Chapter 29 #2
Gabi jogs ahead of me and turns around. “I almost skipped my audition for Glass Doll because I was convinced I’d suck.
I’d only ever done kid shows and commercials, and this was for the lead in an actual movie.
” We stop walking. “I thought they’d laugh me out of there, but they didn’t.
” She tugs on the end of my ponytail. “Publish it, Maggie. You never know unless you try.”
“I didn’t know you were a child actor.”
“Got started young. That’s how I met Holden.” She meets my eyes. “Think about it?”
“I will.”
“Fair enough.”
Up ahead, Artie and Holden are carrying big green Schumacher’s bags into the barn.
“Come on,” Gabi says, picking up her pace. “The guys got barbecue, and I’m dying to see how Dez reacts to burnt ends.”
My phone buzzes. “Yeah. Just need to grab this. I’ll be right there.”
But I’m not sure I’m ready to be back in Holden’s orbit, and Constance’s text gives me the perfect out.
Can I come over tonight?
You home now? I reply.
Sure am
Laughter spills out of the barn, followed by Holden’s voice, light and effortless. “Hot damn, Gabi. Just wait ’til we get back to LA.”
My spine straightens. On my way
Constance’s childhood home is like stepping into a time capsule.
The living room still has the same brown suede sofa and matching recliner set they had when we were in high school—the recliner worn just enough to show where Mr. Pembrook still sits.
The mantel looks exactly the way I remember it: fake ivy winding through a row of family photos, Constance and Loretta at every age, their latest school pictures flanking a graduation portrait that’s never moved from the center.
It still smells faintly of lemon Pledge and something warm and familiar, like the roast chicken Mrs. Pembrook probably still makes for Sunday supper.
“Where are your parents?” I ask as Constance leads me into her room.
Unlike the rest of the house, it’s had a total overhaul.
New paint, new curtains, new bedding. Even the furniture’s been swapped out.
It looks like her, but the version of her I’ve only seen in glimpses these past few weeks.
The one who’s trying hard to move forward, even if she’s not always sure where she’s going.
“Um…Bussey’s?” she says, her brows drawing together.
“They still do the flea market thing?”
“Every weekend.”
I sit on her unmade bed—something we still have in common—and turn over the face-down frame on her nightstand. It’s a picture of her and Wade from their wedding, all smiles. It still stings that I wasn’t a bridesmaid. I wasn’t even invited. But why would I have been?
My phone buzzes with a text from Holden, and I push the hurt aside. Where’d you go?
I set the phone down and put the picture back the way I found it.
“I started to throw it away,” Constance says. “But it felt wrong. Still don’t want to see it, though.”
“I get it. He was a big part of your life.”
She climbs in beside me and takes my hand. “He isn’t anymore, Mags. I swear. Last night really opened my eyes.”
“I believe you. And it’s your life. I’m never going to tell you who to see. But I will speak up if something feels toxic. And I’ll have to take a step back if it becomes toxic for me.”
“How about we just avoid toxicity altogether?”
“Now that’s a plan.”
“Actually,” she says, giving my hand a quick squeeze before tucking hers in her lap.
“It’s a start. I still need a plan.” She hugs her knees to her chest, pulling at the hem of her leggings.
“My folks are great, but I’m almost a quarter of a century old.
I can’t keep mooching off them. And God, poor Loretta.
I think my being here is driving a wedge between us.
It’s like she has two moms all of a sudden. ”
“What do you want to do?”
She bites her lip. “I’ve been thinking about getting my teaching certification. Ben’s still doing that, right? Maybe we can do it together.”
“He’s supposed to,” I say, smiling tightly. “But Ben’s going to France. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“How does that work?”
“Zack’s moving to Normandy, and Ben doesn’t want to go because of me.”
“I see.”
“So the certification thing may be up in the air.” I smooth my hand over her rumpled sheets. “But I can help you. And if you want, you can help me this summer.”
“At the B&B?”
“It wouldn’t be a living wage,” I say. “But as soon as Ben leaves, you can have his room.”
“Wait…are you offering me a job? And lodging?” Her eyes glisten. “I can’t believe you’d do this for me.”
And yeah. That stings too.
Holden thinks I’m good. “To my core,” he said. But my best friend can’t believe this is something I’d do for her. I know she means after what she did. But that’s in the past. I want her to be able to count on me again.
“It’s a lot of manual labor,” I say. “Stuff Ben usually does. And he’s pretty handy. How are you with light plumbing?”
She lets out a watery laugh. “Pffft. Piece of cake.”
“Then you’re hired.”
Constance dabs her eyes with her shirt sleeve. “So what’s going on with Holden? You guys looked pretty chummy last night.”
My phone lights up on the nightstand. Speak of the devil.
I flip it over without answering.
“He’s, um, leaving soon,” I say, pushing the words past the tightness in my throat. “Que será, será.”
“That’s it? It’s just over?”
I stretch out on her bed and stare at the ceiling. A dog barks as a car passes outside. “He wants me to visit him in LA.”
“And?”
“And then what? I have feelings for him.” Strong feelings.
“But what happens after that? They grow deeper, and this still ends.” I twist a corner of the sheet around my fingers.
“I don’t want to live in LA, and even if I did, the only way I could afford to is if I sell the farmhouse, and we both know that isn’t happening. ”
“Have you told him this?”
“In so many words.” I throw an arm over my eyes. “He’s got an answer for everything.”
Constance lies down on her side, facing me. “What if you go—for a visit—and decide you could live in LA?”
“Total honesty?”
“Total honesty.”
I give her my pinky. “I think that’s what I’m most afraid of.”
The sun’s just starting to set as I pull up to the house, the light already thinning. I cut the engine and sit there for a minute, eyes closed, breathing the scent of old leather and taking in the quiet.
It doesn’t last long.
The crunch of gravel under Holden’s boots gives me just enough time to brace myself before the sharp rap of his knuckles hits the window.
“What the fuck, Maggie?”
Guess the cursing’s back.
I open the door and take my time getting out.
“Where the hell have you been?” He shoves a hand through his windblown hair. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“I went to see Constance, not that it’s any of your business.”
“And you couldn’t be bothered to shoot me a Hey, I’m not dead on the side of the road text?”
I slip my hands in my pockets and stare down at the ground. Point taken.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I just…needed a break.”
“From me?” he asks, and the look on his face hits me right in the ribs.
I slowly lift my gaze to his. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
I close the door and lean against it, the metal warm against my spine. A few seconds pass before he does the same, his shoulder bumping mine, our elbows brushing in the dusty twilight.
“Try me,” he says, his voice low but steady, eyes locked on those dang Luccheses, now dulled by a thin layer of white dirt.
He’s still in his starched jeans, but the hat’s gone and he’s traded the button-down for a Schumacher’s T-shirt, crisp and new, the fold lines still pressed into the cotton.
I kick at the gravel, adding a new layer of dust to my own boots. “It hit me hard today. How little time we have left.”
“Maggie,” he says, his frustration thick enough to choke on. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“It does, though.” I push off the car, putting a few feet between us. “I’m not cut out for LA. My life is here. I have obligations here. And that doesn’t mean I don’t want you. It just means I can’t have you. But I can still be sad about it.”
“I’m not asking you to move. I just want to see you. That’s all.”
“That’s all.” A tired laugh slips out. “It’s going to be hard enough to forget you as it is. What do you think is going to happen if we keep seeing each other?”
“You want to forget me?” He says it so quietly it almost doesn’t reach me. And for a second, I swear he looks like I already have.
“What’s the alternative?” I whisper. “That I fall in love with you?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Uh, yeah, Maggie. That’s exactly the alternative.”
“Well, I won’t let that happen, because I know how this ends.”
“You know. You know. You know.” His voice breaks, and it breaks something in me too. “Maggie knows it all.”
“Holden…”
“Don’t Holden me, Maggie.” He shoves off the car and strides away from me, hands laced behind his head. Then he reels back and kicks a rock so hard it sails clear across the driveway.
“It must be so easy for you, getting to decide not to love me. Because I didn’t get to decide. I didn’t get a choice.” He turns around, eyes blazing. “Goddammit, Maggie,” he says, his voice unbearably raw. “Don’t you get it? I’m already in love with you.”
I stagger back, the words knocking me off balance.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t come for me. He just stands there, like something in him’s been stripped bare.
And I hate myself because part of me wants to run—and part of me wants to stay so badly it hurts.
“You said you had feelings for me.” His jaw tightens.
“All I asked was that you try.” Ben’s key fob flashes in his hand, the truck unlocking with a soft, cheerful beep.
“You know what? Just…never mind. I’m beating a dead horse.
” He yanks the door open and plants a boot on the floorboard.
“Got any other cute little southernisms I can borrow? Talking to a brick wall? Pissing into the wind?”
He climbs into the cab, slamming the door shut behind him.
And the part of me that wants to run wins out.