Page 62 of Within These County Lines

My fingertips go slick with sweat against the laptop keys. No one else has ever referred to Murray like that before, out loud. Xander’s words hit me like a slow-building breeze.

I swallow. “It is,” I say, scratching my throat.

He studies the picture of Murray and me petting a goat at the Penango County Fall Festival. His lips press into a thin line.

“Why do you still have these?” He sifts through more of my Murraycentric photo collection. “I thought he was mean to you. Are you two back together?”

“No.” I sigh. “I’ve just had other things to worry about.”

“Sure,” he says, thick with sarcasm. He tosses the photo back on the floor.

I cross my arms. “We’re not together.”

“But you still like him?”

“I want nothing to do with him.”

“Then what’s that?” He gestures toward my closet doorknob, where a Christmas ornament dangles. It’s two ceramic snowmen, labeled as Stetson and Murray, cuddling between tiny Christmas trees.

I exhale. “I forgot that was there.”

“You forgot about the bright white, red, and green thing hanging from a door you open every day?”

I grunt. “It’s been there for years. It’s just . . . I don’t know, a routine thing. I don’t think about it.” My eyes flick toward the stuffed animals Murray won for me at the fall festival, piled in the corner of my room like relics of another life.

“Why don’t you?” Xander’s voice is quiet.

“Like I said, it’s just the way my room has always been.”

He returns to my bed. But this time he sits on its edge. His back is stiff while he twirls his thumbs in his lap.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

He clears his throat. “I care because . . . because if you let things stay the way they’ve always been, life stretches into one, long period of grief. You mourn the person you should’ve been in the past, and you feel sorry for yourself because you’ll never be the person you want to be in the future. What’s the point of living if you never let yourself change?”

My stomach tightens. “Well, when you put it like that . . .” I force a shrug. “I just figured there was no rush. I have all summer.”

“I wish I didn’t.” His voice drops. “I wish I didn’t have forever. Forever is meaningless when nothing changes. I’d rather only have a week left on earth if it meant I got to experience something new.”

“Aren’t I new for you?”

He turns his head slightly, just enough for me to catch the flicker of something intense burning in his amber eyes. “Yeah. And that’s why I—” He stops, bites his lip, and whips his gaze toward the wall.

“That’s why you what?”

“Nothing.”

“Why you what? Tell me.” I scooch closer to him, my heart pounding.

He stands. “Forget I said anything.”

But I won’t forget. And I don’t think I can pretend I wasn’t imagining certain words leaving his lips either.

With the Fourth of July around the corner, summer suddenly feels like it’s slipping away. And here I am, still surrounded by pictures of my ex-boyfriend who I broke up with weeks ago. I only have one and a half teenage summers left. Why waste the best season surrounded by the worst person?

I push the laptop aside and stand. I scoop the photos from the floor, their glossy edges crumpling beneath my grip, and dump them into the trash can beside my desk. Flares of color—Murray’s tuxedo vests, our matching ties, the bright lights from school dances—flash before me like a shattered kaleidoscope.

“There,” I say. “Change can be quick.”