Page 37 of A Novel Love Story

“I know,” he replied.

As they bantered, a familiar figure sat down at the corner of the bar, the exact same seat he’d haunted the night before—and before that, and before that, and before that, I was sure—and Gail brought over his dinner without so much as a glance. Like clockwork. He must come here every night and order the same thing. He cracked open a book, dog-eared like the heathen he was, and munched on an onion ring as he read, having not spared anyone else in the bar a single glance.

I picked at my cuticles, wondering how to approach him to tell him that I was sorry. Iwassorry, wasn’t I? Either way, I needed to be an adult about this.

Pushing myself off the barstool, I excused myself from Will and Junie’s conversation about inn renovations, and went up to him.

He didn’t even look up from his book as he turned the page and said, “Gail told me that your car broke down?”

My shoulders squared. Already I knew this was a bad idea. “It must’ve broken when I dodged you in the rain.”

“Oh, believe me,” he said. “I’m regretting standing out in the rain as much as you probably regret missing me.”

“Nonsense, I didn’t want to dent my car.”

He snorted.

I winced. How come every interaction with him felt like I was trading barbs? Just being near him made my body feel like it’d been jolted with electricity, and I wished I could say it wasn’t addicting. I hated that if he wasn’t always so moody, he could’ve been handsome. Well, I guess hewashandsome, regardless, but unattainable,like an ice block in the freezer you could never thaw. And I hated that it kind of made me want to get to know him more. Like a puzzle I couldn’t quite solve, but I was stubborn. His white-blond hair had gently curled in the evening’s humidity, his minty eyes sharp and bright, as he finally flicked them to my face, and studied it.

“Are you here to stab me in the thigh?” he asked snidely. “Go for the throat? Carve my heart out with a dull spoon? Finish the job?”

“We both know that you don’t have a heart.” I tsked.

His eyebrows jerked up, but he didn’t argue. His gaze drifted behind me to Junie and Will. “Remember that you’re gone Monday,” he said, returning to his book. “Whatever waves you make, you aren’t sticking around to see what they wash away. So don’t ruin their lives.”

“Like you think I’ve ruined mine?”

“I didn’t say that.”

My fingers curled into fists. “You’re awful.”

“Yes, I am.” Then he licked his thumb and turned the page, effectively dismissing me.

The red mark was still on his cheek, and a bead of shame bloomed in my chest. How could I hate someone so thoroughly and still want to apologize for being awful? I swallowed that feeling, though, because he didn’t deserve my apology tonight. He was wrong—about me, about what I wanted from the waterfall, about mylife.

I returned to my seat, and neither Junie nor Will questioned my interaction. They probably realized it wasn’t a good one, so I ate my burnt hamburger and listened to Junie and Will talk about remodeling the inn, and tried to forget about the fight earlier, or why his words still stung.

You’re alone.

I wasn’t, but he certainly was.

12

Haunted

WILL FINISHED HIS BURGER,and ducked out of the bar to go back to the inn early. He wanted to take a shower, and clean up his mess before I arrived. I assured him that I wouldn’t care if therewasmess—they were giving me a place to stay, and that was more than enough—but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. So that left Junie and me to finish our burgers, and take the slow walk back to the Daffodil Inn. As we strolled, crammed under the small umbrella that Gail lent us, Junie and I talked like we’d known each other for decades. It felt like meeting a part of my heart that had broken off years ago, and remembering exactly how it beat.

Often, during lunch breaks at the college where I taught, I’d get into postmodern and critical theory with some of the other professors, and we’d talk about readers’ parasocial relationships with authors, and fanfiction, and ownership. There were always varying opinions—some professors believed that the story belonged to the author, and we were merely peeking through a window.Other professors thought that all stories should be part of the global collective, free to use and transform however we liked.

I argued, often, that once a book was done, once it was written and published and sent out into the world, it was no longeryours. It turned intoours—together. You, telling the story, and us, interpreting it.

So, I knew that this Junie wasn’tmyJunie—not the one I had imagined in my head. There were bits of her that were unfamiliar. The birthmark on her neck didn’t look exactly as I imagined, and she walked with her shoulders hunched forward a little, like she was always charging ahead. I was relieved, honestly, because if she hadn’t sprung from my imagination, then I probably wasn’t dying on the side of the road somewhere.

Then again, it meant that either she was part of someone else’s imagination, or she was real. Thatthiswas real.

Which was also very hard to wrap my brain around.

As we came to the town square, I was telling her about the time Prudence and I took a pottery course in college, and ended up making phallic-shaped vases. The teacher had not been amused. “But they worked great as bongs,” I added, and Junie howled with laughter.

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