Page 89 of A Novel Love Story

“Can hardly call it eavesdropping when I’m yelling.”

I shrugged, and looked down at my sneakers. “Frank came by the bookshop. Apparently, he’ll have my car fixed by tomorrow.”

Junie perked. “Oh, that’s fantastic!”

“Yeah …”

She studied me for a brief moment, before guessing, “You aren’t excited?”

“I am—of course I am. But I … it sounds silly,” I admitted, and she bumped her shoulder against mine.

“Nonsense. What’s up?”

“I … don’t think I want to go?” I said, half question, half statement. The sentence felt like a precious secret, one that I hadn’t really dared to even think about yet. “But I know I have to,” I added quickly. “I have friends who are probably already missing me, and I have a job to get back to, and a life but … it’s so tempting to just get lost here, and stay forever.”

She tilted her head. “Then why don’t you?”

“I mean, my friends and my career and—andeverything.”

She shrugged. “Well, I did. I stopped through here, and I just never left.”

“Yeah, but you’re—”Not real.I bit my lip. Looked away. “Braver than me.”

“Oh, no. I’m not brave. Chaotic, sure. But brave? I don’t think that’s what you should call people who jump before they look. I think I was running,” she decided, “and maybe I just made excuses to stay. Maybe I thought I could have a happily ever after in an old, decrepit inn with my best friend.” She turned her gaze to the beautiful Victorian house, with its pastel paint and crisp white latticework. “And maybe it’s all just catching up to me now. Maybe it’s time to find a new dream.” She took a deep breath, and then pushed herself up off the fence. “One that isn’t leaky.”

No, wait, I wanted to say. I wanted to take her by the wrist and pull her back to face me and look her in her eyes.You’re Junie Bray. You have a happy ending sewn into this story. If yours doesn’t come true, if you can’t be happy, what chance is there for the rest of us?

“Anyway,” she went on, putting her hands in the back pockets of her paint-splattered shorts, “I won’t fault you if you stay, is what I’m saying.Follow your heart. Even if it leads you wrong, will you really regret it?”

I wasn’t sure.

“Do you?” I asked.

She smiled knowingly. “Not one second. Either way,” she added, “see you at the café tomorrow morning? As a going-away breakfast?”

“I’d like that.”

“Good. See you at nine sharp!” As she waved goodbye and retreated down the garden path, back to the house that was supposed to be her happily ever after, I wasn’t sure of the answer to the question she posed—wouldI regret it?

My heart had already led me astray once with Liam, but no one had ever posed the question of whether Iregrettedhim.

I pushed myself off the fence, and wandered back toward the bookshop. I regretted things, sure. Words said, words not. Words I could have—should have—said differently. But did I regret those years as a whole? The years we held hands, and he led while I lost myself in book after book, dreaming of the stories we’d make together, and never did?

I … didn’t know.

I looked up at the clear blue sky, remembering the first full day I was here, when Eloraton was still stuck, still stagnant. The clouds had gathered like a murmuration of starlings, quick and loud, bringing with them scheduled rain. Though, it hadn’t rained in the early afternoon for a few days now as the town began to change, and slowly start to move again. The clouds passed, and the sun was hot, and the sound of bugs and rustling leaves and open air filled my ears.

Itwasmy fault everything was moving. That there was no rain at noon.That Ruby and Jake had broken up—and gotten back together. That Gemma wanted to explore her and Thomas’s relationship.

That Junie began to think her home—her happy ending—wasn’t the Daffodil Inn.

For everything I stitched together, something else just seemed to fall apart. Had I missed something? Done something wrong?

And then there was Anders …

If this was a book, I’d know the information I’d need to sew this story together. I’d know the hints Rachel Flowers dropped. I’d see the foreshadowing. I’d predict the ending, and see it through.

I was good at reading between the lines, at interpreting the yellow wallpaper.

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