“Hey now, that’s fighting acts, messing up hair.”
She’s right, but it’s in good fun, and if anything warrants a well-intended hair ruffle, it’s making me run after her for
half a mile when the last time I voluntarily ran was while being chased. Specifically, from a local bar by a disgruntled bouncer
Moonbeam rubbed the wrong way.
Junie’s still chirping her complaints about me shaking the beach waves from her hair when we round the corner and head up
the dusty driveway to the house. I’m five paces from the porch when I catch sight of the person standing on it. I freeze.
Junie slams into my back and lets out a screech.
It’s Eddie. Eduardo Rigsby. And he looks exactly the same as I remember him.
His complexion is a deep olive, a blend of his Guatemalan mother and his white father.
Deep brown, almost black hair sits in thick waves atop his head, and like it’s part of his uniform, he wears a deep smile across his face, eyes squinted.
What on earth is my high school sweetheart turned lab partner extraordinaire doing back in this town?
Better yet, what is he doing standing right here on my sister’s front steps?
He raises a hand, waves, and calls out, “Junie, hey! I texted.”
I swivel my head to look at Junie, and she’s blushing sheepishly. I watch her extract her phone from her back pocket and tap
at her screen, registering the notifications she missed.
Eddie moves toward us, down the porch steps. “Georgia Louise? Is that you?” He’s still smiling. Acting like this is any amount of normal. Acting like this isn’t one bit bizarre.
It’s then I notice what’s in his hand. He holds a well-worn cardigan, knitted together in colorful stripes and finished with
mismatched buttons in front. It’s Junie’s favorite cardigan. I stare at it as Eddie draws closer, my frown deepening. Why
would he have this?
They would have to be spending time together.
Please, no.
They can’t be.
Can they?
I look first at Eddie. He looks down at his hands, and my confusion over why he has my sister’s cardigan must register because
he begins to fidget, almost hopping around, as if the item of clothing has become a hot potato.
“Here.” Eddie thrusts the item into Junie’s hands. “This belongs to you.”
Eddie’s eyes dart between us, and his face goes from questioning to wondering to clearly grasping the awkwardness of the looks
bouncing between us. “Anyway, I’ll leave you ladies to it. Junie, let’s hang soon.”
Neither Junie nor I utter a word as Eddie makes his exit. Eventually we turn to each other, and it feels like dancing on a ledge over nothing good.
Eddie Rigsby and I fell in love when we were kids, but like many of the good things that have come my way, I destroyed it.
He is the only non-Louise, non-June, non-Dad I’ve ever loved. But none of that matters because I mistreated him and showed
him the truth about me: I’m incapable of loving someone outside of my family the whole way. Because Mama’s expectations trump
it all. When push comes to shove, I will set my most prized possessions on fire—including my romantic partner—if it means
fulfilling her dreams for my life.
I’ll always love Eddie. Dearly and with every inch of me and more than I think I could ever love again.
But not as much as he deserves because part of me will always be wound up in this family. In my responsibility to them. My
love for them, the way it pins me down.
But Junie. Maybe—definitely, absolutely, and without a doubt—she has what it takes to love a special person wholly and completely.
She’s got the stuff running through her.
Could it be? She and Eddie weren’t ever friends. It wasn’t like that in high school. She had her friends; I had Eddie. We
didn’t overlap aside from very minor ways, which means this is new, since Eddie apparently returned. He so casually suggested
that he and Junie “hang soon” that I can only guess he’s here—probably has been—for a while. Junie would’ve told me about
a harmless friendship (because she’d have known I might not think it so harmless). She kept this from me. For a reason.
Junie’s such a catch.
So is Eddie.
This whole porch situation looked, head to toe, like a moment of ease between two people grown close. How long have they been seeing each other?
I don’t want the details. Not now, and probably not ever, but it’s part of my role around here to fix problems. And this is
certainly a problem brewing if I don’t get out ahead of it, so I need to make myself ok with whatever’s happening between
them.