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Then she leans down to scoop up her hat and abandons her yard work, sweeping past me and heading into the house. She doesn’t say goodbye. She doesn’t say anything else.
I resist the urge to chase after her, to pull her into my arms and kiss away her tears.
I let her go.
I’ll accept that she feels angry and betrayed, and I’ll give her the space she needs.
I’ll be stronger than my feelings.
I’ll take care of her like Theo asked me to.
I’ll be bigger than that kiss.
26
FIRST OF NEVER
JUNE, AGE 18
My heart feels scorched and tangled as the door shuts behind me, and I lean back against it, cool metal pressing into flushed skin.
Flushed from the sun.
Flushed from the look in his eyes.
Flushed from the memory of our kiss that still tingles my lips, regardless of how much I try to pretend it never happened.
I told him it was a dare, and it was. It started as an innocent dare.
But we both know it became so much more.
It grew wings.
And the only way to prevent wings from soaring, from flying too high to where danger is imminent, is to clip them.
“June Lampoon, my darling daughter,” Dad says, stepping out of the kitchen with paint-smudged overalls and sawdust in his salt-and-pepper hair. “Want to help your old man with these cabinets?”
I straighten from the door, tossing my hat in the foyer and slipping out of my flip-flops. “You’re running out of decent rhymes, Dad.” A forced smile pushes through the tears, despite my grievance that my father told Brant about my struggles. I can’t blame him for being concerned.
I can’t blame him for anything right now.
“Nonsense,” he says, scratching at his stubble and leaving a smear of white paint behind. “I have a whole arsenal of them waiting for their remarkable debut.”
“You have them all documented in a spreadsheet on the laptop, don’t you?”
He winks. “Nope. They’re hidden away with my trove of amazing animal-themed slippers that I’m dying to showcase.”
My smile turns genuine for the first time in two months.
Two months.
The last time a real, sincere smile graced my lips was at prom when I caught Brant’s eye from across the ballroom, sent him a small wave, and smiled at him with my whole heart.
Then everything fell to pieces, starting with a kiss and ending with a funeral.
Dad smiles back at me, his silly grin softening with a trace of sadness, almost as if he just remembered Theo is gone and that smiles aren’t something we do anymore.
I jolt in place when my cell phone rings from the elastic band of my shorts. Shooting Dad an apologetic glance, I snatch it from my hip and trudge my way up the staircase to my bedroom. It’s Celeste trying to video call me.
