Page 6 of Wonderstruck

“C’mon,” I threw my arm around her shoulder, tugging us out of the room.

We stumbled back out into the kitchen, the fierce glow from the sunset spillingthrough the windows, illuminating the dust particles.

“Want some hot cocoa?” I asked her, pulling open thecupboard doors.

“Yes, please.” She sighed, launching herself up onto the countertop. As I put apan on the stove and filled it with milk, she cleared her throat. “What was it you wanted to tell me before? When you came in?”

I turned my head to her.

When I came in—?

Oh.

Oh.

I felt my eyes widen, my mouth running faster than my brain. “I saw Rory. Outside St.Bernadettes.”Confusion masked my face. "Or at least I think I did."

She pulled her head back, her bright blonde curlsshaking as a tiny smile spread across her face, disbelief weaving between her dimples. “Well, that’s impossible.” She jested, rubbing her hand across her nose and sniffing. “You were probably just thinking about her and then saw someone who looked like her.”

As I light the stove, I shook my head. “I wasn’t thinking about her.”

She sniffed again, although this one had a little laugh mingled within it. “Ha,yeah. Good one.” I looked at her, my eyes narrowed. “What? Is it so crazy for me to assume that our friend, who just lost her Dad, is on your mind more than before?” She shook her head, that sadness filtering back into her eyes. “I knowI’mthinking about her.”

There was no point in arguing. Aurora Greene had always been somewhere in mymind since the night I met her. But recently, after how we left things, after what happened the day of Tristan’s concert? My mind was full of her, filling every crack and corner that existed up there.

That thought triggered something.

“It was her. I know it was.” I recalled her face,her dress, the solemn look onher face, the flowers, and the crowd of people behind her all dressed in black.

Oh my—

“It was a funeral.”

The only bit of darkness that lived in Daisy'seyes widened, considering my words, before shaking her head. “No, no, that’s impossible.”

Tearing open the cocoa sachet and pouring it intothe pan, I looked back at her. “Has she said anything to you, or the girls?”

Her hands raised to the ends of her hair, twirling it like she always did whenshe was lost in her thoughts. “Not really. She said the funeral was soon when we asked her the other day, but she never mentioned when exactly, or where.” She shook her head. “I assumed she was staying in New York.” As though a string of fairy lights lit up in her head, her back straightened. “Sheisfrom Montana, though. But since she moved to New York right before she started high school, she never really spoke much about it or the name of the town she grew up in.”

Honeywood was small. But not small enough that we would have known eachother had we gone to different schools or lived on separate sides of town. And if she left before high school, and happened to go to the only other middle school here? We would have missed each other.

I get lost in the cocoa as it swirls in the pan, but all that does is remind me ofher and how her skin still glowed today, even in the shadow of the spire.

“You know what, I’ll just ask her,” Daisy said, butbefore she had a chance to even unlock her phone, I spun around.

“No, not now.” She lifted her eyes to me. “If itwas her, then she’s probably craving some quiet after today.” I nodded, more for myself. “Ask her next week, when we’re all back.”

Chewing her bottom lip, Daisy nodded, before hopping down from her stooland making headway for the mug cabinet.

I shifted my eyes out the window, looking over the fields that made up ourbackyard. But like always, she was everywhere.

Rory always overpowered my thoughts.Regardless of where I was, regardless of what was happening right before my eyes, she was there. In every bit of light she existed in.Like right now. I saw her in the faint pink swirls that were painted across the sky. I heard her voice in the whispers of the breeze. I felt her in the warmth radiating through the windows.

Whether I liked it or not, she was never far away.

“Would you maybe, I don't know, want to grab coffeesometime? Explore the city? Whatever you want.”

I blocked out every bit of the view my eyes were soaking up, hating the guilt that beganto swirl in my stomach when I thought back to Goldie’s birthday dinner, where Rory asked me out, rather bravely. And I had the audacity to just stare at her, saying nothing.

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