“You’re going to get it,” she said with certainty, moving in closer until she stood right under me.
I had no choice to look at her now, this beautiful girl in a ridiculous neon-orange tutu with admiration in her eyes.
“There’s no one better for the job.”
I swallowed, hand reaching for her like a weed reaches for the sun. It slid up her arm, her neck, until I cradled her cheek. She smiled, and my thumb traced the line of her jaw.
“Even if I don’t, I just wanted you to know that I did it. I went for something. And I have you to thank for the courage.”
Her face faltered a little. “Why me?”
“Ever since the day I met you, you’ve challenged me, Wren. You’ve asked me to think about things I haven’t in years. First with remembering Dani as she was when she was alive, not dead. Then about who I am, who I want to be, where I want to go, what my dreams are. Don’t you understand?” I asked when she shook her head, as if it couldn’t possibly be her who made me see my worth. “I’ve never met anyone who takes responsibility for their own happiness the way you do. You inspire me. I want to be better. Hell, I want to live—not just exist—because of you.”
Tears pooled in her eyes and I sat my beer on the table next to hers before pulling her into me. She wrapped her small arms around my waist and I enveloped her in mine, resting my chin on top of her head.
“I’m glad you see me that way,” she said into my chest. “But in reality, I don’t have a single thing figured out. Not one.”
I chuckled. “It’s not having it all figured out that impresses me, Wren. It’s that you have the guts to try—even when it’s hard, even when you’re hurting.”
Her hands clutched the back of my shirt and I hugged her tighter, letting her know I was there. I’d said what I needed to say, and I didn’t want her to get too much into her head, so I slid my hand down to grab hers and motioned toward our drinks.
“Come on, it’s time for horseshoes.”
She choked out a laugh, and it was as if that laugh brought her back to the present. She sniffed, flicking her shades back down over her eyes even though the sun was close to setting now. “Something tells me this is going to be dangerous.”
“Maybe we should warn everyone.”
“Probably.”
She was joking, but I dropped her hand and ran out in front of her, hands around my mouth so the sound would carry. “Make way, take cover! Wren Ballard is en route to the horseshoe pit! I repeat—Wren is about to throw large, heavy metal! This is not a drill!”
Zeek and Julie were the first to hear me and they played into it, acting like townspeople running through yards and spreading the word. Momma Von dropped her hands into prayer and Yvette pretended to shield Benjamin as we passed. Even Ron joined in, holding his beer can in front of his face like a shield. When I turned back to Wren, she was bent at the waist, face red, hands on her knees—laughing.
My favorite sound.
My brain was mush.
Last night had drained me—emotionally, physically—and yet I’d somehow managed to wake up and throw on a smile for the pig roast.
The morning was the hardest, but once I let go of everything I’d shed alone in my cabin the night before, I started having fun. It wasn’t hard to do, considering the company and the events. I’d laughed so much my stomach was sore like I’d done a hundred crunches. In such a short amount of time, these people had become my family.
I was going to miss them.
And even more apparent after today, I was going to miss Anderson.
If I was being honest, the consistency of my brain matter was mostly due to me beating it with a blender trying to figure out everything with Anderson. My mom had opened my eyes in a bad way, Momma Von had smoothed me out to reality, and last night I’d come to a lot of truths on my own.
I cared about Anderson—maybe more than I should. And though I knew he had come into my life at exactly the right moment, I still couldn’t deny the fact that I’d let my happiness with him distract me from trying to find the very thing I’d been searching for when I booked the cabin two months ago.
Clarity.
I needed to spend time with myself, to face what I’d been running from, and I couldn’t do that if I was spending all my time with Anderson. Still, after he’d opened up to me about how I inspired him, it was like adding a new ingredient to the bowl that I needed to blend and mull over.
I wanted it all.
I wanted to spend time finding myself and also spend time getting lost in him. It didn’t seem impossible to balance, it didn’t feel like it had to be one or the other, and yet the uneasiness I felt told me the opposite.
Still, I was too tired to even try to process it all tonight, so I’d decided to let it go for now and just enjoy myself.
We were all stuffed full, plates empty and beers refilled as we sat around Davie and Yvette’s bonfire. The night was winding down, midnight approaching now, and my exhaustion was slowly creeping into every inch of my body. My limbs were heavy—eyelids, too. Still, I couldn’t leave in the middle of old man Ron’s story.
I learned that apparently when Ron got really, really drunk off whiskey, he liked to talk. A lot. And since I’d only heard him grunt before tonight, there was no way I was moving until he stopped talking.
“After that, An Okie from Muskogee took on a whole new meaning for me,” he slurred, finishing a long string of sentences that I wasn’t even sure made any sense at all. “And I could officially mark pig shopping off my bucket list.” He hiccuped. “‘Course, I had to add it, first.”
A few people chuckled and Momma Von rubbed her hand along his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Time for bed, Ron.”
He nodded, hiccuping again with a wide grin as he handed his half-full cup of beer to Yvette. He stood with shaky legs, balancing his weight on Momma Von, and she winked at all of us before tossing his arm over her shoulder and guiding him toward the road. We all called out our goodnights to them both, and I succumbed to my own yawn just as I noticed Anderson wasn’t back from refilling our cups yet.
I looked over my shoulder, spotting him still at the kegs, but he wasn’t alone. Tucker was there, manning the tap with a smug smile.
He was saying something just loud enough for the two of them to hear, and by the way Anderson was crushing both of our cups in his fists, I knew he didn’t like whatever it was that was being said.
I frowned, bracing my hands on the arms of my chair to go see what was going on, but I didn’t make it before I had company of my own.
“Looks like you survived your first pig roast,” Sarah said, taking the seat next to me that had been Anderson’s. Her eyes were low and red, and though she wore a smile, I didn’t feel at all like her friend.
“Barely,” I answered with a soft laugh.