I never should have kissed her.
“I don't like you any more,” Kimberly laughed as I stepped away. “And you definitely don't like me either.”
I cringed.
She shrugged. “I think every girl at our high school has had a crush on you at least once, but I think I'm finally over you. Brian and I have been hanging out lately and he asked me to go out on a date with him next weekend.”
I couldn't believe Brian had actually worked up the courage to ask her out.
“And...obviously you're so in love with Lilah you can't even see straight.”
I wiped my hand down my face. “Yeah, well I'm not sure that will ever be reciprocated.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? Did you not hear what I just said? Every girl has had a crush on you, and even Lilah Calloway isn’t immune to your charms. She was staring at you the whole time. If her dad wasn’t the coach, I would’ve assumed she had never seen a game of baseball before.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out if Kimberly was telling the truth. She had nothing to gain from lying, so I shrugged and changed the subject.
“Don't tell Brian about that kiss. I'm drunk.”
She laughed. “Consider it closure.”
Harvey slid off the bed to sniff around my heels. I leaned down to pet him, trying to work out if I needed to go on a late night run. I had too much energy to sleep, but I knew I’d throw up as soon as my feet hit the pavement. Instead, I reached under my bed for my tools and my box of cameras. I dropped the box onto my desk and rifled through it until I found the slim brown case at the very bottom. Inside, there was a vintage Leica M3 I’d found online a few months earlier. It was from 1952 and had been almost beyond repair when it’d first arrived. I’d been working on it slowly, trying to prolong the process so that I wouldn’t finish and then have to sell it. It was a rare find, worth too much to keep, but now I had a better idea for it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lilah
After the most restless night of sleep I’d ever had, I lay in bed listening to the sounds of our aging house and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. It was a physical sign of my stress and I knew it wouldn’t go away until I straightened out the creases of my life. Chase was the first item on that list.
How could he look at me every day when I had the same green eyes as my mother? I was a part of her no matter how hard I tried to pretend I wasn’t. He could pull me into the gray, we could pretend that we were good and happy there, but in the end, we’d always be living with ghosts.
I pushed my blankets off me and crawled out of bed. The house stayed quiet as I threw on a t-shirt and the same pair of tattered jeans I’d always worn when I gardened. There were holes in the knees from leaning down to dig in the dirt, but they fit me well and I couldn't bear the thought of replacing them.
Once my gardening gloves were shoved into my back pocket, I opened my door and stepped out into the hallway. Chase's door was closed, and the gap between the door and the carpet was dark; he was still asleep. I stepped past his room and headed down the stairs in search of a banana and some water. I'd take a break later to have a real breakfast; I was anxious to get started.
It was early in the season, but I was growing my plants from seeds and in Texas it’s better to get started early or the crops have to wrestle with summer heat. As I stepped out onto the porch, I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the lingering knot in my stomach.
With sharp concentration, I studied my plots and chewed bites of banana. The backyard wasn't much to look at yet, but in a few months, each of the raised plots would be brimming over with life. My dad had repaired them and now the only thing left to do was fill them up with soil and mulch.
I finished off my banana, set the peel aside, and then stepped out onto the grass.
The small shed near the fence was designated for our lawn mower and gardening equipment. I pulled open the wooden door and inhaled the quintessential earthy must that lingers around bagged mulch. My dad had taken the time to stock it full of supplies for the year, saving me the trip into town. I shot him a mental thank you and then started counting out the bags. I was halfway done when the house’s screen door creaked open.
When I spun around, I found my dad with a cup of coffee and a warm smile. He had on a Henley t-shirt and his gardening jeans, just like I did, except his looked even more worse for wear.
“I swear you start earlier every year,” he teased, taking a sip of coffee that I knew from experience was black as tar. I’d once stolen a sip of it as a kid and spit it out across the kitchen table. The black splatter had stained the wood before anyone had gotten around to cleaning it.
“I just like to start when there's still a chill in the air. It'll get up into the high 80s later today.”
He nodded and took another long sip from his mug.