“Huh.” She peeks into the oven. “Not sure what happened there.”
Lucy wears a thin cotton tank top and no bra. James averts his eyes before his innocent once-over becomes a stare. He hopes she wore a jacket. He forgot to bring a scarf to class, and the bottom half of his face is still numb.
“Jessie’s in the shower,” Lucy says.
“And Lena?”
“Also in the shower.”
“Right.” James laughs softly and shakes his head. “Interested in a brief trauma dump?”
She pulls up a stool. “Hit me.”
The rolled-up magazine slaps the table, unfurling.
Lucy flattens it and gasps. “It’s you! What the hell, James? I didn’t know you were a model.”
“Flattered,” he says. “But no, this was a fluke candid the photographer caught. And the person I’m with is—”
“Nelle.”
“Yeah.” James studies the photograph. “The photographer told us he was working for a publication, but I didn’t think much of it.”
She sighs. “Yeah, that’s depressing.”
“Thanks.”
“You just look so happy. She’sbeautiful. Damn.”
“Yeah.” James is there, drunk under rustling trees, holding Nelle for the first time, discovering that electric current between them. His heart breaks a little, all over again.
“All right, enough.” Lucy sweeps up the magazine and leaves the room with it. When she returns, she takes a tray of cookies out of the oven, all twenty-four powdered in cinnamon.
“Did you throw it away?” he asks, unsure what answer he wants.
“No, it’s too cool to toss out.” Lucy washes her hands at the sink. “I put it somewhere safe, so you can appreciate it later, have a story to tell your kids.”
“I won’t tell my kids about Nelle,” James says. “She’s like my first novel. Formymemory only.”
The Summer Curseis an arrow to the heart. It’s not the fact that he will never publish it that hurts him. Given how much more he intends to grow as a writer, he will be grateful in retrospect. What hurts is the manuscript he lost a month ago. A piece of him died alongside those typewritten pages. The fire devoured them both.
James has to ride this train of thought multiple times a day to remind himself why he needs Nelle out of his life. Why, even though he is eternally grateful that she is alive, he is equally grateful that she chose to distance herself. Living in constant fear of everything he loves disappearing wouldn’t be living at all.
That said, if she showed up on his doorstep tomorrow, he would take her back in a heartbeat.
“Oh, come here.” Lucy scoots beside him, lets him rest his head on her chest. Her hand soothes his hair, down the nape of his neck. He cries into her tank top.
“Sorry.” He pulls back. “Sorry for crying on you.”
“You can always cry on me.” Lucy slides the platter of cookies toward him. “As long as I can cry on you, too.”
“Right now?” He sniffles.
She crosses her ankles. “No, but when I need to.”
“From here on out, my chest is reserved for your tears only.”
“Thank you.” Lucy napkins a cookie and holds it out to him. “Now eat this and tell me if you think there’s too much cinnamon.”
