Page 38 of A Novel Love Story

“Oh my god, Ilovethis Pru girl. Where’s she now?” she asked, wiping a tear from her eye.

I hesitated. Above us, the clock struck seven. The bells chimed loud and bright, the reverberating buzz ricocheting along the buildings like a hum.

Junie could sense she’d said something that upset me. “Fuck, I’m sorry, that was rude. You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s okay.” I gave a one-shouldered shrug. We stopped at the corner of the street. Across the way, sidewalk gave way to a green park at the base of the clock tower, and a family running around,chasing after a small corgi named Augustus. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell Junie, but I was afraid that it would sound silly. ThatIwould sound silly. “She’s in Iceland with her boyfriend. I think he’s going to propose.”

“Ooh, that’s so fancy.”

I agreed. “He’s been wanting to do this forages. I’m happy for them. Genuinely.”

Under the light thrum of the rain, she studied my face. “But …”

“Is it that obvious?”

“No, but I would feel a little disappointed, if I were in your shoes.”

“It isn’t really about the cabin week. I mean, itis, but it isn’t. We … were supposed to do everything together,” I said finally, and it felt like I’d finally moved a heavy weight off my chest. I could breathe. “Wediddo everything together, actually. We got our ears pierced together when we were twelve, and we flew on a plane for the first time when we were sixteen, and we both had our first kiss at prom—hell, ourperiodsstarted within a week of each other. We went to college together, and we graduated together, and we fell in love together and went on vacations and celebrated milestones and … and … I can’t shake myself out of this—this place I’ve fallen into. She’s going to get married and have kids and I’m just … standing still.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “And I’m afraid.”

She stopped and took my hand in her free one. The rain dripped off the edges of the umbrella, a curtain around us. “Hey, it’s okay.”

But it wasn’t.

I should’ve seen the signs, but for years I was just … contented … following Liam down hiking trails, and curling my fingers around the back of his shirt like a child as we swam through concerts, and letting him lead us wherever he wanted to go. I should’ve realized that he never looked back to see if I was still there.His gaze was always trained ahead, and that’s what I’d loved about him, but in the end it turned out that I simply wasn’t important enough for him to look back at.

Not even once.

Junie squeezed my hand again. “It’s okay to be afraid. Some things are hard, and sometimes you can’t go it alone. Have you spoken with Pru about any of these feelings?”

I let out a bark of a laugh. “And say what? That I’m afraid she’ll leave me behind? That I’ll be alone? That I’m sorry I’m broken and she’s—”

“You’re not broken.”

“I am, Junie. I really am.” I pulled my hands out of hers, and wiped the edges of my eyes, glad that I hadn’t started crying. I was never going to cry over Liam again—I’d promised myself that years ago, and I was going to stick to it. “And anyway, that’s what the vase-shaped bong is for.”

She rolled her eyes. “You and Ruby have the exact same humor.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“No,” she replied, and I gasped, pressing my hand over my heart.

“I’m telling her that the next time I see her!”

“You better not!” She shoved me in the shoulder, and I smiled, stumbling away from her on the sidewalk. When I came back to her side, she put her head on my shoulder. “It’s weird, but I just met you and I feel like we’ve been friends for years.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, remembering when I’d curl up on the couch, flipping to a dog-eared page, like the heathen I was, and reading my favorite parts, and how they ferried me through so many sleepless nights. If only she knew. “Me, too.”

And then we came to a stop in front of a large yellow Victorian house that sat,so stately, between two brick buildings, like a misplaced Lego piece, overgrown with ivy and bluebells and honeysuckle vines.

The Daffodil Inn looked exactly how I’d imagined.

The bed-and-breakfast was fresh and bright, the dentils all painted across the edging on the roof, the corbels replaced, the sawn spandrils and turned spandrils all given proper attention. The bay window was set with a stained-glass daffodil, the same one that encrusted the window in the front door. Around the inn, encasing it like a lovely cage, was a wrought-iron fence overgrown with ivy and honeysuckle that bled into the rose garden that surrounded the house.

A small wooden plaque hung on the front of the gate, reading102 MERRY LANE.

It looked just like the description from the first book, when Junie stumbled into town, and asked for a room from the bored-looking young man at the counter, who later turned out to be Will. They’d met there, their first kiss was out back near the water fountain with a statue of two mermaids intertwined, heproposedto her right in the foyer—

And all of it, so sweetly, felt like home.

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