Chapter
One
CELESTE
The long-haul bus doors hiss and snap shut behind me, snagging my favorite scarf in its maw.Shit!
The oversized wheels turn.
The bus rumbles away from the curb. I teeter on the icy sidewalk before spinning my way out of strangulation and avoid being dragged alongside the bus by my winter wardrobe.
Finding my balance eventually, I watch as my scarf flies alongside the bus, in all its freedom and glory.
I press my frozen fingers to my neck, now burning from the quick departure of what was my favorite colorful scarf.
Well, welcome home to you, too, Grafton.
A beat later, the small-town Main Street closes in with all its quiet charm. My two overnight bags, stuffed with every single possession that wasn’t nailed down or of questionable ownership in the tiny studio bedroom that, up until yesterday, I lived in with my roommate of seven years, drop to the sidewalk.
A defeated sigh slips out as I take in the tiny town that hasn’t changed one bit in the last ten years. I breathe in the cold air as it nips my skin and brightens my nose to a rosy pink hue and sends my ears burning.
Grafton, Vermont—home to the childhood I was only too happy to leave behind for the bright lights of Chicago. Now, it’s home to a population of seven hundred and two.
Still tiny.
Still freezing in winter.
Still stunningly beautiful with all its heritage buildings and New England charm. And...
Still like watching paint dry.
Now bursting with Christmas color despite it barely being December 1st.
The folks I grew up with mull about, like the day I left a decade ago is still in progress. They go about the same things, in the same places, and in the same ways.
Can’t blame a girl for wanting to escape a real-lifeGroundhog Daysituation, can you?
But as vibrant and fun as life was in Chicago, it was also stressful and expensive. And mostly, much too far away from the only person left on this planet I care about—my father.
Which brings me to the reason I’m back.
My chest aches at the thought. And I hope, even though the hope is a completely useless waste of time, that he’s having one of his increasingly rare good days, and he’ll remember me.
I pray for that, eyes drifting shut as the quiet hustle of the small town that raised me hums softly. I pluck up the bags and decide to hike the four blocks to the small dirt road that leads to the bigger houses on the outskirts of town. Crisp snow crunches under my boots. As I make my way through Main Street, currently adorned with every holiday trimming in dark green and red known to mankind, and then the sleepy streets, my breath curls ahead of me, as if leading the way home.
The blue skies show no signs of the blizzard that apparently took Grafton by surprise, judging by the mile-high snowdrifts and yet-to-be-shoveled driveways. Amber-tinted leaves coverevery newly turned tree, the few evergreens dotted among the streets between the deciduous stand over front yards like dutiful soldiers in pairs flanking every white-picketed gate. Grand heritage homes that take more upkeep than the White House, no doubt, stand proud in the center of each family’s small allotment of land.
“Yoo-hoo! CC, darling, is that you?”
That didn’t take long.
A gray-haired woman in her sixties presses a hand into her lower back as she straightens, garden shears in hand, delight scrawled all over her face. Mrs. Matheson, my fifth-grade teacher, who by the looks of it, has been immortalized. Most likely the frigid weather preventing her from aging, or the fact that she’s the biggest square a small town has ever had the privilege of housing.
“Hey, Mrs. Matheson, how’s the garden?”
“Oh.” She waves a hand at me, shaking her head. “Frost killed most of it. Same every year.”
“That’s a shame,” I call back, not slowing or changing course.
