I looked up at him, our eyes meeting. That uncomfortablefeeling filled my chest again. This time, I accepted it as part of being near him. It wasn’t going to kill me. “I’m sorry about your family,” I said.
“I still have Gram. She’s great. She loves you.”
My chest tightened a little more. There were others out in the world who cared about me, people I didn’t even know. This Gram. And Grandma Flowers. I had refused to meet them.
Maybe I was wrong.
I returned to the pages. I read about my seizure and how he had worried about me. I had kissed him when I saw him again, even though I didn’t know who he was. His first kiss. Maybe mine.
In those pages, I recognized the Ava he knew. The fighter. The survivor. Kicking butts and taking names. He was right there with me, following along. He helped me. He’d been on my side.
That soft spot opened up again, and I had to harden it. I shoved the papers back in the envelope. “I have to get to work, but I’ll read this. If I think it’s got information I should keep, I’ll put in my book.”
That was really, truly the best I could do with the outrageous war going on inside my body. He gave me a nod as I walked away.
I didn’t know that much about him. I didn’t even know if he had a job or people to hang out with or anything other than his gram.
I was a crappy friend. I would try to do better next time he showed.
That night I didn’t stay at Big Harry’s to hang out after closing. I said I had a headache and went home. I wanted to read the rest of Tucker’s story. I started from the beginning and read all the way to the end.
He was right. Our story had been epic. We’d taken risks. And, in the end, when he should have walked away, he stayed. He’d gotten arrested for me. He tried to save me. Then, even when I disappeared, he didn’t give up.
And now, despite how I had hurt him by insisting that my heart remembered nothing, that he had been erased, still, he came. Quietly, patiently, and with care.
He left his phone number on the pages.
Maybe I would go to that carnival.
CHAPTER 26
Tucker
I definitely didn’t expect the text message that arrived one afternoon from an unknown number. I stared at it a moment, because it took a minute for the words to connect with who might’ve said them.
What do you wear to a carnival?
I hadn’t smiled that big in almost a year.
I texted her back.
Me: Something colorful.
Ava: Everything I own is black.
Me: Then maybe I’ll have to bring you something.
And I did. Gram and I drove to the mall, and I picked out a bright shirt the color of daffodils. Maybe I was hitting the flower symbol too hard, but I sensed that there was no going small with Ava. We needed big gestures to cling to, since all the details had been stripped away.
When I got to Ava’s apartment, she took one look at the shirt and said, “No way.”
“Afraid it’ll destroy your image as a brooding Goth woman of the night?”
“It’s like wearing the sun.”
I folded up the shirt and set it on the overturned keg that served as a side table. I didn’t care if she wore it or not. It was mainly a joke.
Ava’s furniture consisted entirely of repurposed trash. Two obviously scavenged lawn chairs looked like they’d been through a tornado. Four wood crates stood against a wall, arranged so that they made a semi-functional bookshelf. A big upholstered chair in an orange and brown floral pattern was something not even a grandma could love.
