AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When we stepped up to our microphones, we angled toward each other just like we used to. It had been a million years since we’d done this, but my heart thumped with all the emotion it’d carried around when I was eighteen, standing next to her on a stage just like this, singing with her family.
I nodded to her to start it, and she opened with a riff that gave us the key and the beat, and I joined in, singing with her when she nodded at me and took a breath. The song started with a picture in a wallet, and when asked who it was, the narrator said, “Just someone I used to know.” They didn’t tell the other how they’d never stopped loving them, didn’t admit how lost they were without them. Just looked at the old picture for a long moment and wished things were different.
It was my confession to Poppy, my mistake to regret, that old picture of her in my wallet a living thing. I memorized her face as she sang—the shape of her mouth, the sweet sound of her voice—searching for her understanding that I meant every word. And I found it there behind her eyes. Only I didn’t know if I was forgiven.
All I knew is I wanted to be, and not for myself.
The crowd erupted when the song ended, and we bowed before stepping to each other to shake hands and wave. Mike interrupted, taking over the mic to let everyone know fireworks would begin in a half hour and where everyone could go for the best vantage. Poppy and I put our instruments away as a playlist started over the PA.
“Think it would be too much to dance with you?” I asked.
“Probably. Anyway, we’ve gotta get seats for the fireworks.”
“They’ll be second rate.”
“Will they?”
I nodded, my smile tilting. “Meet me tonight and I’ll prove it.”
“Been waiting on it since you ruined my life in the truck.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“You’d better,” she said over her shoulder.
I watched her walk away, my heart rolling thunder, ominous and deafening.
Because I didn’t just want to be forgiven.
I loved her. And not just in my memory.
I loved her right now. Every single second of every single day, I loved her.
Only I didn’t know how I could have her, not without walking away from everything I’d built. At the moment, that wasn’t looking so bad. A life here, in Lindenbach. A life with Poppy.
All I had to do was forsake everything else.
18
IF I IGNORE IT
POPPY
The fireworks over Main Street were spectacular.
I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly. The display was the same as it ever was, the fair just like every other Fourth of July fair we’d had. But the lights seemed a little bit brighter, the music a little sweeter. And my smile came a whole lot easier.
My family surrounded me, all coupled off and starry-eyed. Even Mama sat next to Allen, leaning into his side. His arm held her close, his smile beneath his magnificent gray mustache earnest and soft with contentment. They’d danced together all night, and though I always suspected I’d secretly hate any man who tried to date Mama, the truth was that Allen was impossible not to love.
It was easier to accept, not being all alone myself.
Duke sat with his family on blankets, close enough to see the details of his face colored by the fireworks but far enough away that I couldn’t hear what they said. I watched him with my heart warm and aching, conflicted and contented. Nothing made sense. Up was down, left was right, Duke was home, and I wanted to be with him.
Cuckoo bananas. I’d probably lost my mind. Maybe I’d slipped into the multiverse. Or the human simulation caught a virus, glitching the matrix.
The worst part was that I didn’t want out. I wasn’t interested in things going back to what they were, but I was even less interested in what they’d be when the election was over. And though the clock ticked steadily in that direction, I was intent on making the limbo we were caught in last.
At least for the next few days.
My heart squeezed. But as usual, I stuck my fingers in my metaphorical ears and la, la, la’d away from the thought.
After the fair, I chatted with townsfolk who stopped by while my family packed up our booth. By the time we were all loaded, there were only a dozen people left, and all of them were exhausted.
Mama and I pulled up to the house just shy of midnight, with Grant and Jo right behind us. But they headed to their cottage, and Daisy and Keaton had gone back to his house just like always. The house was dark and quiet, and neither of us made to turn on the lights. Instead, we dumped our things just inside the door and clasped hands briefly.
