Page 36 of Choosing Forever
“See you, Abbie. Bye, Bryce. Darren.”
“Try not to get a sliver during cleanup,” Bryce replies.
Delaney huffs a laugh. “You too.”
She ignores my heavy gaze as I watch her, not speaking. For some reason, that’s what strikes me the deepest. Her lack of acknowledgement. And here I go, sounding like a goddamn selfish asshole again.
“Did you remember sunscreen?” I ask.
She snaps her eyes in my direction. I see the surprise appear for a moment before she washes it out with annoyance.
“Yes. I always do.”
Not always.She used to forget it every other time we stepped outside and would come inside with pink skin.
I nod and let it go. Some things—too many things—have changed, but some never will. And I think I’m about done with trying to pretend otherwise. Not when I’ve finally got her closer than I have for way too many years.
I’ve yearned for her since the moment I let her go but have shoved it down deep enough that I convinced myself it had disappeared. That changed at Into The Shade, and now, it’s time to remind her of who I am and who we used to be together.
This might be my last chance.
12
DELANEY
“There are moreimportant things in this town than the drive-in. The playground at the school hasn’t been upgraded in nearly ten years. It’s borderline unsafe to have the kids playing on it. Pulling slivers out of fingers wasn’t on the curriculum.”
“We can vote Lemieux out soon. He doesn’t seem to have any clue how to run this town.”
“You don’t think this has anything to do with his running for re-election?”
“Why would it? Nobody wants this place rebuilt, so he’s not gaining much.”
“Well, notnobody.”
The pointed silence that follows that weighted sentence pulls me from where I’ve fallen into my thoughts. It’s been twenty minutes since I got here, and the mayor only finished speaking a second ago. It took half that time for the gossiping to commence.
There was nothing of importance shared besides a blanket statement about how the drive-in has played an important part in our town’s history and that we need to band together to make sure the younger generation of Cherry Peakers can share similar experiences. The only useful piece of information was that notonly are we responsible for getting the land ready for another structure to be built, but to do the actual building, we need to raise money. All of us together need to come up with enough successful fundraisers to raise tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars.
It feels unlikely.
“For the majority of the town, then. And last time I checked, she was also a teacher at our school. Shouldn’t the playground be more important to her?”
My skin tightens over my bones at the realization that they’re talking about me. That I have to be theshein their conversation. A conversation that I was not invited to join.
Standing a few feet over from the group of teachers I’ve spent the last few years working alongside, I debate inserting myself in the conversation just to see what they do. Would they backtrack, pretend that they were talking about someone else, or be straightforward?
I watch the sixth-grade teacher lean closer to the new football coach and say something too quiet for me to catch this time around. I’m stuck in place, a bit mortified and a lot annoyed.
Some things will never change about a small town.
“I never took teachers for gossips,” a friendly voice muses.
Sam Johnson, the RCMP officer from the night I watched this place burn to the ground, appears beside me. He keeps a generous distance between us, holding himself away almost shyly.
I clear my throat, hoping my cheeks aren’t as pink as I fear they are. “You’d be surprised.”
“The station’s just as bad sometimes. One thing Cherry Peak doesn’t lack is opinions from people who know nothing about a situation.”
