Page 28 of Falling for Autumn Again

The sun in the sky shines down and ten steps into my jog, it glints over Ezra’s face. A bluish mark rings beneath his left eye. My vision zones in on the mark; it must be the sun. But the closer I get, the more pronounced it becomes.

“Ezra,” I say, my voice small.

“Hey.” He grins, greeting me as if it were any other day. “Whew. I was afraid I’d never make it. But I sped—don’t tell your dad—and I’m here. Only ten minutes late.”

"Ezra," I growl. He's acting as if everything is normal and clearly, it isn't.

I lift my hand to his face and trace the blue moon below his eye. “What happened?”

He latches onto my wrist and pulls it down, lacing his fingers through mine. “Pesticide? Really? You couldn’t have picked something else for us today?”

Taking a step and then another, Ezra leads me back to where I’ve been working on the tallest trees on the farm.

“Ezra!” I yank my hand from his.

He groans. “It looks a lot worse than it is. Okay?”

“Mav,” I say, my brain connecting all the dots.

Ezra shrugs one shoulder as if this isn’t an astronomical deal. “You know what he’s like.”

My breaths pick up speed, and for a second I think I’m going to have to breathe into the pesticide bag to keep fromhyperventilating—that would be a very bad idea. “I knew he yelled at you. I knew he called you names. I knew he didn’t help with bills or the house or the cooking. I didn’t know he—” I shake my head, unsure if I can even say the words. I lift my hand to Ezra’s face once more, brushing it softly as if he may break.

“Believe me, the names hurt a lot more than the bruises,” he says.

“Bruises? As in plural?”

"Autumn," Ezra huffs out like I'm a tiring child and he needs a break. "It doesn't happen often. But occasionally he does get out of that recliner chair and when he does…" His forehead wrinkles. "It's not fun."

“You need to get out of here.”

“I’m getting out. My friend has an intensive life plan for me, remember?” He grins and I soften a little.

“You’ll go, then?”

“Wherever you want me, Green. Just let me know before we leave.”

My chest deflates. He’ll go. We’ll get out of here. Together.

Ezra just has to make it through this year and the next.

Chapter Thirteen

Ezra

My toes feelas though they are being pressed into that old nutcracker in Mav’s junk drawer. I was wrong. Size ten is not okay.

I’ve been digging holes for the last two hours. I haven’t seen Autumn once. And if I’m bravely admitting my truth, I volunteered to help the Linus’s partly to have an excuse to see Autumn.

If I’m ever going to find out this secret truth everyone keeps hinting at, I need to talk to the girl. I won’t be able to do that as long as she’s avoiding me like second-grade cooties.

The roar of a motor fills the air and I peer up, blocking the sun with my hand. Two four-wheelers drive up. Dessie’s on one and Don is on the other.

“Hey,” Don calls, a baseball cap over his thinning hair, making his big ears poke out a little like Dumbos—just like they did a decade ago. “We’ve got this. Can you go help Autumn with the bare roots?”

I run my dirty hands along the thigh of my denim pants and tip the brim of my Giants hat upward. “Uh, sure. Where is she?”

“The south side of the farm. Around six hundred acres”—Dessie points—“that way.”

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