“For real, though,” Jesse said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Superstition,” Dia said. It wasn’t a complete lie, not really. “You know.”
Jesse shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me.”
Dia’s pulse skipped and bounced, staccato sharp, and she turned her attention to Lex to get away from his gaze. “Stop.”
He cleared his throat. “So, Hanna,” he said. “What’s that like?”
They looped all the way around the gardens as she told him all about Hanna, the difference between the girl Dia had known before and the girl she knew now. About practicing, and how she’d missed it all.
They walked back by the rose garden and Dia watched Lex carefully as Jesse talked to her and her mind wandered again, to what it would be like to kiss him.
Stop wondering, a whisper in the back of her mind said. Do something about it.
“Dee.” Jesse’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Are you listening to me?”
Dia stopped walking, stepped away from the stroller. “Jesse.”
“What?”
She looked at him for a long moment, and he stared back at her, those eyes that seemed to read everything. Fathoms deep and holding things he’d told only her, quiet truths Dia had entrusted to him. God, he was pretty, but god, he was everything else, too.
“Dia,” he said now. “What is it?”
She took another step closer to him and before she could talk herself out of it, touched her hand to his chest. “Hi,” she said.
For a moment she thought she was making a huge mistake, him staring down at her and not moving at all, but then he started to smile. And electricity crackled across her skin as he put a hand on her waist. “Hi,” he said back.
She was afraid to breathe in that second, afraid that any move she made would shatter this moment they were in. Because she was being reckless, she knew, dangerous.
The sun surrounded Jesse in a halo, set him alight, and Dia rose up on her toes, lifted her chin, felt the ghost of Jesse’s breath across her lips. I am going to kiss Jesse Mackenzie, she thought.
And then: “Mama!”
“Fuck,” Dia breathed, and at the same second Jesse’s hands stilled on her body. He dipped his head, resting on her shoulder, and Dia felt him shaking before she heard his laugh. Without meaning to she wound her arms around him, her hands on the back of his warm neck, pulled him closer. “Oh, this is funny?”
He lifted his head and widened his eyes at her. “Come on,” he said. “It’s pretty funny. It’s perfect.”
Dia saw them standing there with their arms around each other, her chest against his, entangled and unaware and unashamed, and then Lex called again. “Look! Ladybug!”
“Listen,” she said, keeping her voice low, just for him. “This is not over.”
“No?”
Dia stroked her fingers across the nape of his neck and he smiled. “No,” she said. “I promise.”
She pulled away from him and headed to her daughter. “Where is it?” she said. “Show me.”
While Lex found the creature again, Dia looked over her shoulder and Jesse was standing there, watching them, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe her. Dia knew what he was feeling; she couldn’t believe herself, either.
It was already a memory to her, running her fingers across the back of Jesse’s neck, his hand on her waist. Did I really do that? she thought wonderingly. It was an impulsive decision, so unlike her.
But all summer long she’d been doing things she normally wouldn’t, letting herself risk things. And this—it felt good, real. And this relief at touching him at last, the way he laughed into her skin.
She looked back at her daughter, reached into the flowers with her, and smiled.
It felt inevitable.
Hanna
“You think you’re ready for high school, Molls?” Hanna picked up her sweating milkshake. “You can ask me anything. It’s really not so bad.” She ignored the look Ciara gave her. What? If Hanna took out the drinking and the friends falling apart and the loneliness, then—actually no, it was that bad. But she wasn’t going to scare Molly with her horror stories.
Molly shook her head. “I’m not that nervous,” she said. “I’m kind of excited.”
“For high school?” Ciara made a face. “You’re braver than me, kid.”
They were sitting on the hill overlooking the skate park, watching the people down there and recovering from a morning at the mall picking between a hundred identical pairs of jeans for Molly. It felt weird for Hanna to be imagining Molly going back to school and not thinking about it herself. Real life, she guessed.
“I think I want to try out for cheerleading,” Molly said, tossing her hair back in the most perfect way and looking at Hanna. “What do you think?”
Hanna tipped her head to the side. “You don’t need my permission,” she said. “Do what you want. I think you’ll be a badass cheerleader, though.”
“They’d be ridiculous not to pick you,” Ciara said through a mouthful of fries.
Molly smiled and sounded relieved when she said, “Okay. I’m going to do it.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to be a freshman,” Hanna said.
“Me either,” Ciara said, crossing her long legs. “This time last year you were all braces and pigtails. Now you’re a cheerleader in cooler jeans than me.”
“Shut up,” Molly said, so thirteen. “God, you two are embarrassing.”
Hanna slung her arm around her sister’s neck and tugged on her ponytail. “It’s my right.”
“Whatever.” Molly wriggled out of her grip, but she was grinning when she stood up. “I’m going to talk to Portia, she’s down there.”
“All right,” Hanna said. “Don’t go anywhere else.”
“I won’t.”
She watched Molly head down the hill and then said to Ciara, “I forget that’s she not a little kid. Sometimes she acts like she is, and she’s just my little sister, and then sometimes she comes out with this wise-woman talk and I’m like—Molly, is that you?”
Ciara laughed. “This is what happened to me with you,” she said. “When we met you were, like, fourteen! Now you’re as legal as me. With a real grown-up job and everything.”
“I know,” Hanna said, groaning at the thought of her office employment, creeping ever closer. “But it’ll only be for a couple years, until I have some money to pay for college and get my shit together.”
Ciara nudged Hanna with her shoulder. “I think your shit’s pretty together now,” she said. “You’re sober, you graduated, and you’re still alive.”
Hanna raised her eyebrows at that. “Real high bar.”
“I used to worry that I’d come home from touring and you would be dead,” Ciara said bluntly. “So whatever you might think about yourself, I’m pretty fucking glad that you’re still here.”
Hanna put a hand to her chest and pressed against the sudden sharp tension there. Sometimes she forgot—all the ways she’d hurt the people around her, all the ways she’d let everybody, let herself, down. But Ciara was right: she was still here. And maybe she did have her shit together. She was making music again, even; two months ago she wouldn’t even have dreamed that could happen.
Things could change; people could change. I have changed, Hanna thought.
I am here.
I am okay.
She linked her arm through Ciara’s and shifted closer. “Thanks.”
“No sweat,” Ciara said breezily. “Now, I need music updates. Since you won’t let me hear anything or insert myself all the way into this venture for some reason.”
Hanna shook her head. “You know I want to,” she said. “But it feels like it has to be the three of us doing this, on our own. As much as I would love your genius input, obviously.”
“Your ego stroking is duly noted,” Ciara said. “I can’t believe that, one, you’re talking again, and two, that my protégées are moving on without me!”
>
Hanna pulled away from Ciara, twisting to face her. “I know,” she said. “It took me a while to believe it would work but—” She paused and swallowed. “I really missed them. I hated some of the things they did to me, but I missed them, too. Even though part of me wanted to hold that grudge until the end of time.”
“Scorpio,” Ciara cut in. “Typical.”
Hanna smiled. “Right. But we make good music together. We’re magic at that. And it’s good to be back with them and not hating them all the time. So . . . I don’t know, maybe I’m naive, but I don’t think so. Right?” She shook her head. “I had to let them back in, knowing that it might all blow up in my face, but it didn’t. That’s more brave than stupid, right?”
Ciara looked at her, levity replaced with intensity. “They’re being good to you, yeah? And you to them?”
“Yeah,” Hanna said. She thought of the apology that had slipped from Dia’s lips, taken her so much by surprise that she hadn’t even known how to process it, was still processing it. “We’re good.”
“Then yeah,” Ciara said. “More brave than stupid.”
Hanna poked Ciara’s knee. “I know it’s weird,” she said. “They kinda cut you off, too.”
Ciara shook her head, the ring through her lip flashing. “There was a lot happening,” she said. “They needed space, just like you did. They know where I am, when they’re ready. I’m waiting.”
“Right,” Hanna said, and she put her head on Ciara’s shoulder, watching tiny Molly down below under the sun. “Waiting.”
Jules
“Have a good day,” Jules said, her cheeks aching. “Thanks for shopping at Callahan’s.”
She watched the customer wheel their cart away to the outside world and sighed as the front doors swished open. Escape: so near, so far. Her fingers plucked bass lines in the air, her new nervous twitch. She’d rather be practicing than working, but—
“Hey!”
Jules jumped. “Henry! Stop doing that.”
“What?” Henry said, shrugging his shoulders. “Just trying to get your attention.”
“You don’t need to scream in my ear to get it,” Jules said. Two registers down she saw Autumn turn around and laugh. “What do you want?”
“I heard you’re doing the Sun City contest,” he said. “That’s cool, I didn’t know you guys were even playing again.”
“Oh,” Jules said. Shut up, Henry. “Um . . .” She glanced over at Autumn again, whose face bore confusion now. Oh, no no no. He was ruining her surprise! “Keep your voice down,” she said. “Who’d you hear that from?”
Henry shrugged. “I dunno, around,” he said. “You think you’ll win? I heard the prize is fifteen grand.” He slapped his hands together. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Yeah, it is,” Jules said, and now Autumn was leaning out of her lane. No, no—if she heard him and asked, then he’d tell her and it would completely screw up Jules’s plan—she’d never get her rock-star goddess moment when she told Autumn they’d won, and—
“Henry,” Autumn called over. “What’s the contest?”
Okay, it was over.
Henry turned. “They have it every year,” he said. “The radio station runs it. You know, you enter a song and the winner gets played on the radio and stuff. But this year it’s like a way bigger deal, because Glory Alabama—you know them, right?—they’re sponsoring it this year.” He turned back to Jules. “So, you think you’ll win?”
“What’s the prize?” Autumn called again, and this time she was looking at Jules.
She swallowed. In the grocery store, wearing her polyester apron, was not how she’d envisioned this moment going. “The winner gets to play a support slot for Glory Alabama when their next tour comes through,” she said. “And . . . fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Whoa,” Autumn said, and Jules couldn’t tell whether her surprise was at the money or that she was just finding out about the whole thing right now or some combination of the two. “That’s amazing.”
Jules bit her lip. So this wasn’t how she’d wanted to tell Autumn, and probably she’d have some explaining to do later. But it was all out there now. “Isn’t it?” she said, but then there was a customer heading her way, and when she looked back over, Autumn was busy, too.
Jules exhaled as she began scanning items. Okay. Autumn didn’t seem annoyed. Confused, maybe, but once Jules explained, she’d get it. “That’ll be thirty-seven eighteen,” she said. “Cash or credit?”
The afternoon passed fast, busier than usual, and when Jules got a breather again she looked to Autumn’s register. But it was already closed up, no sign of Autumn. She looked down the aisles closest to her and then called out to Malai down by the paper towels. “Hey, where did Autumn go?”
“I think she’s finished,” Malai called back to her. “She just went out the back.”
She’d left without saying anything?
Jules paused for a second before closing her register, too, and heading out past Malai. “If Greg comes out, tell him I’m on my break,” she said.
“Sure,” Malai said. “No problem.”
Jules walked as fast as her tired feet could carry her, and when she got to the break room she was relieved to see Autumn at her locker. “Hey,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah,” Autumn said, pulling a pink backpack from her locker. “That’s what I usually do when my shift’s over.”
She hadn’t looked at Jules. So maybe she was pissed. “About the contest—”
“What about it?” Autumn stuffed her apron in her backpack. “It sounds amazing, really. I hope you win.”
“I hope so too,” Jules said, and she couldn’t help her smile. “Okay, I know it’s stupid, but that’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to wait until after, so that if—no, when—we won, I could tell you that. But Henry kind of ruined it.”
“Don’t blame him,” Autumn said.
Jules bit her lip. “Are you mad?” Jules regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.
“Am I mad?” Now Autumn looked at her. “I don’t get you, that’s all. It seems like you say one thing and then do another, and I don’t like it. I mean, you said I can talk to you about anything, so that’s what I’ve been doing, even when it’s not easy for me to do it. But then it’s like, you get to keep secrets from me? And I’m not supposed to be annoyed by that either? I thought we were all about being honest with each other.”
“We are,” Jules said, taken aback.
“You get to be mad at me over whatever, like that stupid thing at the movies, so why can’t I be pissed about this?”
“I was going to tell you,” Jules said, stepping closer. “When we won.”
“And what if you didn’t win?” Autumn asked, her voice sharp. “Where you still going to tell me? Or were you just going to let it slide?”
“I . . .” Jules hadn’t really thought it through that far. She’d gotten hung up on the part of her fantasy where Autumn started kissing her. “I don’t know. I thought it would be fun to, like, surprise you with the news. I wanted it to be exciting. Maybe that was a bad idea. . . .” It certainly seemed that way now, her reasoning sounding flimsy even to her own ears. She twisted her fingers together. “It made sense at the time, but now . . . I guess I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. It’s fine,” Autumn said, and she slammed her locker shut, pushed past Jules. “I have to go.”
“Autumn, wait—”
But Autumn walked out, the door swinging closed behind her. Jules looked up at the water-stained ceiling and groaned. Again and again, her ridiculous, overblown, romantic fantasies came crashing down around her. Why hadn’t she just told her about the contest in the beginning? Why? Now Autumn was upset, and even though Jules had been trying to do something right, she’d screwed that up again, too.
She headed back out to the floor.
Dia
Dia had gone to bed on Tuesday happy. She’d fallen int
o a deep sleep and dreamed of being back in the Gardens with Jesse, standing in that exact same spot, except that this time she was actually kissing him.
Her mouth on his. His arms wrapped around her, her hands on his chest.
Her hands skimming skin and—
Bone. Bones under her fingers, and blood, and Dream Dia had looked around and they weren’t in the Gardens anymore, they were in the middle of a road and there was a car flipped on its side and underneath that car was the body of the boy she’d just been kissing. And Dream Dia had tried to run, but her feet were suck to the sidewalk, stuck in it, and she could only watch as Jesse’s crushed body was pulled from beneath the wreckage, zipped into a body bag, taken away.
She’d woken up with her heart racing, panicked breaths rasping from her, and it had taken her a minute to work out why she was in the middle of an anxiety attack, what in her mind had thrown her into the deep end and left her to wake up struggling against the water.
“Elliot,” she’d said aloud, throwing the covers off. “Jesse.”
She’d rolled over and looked for Lex in her crib, calmed herself breathing in time with her baby. It’s a bad dream, she thought. It doesn’t mean anything.
Lex’s chest rose, fell, and Dia twisted her fingers into the sheets.
It did mean something, though. It was everything she’d feared, the entire reason she’d been keeping Jesse at a distance for years now, the reason she’d cut Hanna off. Her brain had conjured her this perfect reminder, a heart-splintering shock to say, You know this is a bad idea. Do you want him to die, too?
The dream—nightmare—played on her mind all week. On Friday morning they had an early practice at Hanna’s, and Dia was all sorts of out of it, messing up the lyrics not twice but three times, and completely blanking on the end of “Pretty Baby.” She wiped her hands on her thighs and shook her head, tried to rattle the music back into place that way.
“What is up with you?” Jules asked as they were packing up.
“Nothing,” Dia said. “I’m fine, I just . . . messed up a couple times.” I just can’t stop thinking about the next funeral I might have to go to.
This Is What It Feels Like Page 17