Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
CHLOE
My heart jumps into my throat when he turns onto his street. By the time we park outside Rhoads’s house, I’m in full-on panic mode. What does he think is going to happen? Are his parents’ home? His sister? I mean, I like the guy, but I’m in no way ready for that.
Wait, I what? I like him? Oh no.
“Rhoads,” I start without really knowing what I’m going to say.
“Come on. It’s out back,” he says, grabbing my hand again. My toes twitch in my shoes.
Out back? I relax a bit at that piece of information, but I’m still confused. I’m definitely not dressed for soccer, so what are we doing?
We walk around the house, the path lit by small lights nestled along its sides. Rhoads stops in front of a garden shed, whose Cardinal Ridge blue paint has started to chip. I noticed it when I was here studying, but I assumed it was for tools.
“Is this the part of the movie where you murder me in your garden shed? Because I’d be very embarrassed to die looking like Dorothy.” A nervous laugh escapes my throat.
“Nooooo.” He spins the padlock, his fingers moving automatically. He probably could unlock that thing in his sleep. “But for the record, I like your outfit.”
The lock clicks, and Rhoads removes it, pushing the door open and stepping in first. He flips a switch, and light bathes the space. I take a hesitant step inside. My mouth drops open in a gape so large I could probably swallow a soccer ball.
Dozens of snow globes sit on a wall of shelves to the left. Scattered tools on the long worktable render the wood beneath almost invisible.
“Welcome to my workshop.” Rhoads holds his arms out.
“This is incredible.” I approach the wall of sparkling orbs. My memory jumps back to that morning at Stuff ‘n’ Things, his cart full of glitter and glue. “You made all these?”
He shrugs, but his shoulders are stiff and unsure. “I like crafts, remember?”
I wander over to a shelf to examine the finished snow globes. “How did you get started?” I pick one up. Inside it, a tiny ballerina holds her leg straight up, a beam of light illuminating the hand-painted highlights in her hair. Bits of red petals puddle at her feet.
“Honest answer?” Rhoads rocks back on his heels, his hands shoved inside his pockets. He’s nervous. Which, I have to admit, is not a look I imagined on him. It’s adorable.
“Always.”
He takes a deep breath. “My therapist recommended I do something with my hands. To channel my emotions. His words, not mine.”
“Oh.” That isn’t what I’d expected.
“I was dealing with some hard stuff, and my mom made me go. Honestly, I’m glad she did.
It’s made a huge difference.” He smiles, a genuine expression, and closes the distance between us.
“This one’s from my sister’s first ballet recital.
Danielle was maybe six at the time. If you ask her about it now, she’ll tell you she remembers falling down during the group number and crying until her nose got stuffy.
But this is what I remember. Here. Shake it. ”
I hesitate, the globe heavy in my hands. It feels wrong to mess up the perfection. Like eating one of the intricately decorated cakes on display in Sugar & Spice’s bakery window.
“It’s okay,” Rhoads laughs. “That’s what you do with snow globes. You shake them.”
I turn the globe upside down and upright once more. Red petals swirl around the ballerina as she, too, tumbles through the liquid. “You don’t glue the pieces in place?”
“Nope. They never fall the same way twice. It’s the same with memories.
They’re moments frozen in time, but memory is imperfect.
Every time we shake the globe, we affect how the pieces fall.
Sometimes they land upright. Sometimes they don’t.
It’s always different. There’s always a chance she’ll land on her feet, even if, like Danielle remembers, she didn’t originally. ”
The petals finally settle at the bottom, creating a soft pallet for the ballerina as she lands on her side. I hand the globe back to Rhoads, and he places it on the shelf.
I’m curious now about the others. Which memories they hold and why, especially the one with the bikes I saw in his family’s den. But I decide to wait and see what he’s ready to share. “I’m glad you listened to your mom. Telling the truth is brave.”
Another shrug. “Sometimes it’s easier when you don’t know the person. You don’t care as much if they judge you. Telling the truth to someone you care about is way harder.”
He’s right. That’s why I didn’t tell my parents what really happened between me and Graham. I’ve been afraid of what they’d say. That my dad will say, ‘I told you you’re too young to date,’ and my mom will ask what I did to push him away.
“You are a constant surprise, Rhoads Simpson.”
He blushes and takes a step toward me. “Thanks for not being weirded out by this.” He gestures to the room. “I don’t usually bring people in here.”
Telling the truth to someone you care about is way harder.
“You’re welcome.” Not trusting my quickening heart, I search for a way to diffuse the desire to kiss him.
But it’s strong. So strong that I inch closer, my eyes locked on his.
The air crackles with possibility, a Big Moment in the making.
What will happen if I let my guard down, if I just take a chance?
At that moment, I find the clock on the wall. My throat squeezes tight in panic. “Is that broken?”
Rhoads flicks his gaze toward it, unconcerned. “Half past midnight. Nope, that’s right.” He flashes his phone screen toward me, the glowing lights confirming my worst fear.
I choke. “I am in so much trouble.” I dig in my purse for my phone, and upon seeing the number of missed calls and text messages from my mom, another twenty pounds piles on the barbell in my chest. Enabling the feature that silences my phone after eleven seemed responsible at the time, so I wouldn’t wake up to dumb texts in the middle of the night when I had training in the morning.
But it’s about to be the nail in my coffin. “I’m dead.”
Rhoads ushers me out the door and into the front seat of his truck. “It’ll be fine. I’ll just explain that it was my fault we lost track of time. She’ll understand.”
“That is where you’re wrong. Let’s go.”
* * *
Ten minutes later we sit in Rhoads’s truck in my driveway. I stare straight ahead, not blinking, not talking. A loop of scenarios plays in my mind, each one worse than the last.
“So, I know you’re panicking a little, but this whole staring silently thing is kind of freaking me out a bit. Especially the not blinking part.”
I turn to meet his eyes. “Sorry.” I blink a bunch of times.
“My mom and I typically get along. But breaking curfew is, like, the major no-no. Like the worst. Not to mention that I was with a boy. A boy she doesn’t even know.
” I groan with the growing realization that there is no way for this to go well. “Oh, man. I’m toast.”
“Would it make it better if I met her? I mean, then she’d know me and I could just explain and—”
“Tell her what, exactly? That we ran into each other at a house party where there was underage drinking? And then I agreed for you—a boy she doesn’t know—to drive me home, but instead we hung out alone at your house?
” The lecture has already begun in my mind.
“This is not the way I imagined you meeting my mom.”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “So…how have you imagined me meeting her?”
“Not funny.”
Rhoads grips the wheel, his features tightening to reflect an amount of concern appropriate for the situation. “Okay. It does sound really bad. But we didn’t really do anything wrong. Neither of us were drinking.”
“Sure. But I was supposed to be with Charlotte and Anita. Not…you.” I stayed out past curfew with a boy.
That has never happened before. Not even with Graham, whom my parents knew and liked.
I have no idea what to expect, and the anticipation grates on my bones.
“Time to face the music, I guess.” I detach my seatbelt and move my hand to the door handle, willing myself to open it.
Rhoads pauses, assessing me in the glow of the garage lights. He brushes my hair out of my eyes, his warm, gentle hand lingering on the side of my face. “You’ll be fine.”
My mom steps onto the front porch, arms folded, face pinched in the light.
Mouth so dry I could guzzle three Gatorades and still be thirsty, I swallow only air and nerves.
No more stalling. It takes every ounce of strength I have to pull away.
My mom seeing me inches away from the boy I broke curfew with will definitely not help my case.
“It’s been nice knowing you, Simpson. Remember me when I’m gone. ”
Then, I open the car door and walk away, sneaking one last peek at his disappearing taillights before the front door locks me inside the lion’s den.