“Let me finish.” Her voice was firm. “You asked me not to make this worse so I’m going to tell you the truth and I need you to hear it. The minute he figured out you were gone this morning, he lost his mind. He woke me up at six in the morning. He ran to your room. He ran back. He had this look on his face — fear and regret and something else that I don’t have a word for — and he went straight to his car.”
I looked at her.
“He started the engine,” Callie said. “He sat there. And then something happened. I don’t know what he thought. I don’t know what he decided. But five minutes later he came back inside and all he said was — it’s better this way.”
I looked out the windshield at the oak tree. A bird was in it, doing something complicated with a twig.
“I don’t know what that means,” Callie said. “But I know that man. I have known him my whole life. And what I also know is that something happened to him. Years ago. Something changed him completely.” She paused. “He used to tell me everything. Every stupid crush, every bad day, every fear. He was my brother and I knew him. And then one day — maybe seven, eight years ago — he just closed. Not gradually. Almost overnight. He became someone I didn’t fully recognize.” She shook her head. “I’ve asked him so many times. He always says it’s nothing. But it’s not nothing. Something happened to him and he’s been carrying it by himself ever since and it has made him into someone who thinks he doesn’t deserve good things.”
I said nothing.
“I don’t know what it is,” Callie said. “None of us do. But August — the way he ran to that car this morning and then made himself stop — that is not a man who thinks you’re a nobody. That is a man who is terrified of himself.”
We sat in silence, the breeze coming through the windows, the market humming on the other side of the booths.
“He’s a mess,” Callie said quietly. “For whatever that’s worth.”
The bird in the oak tree flew away.
I watched it go.
***
Chapter 14
Fletcher
“Margaux, we need to talk.”
Margaux had her hand around my shoulder and she let it go the moment she heard that.
“About what?” she said.
We both got distracted with the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. My parents came down together, the way they always did in the mornings — Dad first, Mom right behind him, already talking about something. Poppy came after them, her hair in two uneven pigtails she had clearly done herself, carrying her trivia book.
They all stopped when they saw my face.
Mom looked at me. Then she looked at Margaux. Then she looked at the note still sitting on the counter by the cookie jar.
“What’s going on?” Dad said.
I picked up the note and handed it to Mom. She read it. She read it once and then she looked at me, and her eyes asked a question that was much longer than anything she said out loud. She knew. She didn’t know the specifics but she knew there was a larger story behind four lines of careful handwriting from August, and she was asking me to give it to her.
I looked at Margaux.
“I think you should leave,” I said.
Margaux took a step back. “Sorry?”
“I think it would be best if you packed your things and went home today.”
“Becausesheleft?” Margaux looked around the kitchen. Mom and Dad were quiet. Poppy had her trivia book open but she was not looking at it. “Because the flower girl decided to run away in the middle of the night, now I have to leave?” She shook her head. “Or is it because I’m a vile person? Is that what you think? Is that what you all think?”
Nobody said anything.
Margaux looked at me. Her eyes moved over my face the same way they had on the patio last night, looking for the thing she already suspected.
“Or,” she said, “is it because you’ve been secretly in love with her this whole time?” Her voice had gone very quiet. “Is that why, Fletcher? Is that what this whole trip has been?” She stepped forward. “Because if that’s true — if you have been in love with her — then why did you pursue me? Why did you take me out to all those dinners and make me think that something real was happening between us? Why did you let me fall in love with you?” Her voice cracked. “Why? If you love her, why? Don’t you? Don’t you love her?”
