Page 9

I think.

Maybe this is the daydream.

When did we get off the bus?

Am I falling?

Down.

Down.

Down.

Do—

FOUR

TATE

FOURTEEN YEARS OLD

I’m just setting a fork down on the table, ready for dinner, when my mom storms through the front door and into the kitchen. I halt what I’m doing.

Her urgency makes me nervous.

“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.” I raise my hands in surrender, dropping the silverware onto the worn wooden table with a twang.

Annie Brooks is a mighty woman in a small package. With her blonde hair fashioned in its bouffant style, high-waisted jeans, and signature red lips to match her burgundy cowboy boots, she looks everything like your typical Texan mother.

Do not let it fool you.

She rolls her eyes and playfully swats me on the arm. “Not this time, but when I find out what you have done, there’ll be trouble. Now, add another place setting. We have company.”

My eyebrows jump. We never have guests over. Money has been tight recently since she lost her job at the beauty parlor. It closed down, like so many other businesses in town. She still waits tables at the diner, but they only have so many hours for her.

I’ve offered to work with my uncle at the steel yard, but she refuses to entertain the idea until I’m sixteen.

“Company? Who?”

“You might know her. She was a sad little thing, sitting outside her house. I thought she could use a friend,” she rambles, stirring the pot of simmering chili on the stove.

“Momma, who?” I hope it isn’t one of her bingo friends. They’re even scarier than my mother.

Before she can answer my question, the sound of footsteps comes from the hallway. I turn and my heart falters before returning to the rhythm of a jet plane.

Fiery red hair, golden eyes, skin too fair for the harsh summer sunshine.

Momma says when you find your person, it only happens once, and my once is in my house, standing in my kitchen, breathing the same air as me, and looking right at me.

I know this girl. I go to school with this girl. I daydream about this girl during second period English. Who am I kidding? Talia Evans consumes my thoughts 24/7.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but her sudden appearance has severed my vocal cords. A weird croaking sound leaves me instead, like if you dropped a dumbbell on a frog.

Her lips quirk a little before her guarded expression snaps back into place. That’s when I notice her splotchy cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. Has she been crying?

“Tate, this is Talia. Talia, this is Tate, my son.” My mom rattles with pots and pans behind me. “I’m sure you two know each other? You look the same age.”

I’ve known about Talia since third grade. Her very existence triggered my first and only crush, despite her never speaking more than twenty words to me. Four of which were “you’re blocking my locker.” And how did I respond? Exactly as I am now. Stunned stupid.