I tip my head back against the booth. “No,” I groan.
“C’mon! I feel like I’m just coming back into the world. I need some hot goss!”
“This isn’t ‘hot goss,’ it’s old news.”
“Not for you it’s not. You’re still hung up on it like a sheet on a clothesline. And not for me either because I’ve never heard it.”
I snort out a laugh, but my skin begins to itch. The only way she’ll let this go is if I make it clear I don’t want to talk about it, but then it’ll be a capital-TThing.
“There’s too much to tell,” I hedge. “Sawyer was a constant bruise in my life from the first day of kindergarten.”
“Give me the highlights.”
My knee bounces as our server drops off another round of drinks and our food. People start to trickle into the restaurant. More than half come carrying guitar cases. Two or three sit at a table with notecards, mouthing to themselves as if prepping for a comedy set. It’s Talented Tuesday, open mic night.
I turn back to Tess, who’s watching me with keen eyes, and I know I have to tell her something. Prom is the first thing that comes to mind, but even after fourteen years, that memory is raw. The way I’d let myself be taken in by Sawyer months earlier, think he was a good guy after giving me a ride in the rain, only for him to make a giant fool of me in front of everyone in our class at prom.
But as I try to land on a different memory, I realize they all still sting.
Instead, I punt. “Sawyer just wasn’t very nice to me.”
She makes aGo ongesture that has my heart pounding. I wipe my hands on my pants. I’ve never willingly told anyone one of these stories. Peopleknowof course, but not from me.
Tess’s eyebrows knit, and her expression turns tender, like she’s about to backtrack in order to spare me. I almost hate that more.
I blurt, “Do they still do the fifth grade sleepover at the library?”
She nods, “It’s a beloved tradition.”
As I tell Tess about Squeakers, our food comes, but neither of us touches it.
“And then Sawyer tied off the trash bag and took her out to the dumpster.” It’s ridiculous, I know it is, but I’m shaking.
“I am so sorry, Brie. Kids can be so mean.” Tess shakes her head. After a moment, she says, “I just can’t believe Sawyer was like that. I can’t picture it.” She looks at me, startled at her own words. “I mean, I believe you! One hundred percent, I do. But it’s hard to fit that version of Sawyer with the Sawyer I know now.”
Tess is so young she never overlapped with us in school.
I hold my hands up helplessly. “I mean, you’re a Brooks. The Blue Ridge I grew up in was different than the one you did. You and Nash lived in the best part of town while I had a cemetery for a backyard. Your dad’s a senator. Mine was the town drunk.”
“We moved here after Mom divorced my dad. But . . .” she levels me with a guilty look, “we did live in Belmont.”
“And that’s okay. But I bet you were never bullied. And Nash sure as hell was never teased about anything.”
She dips her chin. “You’re right.”
Thunder booms outside, followed closely by a flash of lightning.
“The weather’s been so weird,” she says, and I’m grateful for the change in topic. “They said it’ll snow tonight, but this feels like a summer thunderstorm.”
“They predict snow?” Yesterday, the temperatures got into the high sixties. Pink and purple cherry blossoms are already starting to bud along Main Street.
“Yeah,” she says. “They were even talking about closing school, but look.”
She points across the street and behind me, so I have to crane my neck. The garage to the firehouse is open and men in BRFD t-shirts drag lawn chairs just outside reach of the rain to watch the storm. They don’t look even a little cold.
“No way they’ll close school, right? It’sMarch.” I think about the kids’ seeds that just sprouted while we readThe Secret Garden, and wonder how long they can go without water.
She shrugs. “It’s possible. It’s up to the district, and that includes the towns over and past Ormewood.” Ormewood Mountain borders Blue Ridge to the north.
