AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m not disagreeing with your assessment, just your word choice.
I pushed myself up to standing, wondering how I was still having to hear their bickering when they weren’t even here, and caught my reflection in the mirrored sign behind me.
WELCOME TO JESSE, NEVADA! WHEN YOU’RE HERE—YOU’RE HOME.
The lettering on the mirror was done in white and gold paint, peeling off in patches. The font was what I could only describe as old-timey Western, but I knew my dad, who ran his own advertising firm, Milligan Concepts, would have known the name of the font straight off.
This sign, combined with the chandelier and the sheer size of this building, evoked a kind of faded grandeur. It seemed to say that maybe at one point Jesse, Nevada, had been a real destination, a prosperous town, one that needed a train station this big to handle all the comings and goings. But it didn’t feel that way now, from the little I’d seen of it as we’d limped into town, engine smoking. And the chandelier and the mirror’s fancy script seemed to sit uneasily next to the vending machine with its fluorescent, flickering light. Like IKEA furniture in a Victorian mansion.
I stared at my refection in the mirror for a moment, just taking stock of myself—Darcy Milligan, eighteen years and three months old. I’d gotten some sun, despite the fact I thought I’d been really careful with sunblock. But I could see my cheeks were faintly pink (honestly the last thing I needed, since I was a champion blusher), and I had a new scattering of freckles across my nose and cheeks. I had dirty-blond hair that was wavy—not curly, not straight, just sitting somewhere in that nebulous, often-frizzy middle. I had dark brown eyes—my dad’s eyes—which were probably the thing about me most people commented on, since they were such a contrast with my hair and coloring.
And even though I wanted to look like my dad, scouring pictures to try to prove the resemblance, the fact was there in the mirror. It was in my strong nose, my thick eyebrows, my deep-set eyes. I was the spitting image of my mother, Gillian—I never called her Mom. Which seemed patently unfair, that she should be so present on my face when she hadn’t bothered to stick around anywhere else.
But the last thing I wanted to do right now was think about Gillian. I gave myself a final look, brushing some dirt off my cheek and reasoning that I could have looked a lot worse, considering that I’d been sleeping in a tent for the last two nights. I smoothed out my shirt, even though I knew the wrinkles were beyond help at this point. I was wearing a variation on what I’d worn the whole festival—jean shorts and a tank top. This one was white and flowy, with an embroidered top. I had my dad’s vintage Nighthawks sweatshirt in my bag for when it got cold—which I’d thought would be for the ride home, but would apparently be for sleeping overnight in a bus station. It was from when my dad was in college, and when he’d given it to me for Christmas when I was in eighth grade, it immediately became my prized possession.
I turned away from the mirror, confident that I looked like a not-dangerous, fairly normal—Ha! Katy and Didi said in unison—eighteen-year-old. I didn’t look like someone who was about to abscond with a charger and disappear into the night, never to be seen again. Out of habit, I glanced for a second at my duffel bag and at the tent I’d borrowed from Katy and Didi—MEREDITH was printed on it in huge Sharpie’d letters—but then figured it would be fine.
I started to walk over to the guy with the book—when I realized he was no longer sitting there. Regrouping, I changed direction and headed over to the couple. I played with the pair of bracelets on my wrist as I walked. Everyone had gotten them upon arrival at the festival—mine indicated I was there on a three-day ticket, and that I was under twenty-one and not allowed in any of the beer tents, despite the fact that Romy had tried her level best to get inside all of them.
I stood in front of the couple, who were focused on their tablet. I cleared my throat, but neither of them looked at me, and I silently cursed their headphones for a moment before taking a step closer and nudging the girl’s sneaker with my Birkenstocked foot.
She glanced at me, then tapped the guy next to her. They both pulled off their headphones and looked up at me questioningly. It seemed like they were in their twenties, probably. She was wearing a Charlotte Sands T-shirt, and he was in Bad Bunny merch.
“Hi,” I said, giving them a small wave. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s okay,” the girl said easily, even as I saw the guy cast a longing look back at the tablet. “Kind of a crazy situation, right? Like, how can they not get a bus fixed faster?”
“Right? I know!” My words spilled out in a rush, and I realized it was a relief to acknowledge the weirdness we were all collectively experiencing. “I don’t get it.”
“You going to be all right here?” she glanced over to where I’d left my stuff. “Are you alone?”
“I’m okay,” I said quickly. “I was just… wondering if either of you had a phone charger I could use? Just for a little bit! I, um, lost mine.”
“Sure.” She whacked the guy on the arm. He sighed, put down the tablet, and started to rummage in his backpack. I could see, frozen on the screen, that they had been watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which I knew well from the Edgar Wright run Katy had gone on in movie club sophomore year. It was frozen on the party scene, when Scott first sees Ramona across the room and immediately falls in love—one of my favorite moments.
“Here you go.” He held out a cord to me, and I eagerly grabbed it—only to realize a second later that it wouldn’t work.
“Oh.” I turned it over in my hands, as though I could somehow will the plug to change shape. “You don’t have an iPhone charger?”
They shook their heads in unison. “Android,” the girl said.
“Right,” I said, handing it back. “Well… thanks anyway.”
“If you need to call anyone, though,” the girl said, her brows knitting in concern, “you can use mine. Just ask, okay?”
“I think that he had an iPhone,” the guy said. He pointed to where the boy with the book had been. He shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll be back.”
I nodded, and gave them a small smile before I turned to walk back to my stuff. What if I really couldn’t charge my phone? What then?
I was almost back to my corner when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“I heard you were looking for me,” a voice said.
I turned around—the guy with the book was standing in front of me. I could see him clearly now.
And my heart, for the first time ever, skipped an actual beat.
CHAPTER 2 Sunday
