Poppy looked at me the way she looked at the sandcastle when I made the walls too narrow. Like she respected the effort but predicted the outcome.
I stood up. I straightened my top. I walked toward the patio.
The curtains were drawn most of the way across the sliding door. There was a gap, maybe four inches, where the door was still cracked open. Through it I could see the edge of the patio, the railing, the dark water beyond. I could see Fletcher’s arm. I could see Margaux’s shoulder.
Their voices were low. Too low to make out.
I lifted my hand to knock on the glass.
And then Fletcher said my name.
I heard it clearly. My name, in his mouth, on the patio. I went still with my hand raised.
I stayed behind the curtain.
I heard every word of what he said next.
I had spent five years wondering what Fletcher Calloway truly felt about me. And now, five years of almost-moments and what-ifs meshed together in one sentence. Five years of hope I kept folding up small and carrying around, shattered by just a few words.
Now I knew.
***
Chapter 10
Fletcher
Margaux had crossed the line.
I apologized to August for the sick game that Margaux had purposefully made us play. I wanted to stay next to August and make sure she was okay, but she asked me to go after Margaux, so I did.
Margaux was at the railing, her back to me, her shoulders slumped. The ocean was loud tonight. Dark and loud and going in every direction at once.
“Margaux,” I said.
She turned around.
She was crying, but not the soft kind. Her eyes were red and her jaw was set and the tears on her face looked more like anger than sadness. Like she had been waiting out here for me to come through that door so she could aim everything she had at the first available target.
“I’m sorry if you feel like an outsider here, but—” I started.
“You stood up for her.” Her voice came out tight. “Again. You always stand up for her. Do you know how many times this week you have stood up for her and not once, not once, have you stood up for me?”
“Margaux—”
“What does she have?” She stepped closer. “What does that girl have that I cannot give you? Tell me. Because I have been sitting in that room watching you look at her all week and I want you to explain it to me.”
“You said something cruel about her mother.”
“She plays the victim and you all fall for it. Every single time. The sob stories, the foster care, the van, the flower shop. You all look at her like she’s someone special and nobody looks at me like that. Nobody in that house has looked at me like that once.”
“Because you haven’t given anyone a reason to.”
She made a sound that wasn’t a word.
“The only one sobbing here,” I said, “is you. Sobbing and getting jealous of someone who has done nothing to you.”
“Jealous.” She said the word like it tasted bad. “You think I’m jealous of her? Of a girl who sells flowers out of a van? Fletcher, I have everything. I have—”
