Page 2 of Solitude

Holy heck.

Beckett Hale.

My next-door neighbor.

My crush.

I haven’t said a word to him in the four years he’s lived on the other side of the fence with his ever-growing family. I’ve seen him, of course. How could I not? But I’ve never actually been able to muster up the courage to say anything to him. Not a hello. Not even a small wave or smile.

Now, in five minutes, I’ve potentially burst his eardrum and thrown a flaming cupcake at him. Well, in his general direction.

I want to die.

Is it too late to make a new birthday wish? I’d like for the ground to open and swallow me, please.

“What was the busted cupcake for, anyway?” He probes, ignoring my previous sentiment.

I cross my arms over my chest. “It didn’t look like that before you got here.”

Beckett shrugs, a lopsided grin on his face that makes my heart squeeze. He’s never smiled at me before. “The damn thing was practically mush in your hands, Winnie, and you were just letting candle wax drip all over the icing.”

My mouth immediately opens to protest, defendmyself against his not-totally incorrect accusations, but I pause.

Two things happen. First, I realize that Beckett had been standing there a few feet away watching me for a while before he spoke to me. How long had he been standing there just behind me while my grip slowly tightened on the cupcake?

Second, did he just…?

“You know my name.”

Not a question. I don’t need to ask. Clearly, he knows it from the way he just let it roll off his tongue like he says it every day: practiced and poised. I want to hear Beckett Hale say my name every day.

He tilts his head, eyes me curiously, and I swallow harshly under his scrutinizing gaze. “We’ve lived beside each other for years in a small town. Of course, I know your name.”

“Right.” I nod, unable to stop the motion. Up and down. Up and down. My brain finally catches up, and my hands begin to twist and tangle in front of me. “It’s surprising, I guess. We’ve never talked.”

At that, Beckett snorts. “Yeah. Kind of hard to talk to you when you run away every time one of us looks in your direction.” He looks at me pointedly, referencing his entire family. “You know we don’t have some kind of freaky germs or something just because there’s a lot of us, right?”

I cough to cover the laugh that wants to escape at his wording. He’s not exaggerating. There are a lot of Hale’s running around Magnolia Hollow. His mom and dad justadopted a two-year-old little girl, Millie, which makes nine kids living in the two-story home beside mine. I’ve been lucky enough to watch them grow throughout the years.

And I watched it all from my bedroom window.

It sounds creepy, and well, maybe it is a little.

From my resting spot in my second-floor bay window, I saw Stella, the oldest Hale, leave the nest, Andy, the second oldest and wild child, graduate and leave for some backpacking trip before college, and the twins—Beckett and Bennett—stumble their way through hockey and girls. I’ve watched Tillie and Spencer, two of the middle children, grow from little kids to preteens and watched Gabe and Nick, the younger Hales, start elementary school.

The Hale family has always been my favorite tv show, and lucky for me, it’s always on right next door.

I love their imperfectly perfect life. It’s full of all the things missing from mine. Two loving parents who kiss each other hello and goodbye. Toys scattered in the yard. Big meals laid out over a huge oak table I can just barely spy through a window above their sink.

There’s something welcoming about them and their chaos.

“I know,” I finally mumble, unsure of my words, so I lie. “I’m just always busy.”

Beckett nods his head and sits on one swing. “Right. What’re you doing out here by yourself, anyway? You don’t have a bedtime?”

“I…excuse me?” I sputter.A bedtime?Is he serious? “I’m sixteen, not twelve. It’s my birthday actually. That’s why I’m here.”

He grins and pushes his toe into the dirt and propels himself forward in the swing. He goes back and forth a time or two before he speaks again. “Why are you celebrating your sixteenth birthday in a park? All alone? At night?”

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