“Yeah.” The part of his brain that comes up with things to say sputters out. “And loud.”
“The noise doesn’t bother me. Do you have a name?”
“James,” he says. “James Finch. What about you?”
She sticks out her hand. “I’m Nelle.”
“Are you new in town?” he asks, shaking it. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
Her smirk holds secrets. “Nope. Lived here my whole life.”
“Cool.” James pats his thighs and surveys the crowded square, cursing his inability to maintain a stable conversation. “Did you graduate with my class?”
She blinks like a cat. “Um, I think so, yeah.”
Yet he has no recollection of her, and his graduating class could have fit on one bus. “From Lincoln High?”
She purses her lips. “I was homeschooled.”
He tries to follow the path of her eyes as she angles away. “Are you looking for someone?”
Or are you trying to hint that you want me to leave?he thinks.
“No.” She swings her feet, covered by ruffled white ankle socks and brown penny loafers. “Just looking.”
James can see the curve of her lashes and the spattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, the kind of freckles that blossom in the summer and die when winter comes, only right now they are somewhere in between. A strand of dirty-blond hair slips over her shoulder, dragging James’s gaze as low as her collarbone before he snaps it back up. His throat swells at the moon trapped inside her brown irises.
“Let’s play a game,” she says. “A question game. We’ll take turns asking each other anything, but you have to answer honestly.”
A box of butterflies opens inside him. “This your idea of fun?”
“Yes.” Nelle folds her legs beneath her. “What’s your biggest regret?”
“In a few minutes, probably agreeing to play this game.”
She glares at him.
“Going to college somewhere I didn’t want to.”
He has never admitted that to himself, much less said it aloud. In September, he will enter his third year at the University of Georgia, studying boring biology. A path he took only because his parents laid it out for him. Twenty-one years old, yet his life has been decided,squeezed through a tube he didn’t choose. He should be grateful to have his scholarship, to have been accepted into college at all, to be healthy and doing somewhat well in his classes.
Nelle hums at his answer. “Second question. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?”
“Move to New York.”
His parents are just across the crowd. If they heard what he said, they would be appalled. He has never shown the slightest inkling that he wants to leave his home state. Of course they know he loves writing, but they don’t understand how far his dream flies. How much he wants to see, to do, that can’t be accomplished from a rural field.
“Last question,” Nelle says. “It’s a big one.”
“Then it’ll be my turn to ask you?”
“Yes.”
James braces himself. “I’m ready.”
Her head tilts like a doe in the woods. Wise, impossible to read.
“Whydon’tyou go to New York?”
