Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Paisley

Ugh, I was bummed.

Anything that made me sad—of all people, me—should have been illegal. But… in this case, the person making me sad was also the person who made me really happy.

Feelings, huh? Things sucked.

Emberlynn could still see right through me, because she slid onto the bench next to me while I was looking like a lost puppy out at where Harper was talking to Gwen by the sound set. I barely even registered Emberlynn there next to me until she nudged me.

“Going to stop checking out your girlfriend for two seconds and join the rest of us on earth?”

I glowered at her. “Okay, first of all, how dare you try pulling that when you’ve spent half your time since getting with my sister staring at her butt—”

She put her hands up. “Hey. At least I still talk to people.”

“It’s worse when it’s your sister!”

She scratched her arm. “Yeah… thinking of my family, I’m glad you’re not hitting on my sister.”

“Pretty sure it makes you glaze over when you think about your family.”

She shrugged, looking down. “Mom’s been talking to me more lately. Think she’s just preparing to be bored with my sister moving out for college in the fall… empty-nester at last.”

“Telling you to go visit her for Thanksgiving? I’ll give you a boiled eggplant to bring.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling drily. “Apparently, she wants to visit me. So… might have a mom or even a dad swinging by.”

“Oh, shit, seriously?” I turned to face her. “They’re leaving their cornfield?”

“Probably just Mom. Dad’s busy. And probably going to enjoy having the house to himself while she’s gone. But yeah… she’s venturing out of her cornfield. Wants to meet Aria.”

“Oh, that’ll be rich,” I said flatly. “Do they know yet that she’s up to her eyes in money?”

She laughed nervously. “Nope… haven’t gotten around to mentioning that yet.”

“They’re going to get on your case about when you’re marrying her.”

She scratched her head. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. They’re not super hard off, but they’re not rolling in it either. If they try to mooch off Aria, I want to tell them off, but I don’t know if I have the guts.”

“Then I will,” I said, sitting up straighter. “Just bring me around. It’s my solemn duty as your best friend to tear them a new one on your behalf.”

She grinned. “Thanks, Pais. Not sure if you can handle it, though.”

I snorted. “Please. There’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“She loves spicy food. We’ll have dinner that would cook you to death.”

I faltered. That was hardly fair. “I’ll… I’ll eat the mashed potatoes and the bread.”

She relaxed back in her seat. “Genuinely, it’ll be a lot easier to breathe if I have you there. I’ll let her know my next-door neighbor will help herself in through the window to join us.”

I huffed. “I can use the door for polite company.”

“Yeah, just a question of which door,” she said. “If you climb over the balcony and in that way…”

“Fussy. I’m a woman of convenience. I take the shortest path.”

She dropped her gaze to the ground, slouching forwards. “Hey, um… thanks.”

“For climbing over your balcony? Girl, you don’t even have to say a word. I’m already on it.”

“This is gonna blow your mind. No, that’s not it.” She shook her head. “For being there.”

I paused. “Well… yeah. We’re besties.”

“Yeah. Just… I don’t know if it’s just me, but it’s felt a little off lately. But I think it’s me inventing a problem.”

I felt like something untied in my chest, unraveled, came loose enough that I could breathe again, and I relaxed. “Um… you know, I’d actually been whining to Kay about that not long ago. Like I feel awkward and… um…”

She glanced at me, waiting for me to finish the sentence. As if I knew how to finish a sentence.

“I dunno. Like things are fixed in place. Like I’m supposed to be a certain way. And then it’s like it’s not me anymore, and then I’m just… just kinda lost.”

She smiled softly, glancing down at my dress. “Clearly been having some luck pushing out of your comfort zone with Harps, though.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause she’s leaving.” I shifted. “Um… guess I figured I could embarrass myself in front of her all I liked, and it wouldn’t matter.”

“Not gonna lie, I had to do a double take when I saw you here because I genuinely did not think it was you. But… hey. You look good like this.” She paused. “And that’s a very elaborate excuse to dress up for your girlfriend.”

I hung my head. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s my wife, don’t you know?” I pulled my keys from my bag, jingling them. “She gave me the keys to her house and bakery. Now we’re basically married.”

She softened. “I’m really sorry.”

I dropped my arms by my sides. “Damn. Are you really dragging my wife like that?”

“Not that. Just…” She looked down, toeing the lines between stones on the floor. “She’s leaving. It’s going to hit all of us hard, but nobody harder than you.”

I tried desperately to shove down the burning feeling in my chest, and I looked away. “Yeah, big talk from the one who was spitting fireballs at the idea of me with her to begin with—”

“I was spitting fireballs at you casually dropping details of the weird exhibitionist sex you had—”

“Ugh, it was an accident! It’s not like we do that much weird stuff.”

“Recording yourself railing her on top of the lighthouse? That’s tame, then, huh?”

“Look, that’s one of the weirder ones. The last two times have both been at her house—”

“Paisley. Oh my god.” She put her hands over her face. “I don’t want to hear about any of the times.”

“At this point, you’re asking for it. The next time you bring it up, I’m going into blow-by-blow detail—”

“Spare me. I don’t need to picture Harper in a harness or whatever you’re doing next.”

“Her? You think she’s the one with the harness?”

She gave me a look like she wanted to die right now. I cleared my throat.

“I mean… hypothetically.”

“Oh my god.” She hung her head. “What I’ve been trying to say is that… I think you two make a good couple.”

My mouth felt so dry suddenly it was like I’d bitten down on a roll of cotton. I swallowed trying to get rid of it. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hm. I mean, look at you. Exploring your style and self-expression, getting out there and trying all kinds of things… diving into how you really feel. I mean, that’s what being human is, right? What it means to be a part of something—really, truly a part of something. You’re not putting on a performance, not trying to get people to think of you a certain way or see you a certain way, not trying to be something, just… letting yourself be. And be perceived. Everything that makes you you—even the embarrassing ones, you own them, carry them. And the right people are the ones who help you do that. Who like everything about you. Harper…” She cast her gaze back out towards Harper, but it felt like she was looking through her—seeing much further beyond her. “When I see you with Harper, I think you’re like that. Really, honestly you. And I… I want that for you.”

I slumped back against the bench, rolling the point of one heel along the ground. “Emby waxing poetic.”

“It’s Emberlynn.”

“Ever considered writing song lyrics?”

“Yeah. They sucked. I leave it to the lyricists. You’re just saying bullshit to get out of addressing difficult things.”

I huffed. “It’s extremely rude of you to call me out when I didn’t ask you to. Ugh…”

“It’s okay to tell me how you feel. Even the embarrassing feelings.”

I shrank into myself, feeling like a withering leaf—crumpling up on myself, getting smaller, fading. “How I feel is dumb. Really dumb. Like… how do you even know when you’re in love with someone?”

She shrugged. “You just… you just feel it. Your heart says it, not your head.”

“My heart says I love cheese.”

“You’re just saying bullshit to get out of—”

“Shut up! Shut up.” I shook my head. “Just wish… my heart would put things in plain English for me to understand.”

She paused. “You don’t… know how you feel about her?”

“Is this what love is?” I shrugged, hugging myself tighter, feeling naked. Wearing fancy clothes and nice makeup, trying to be pretty, that was easy compared to baring all of this. “Just thought… thought it was some kind of wild, all-in, smack-you-upside-the-face feeling.”

“Oh, no,” she laughed. “No. Almost never. It’s the kind of feeling, the kind of realization, that comes in so slowly it’s never easy to pin down when it started. It’s like the sunrise. Hard to pick the exact moment that the sun started to rise, but then you look around and it’s impossible to deny that the sun is there, lighting up the world.”

I snorted. “Aria’s made you so corny. Ugh.”

“Okay, dumbass. More like when you’ve been lying in bed and you don’t know when you zoned out and lost track of time, but sure enough you look around and you’ve been here for three hours playing sudoku so you definitely zoned out somewhere. It’s like that.”

“Okay, that one I can relate with.” Still, my gaze drifted across the field to where Harper and Gwen were doing something at Gwen’s computer together, and even though it was much too corny to ever admit aloud, looking at Harper made me relate more to the first one, because damn, she really did have a way of lighting up the world.

It wasn’t very fair.

I shifted in my seat. “She’s getting ready to announce her departure, huh?”

“Mm. She told me just before I came over here to harass you,” she said. “Said she needed to tell everybody as swiftly as possible, hopefully one-and-done, all in one go. Told her to ask Gwen, said she might as well just broadcast it over the sound system, give a little speech. And, uh…” She avoided my gaze. “Thought I’d sit with you. Guess I might have bothered for some reason to worry about you, worry you might be sad, and thought I’d keep you company. I’ll buzz off if you want to be alone, though.”

I was kind of glad I wasn’t the only one who was awkward sometimes. I hunched forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “You’re not getting away from me that easily. Once Harper’s gone, I have no one to attach to but you, so… anyway, just quit trying to run away.”

“Yeah, yeah. Guess I can do that.”

Harper had always been so… quietly good. Never getting directly involved in a lot, but always making things better for everyone around her. Made sense she’d help me fix my awkwardness with Emberlynn and help me get over my embarrassment around my image before she left.

That stupid-ass jerk. She never did let other people do nice things for her.

Of all the dumbass people for me to fall for. Me! One would be forgiven for thinking Paisley Macleod, the de facto empress of Bayview, would have better taste.

But things never turned out how you planned them, did they?