Page 47 of A Novel Love Story

I laughed self-consciously. “I think I’m too selfish. Like, I just wanted you to hear what I thought, never mind whether or not you wanted to hear it. Which, in hindsight, of course you didn’t.”

“No,” she agreed, and tilted her head, “but… it did get me thinking. When was the last time we had a day to be with each other? Am I there for me or for him?”

“When you’re in love,” I said, remembering all the years with Liam, “the lines sort of blur.”

We stopped at the corner, in front of us the square and the clock tower that reached high into the sky, and the minute hand snapped to the twelve.

The bell at the top gave a groan as it tipped to the side and rang. The sound reverberated through the town once, then twice, dissipating in the buzz of a thousand bees.

Ruby turned to me and said, “You’re forgiven. Thisonce. But only because you seem pretty interesting, and I like shiny things. See you around, Elsy.”

Then she broke off from the corner of the sidewalk, crossed the street, and made her way toward the movie theater. I watched her go for a moment, my heart swelling because she remembered my name.

She remembered it! I’d only told it to her once, and she still knew it.

I was grinning to myself before I realized it, and turned on my heel—

And ran right smack into Maya Shah.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, stumbling out of my way, pulling her headphones down around her neck. A dark heavy metal murmured from the earphones. She gave a start as she recognized me. “Oh, you’re the new girl! With the broken car!”

“Eileen, but everyone’s called me Elsy since before I can remember,” I introduced, my brain still buzzing from my chat with Ruby, and she jutted out her hand.

“Maya, and everyone just calls me Maya,” she added, tongue in cheek. She motioned down the street. “You came in to Sweeties yesterday, right? Got a whole half pound of that honey taffy.”

I laughed self-consciously. “I did. I haven’t regretted it yet.”

“Eh, it’ll take at least two pounds to rot your teeth,” she said jokingly, and glanced behind me. “Were you and Ruby just chatting? That’s frightening. Usually when she hears her brother’s coming back into town, she gets in amood. Doesn’t want to talk to anyone.Garnet does that to people. But you’re still standing,” she added, inspecting me up and down, “so miraclescanhappen.”

“Only in Quixotic Falls,” I replied. “Isn’t the rumor the town is magic?”

“Only the falls, and only if you believe that sort of thing,” she added with a roll of her eyes. “If you see Garnet Rivers, don’t let him trick you into going to the falls. It’s always his M.O., and I doubt his Great American Road trip changed him that much,” she added, a bit sour. In the last book, Garnet had left Eloraton with Beatrice Everly. Was he coming back without her? I wanted to ask, but Maya said, “Though, it doesn’t seem like you have a problem with difficult men. You just slap the shit out of them.”

I gave a sigh. “Does everyone in town know?”

“Well, Gail saw it, and if Gail saw it then … yeah,” she confirmed. “Probably everyone.”

“Great.”

“It could be worse.”

I sighed. “Right. I could be stranded here without a car. Oh, wait.”

“I can’t think of a worse fate.”

“Really?” I asked. “Eloraton can’t be that bad.” And I never knew Maya to hate the town, either.

“Well, no, it’s not bad, it’s just …” She took out her phone, and finally paused her music.

“Just what?” I prodded, and she chewed on her bottom lip, debating.

The Maya in the books wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to speak her mind. The Maya who could shoot an apple out of a tree at fifty paces, and painted her nails to match the equinox in the summers, and adored the first day of spring and the river that ran through Charm Woods,and every day she got to see Lyssa Greene.

She would’ve shouted about her life, her lovely life, from the rooftops, but this Maya felt different from the one I’d gotten to know in the series.

Something had happened to her.

At the end of book four, Lyssa and Maya were left sharing secret glances at each other, and going off and sitting in the projection booth of the old movie theater, eating popcorn and watching terrible nineties monster movies.

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