Calisa stood, staring into the hollow at the shabby bed-and-breakfast while rain slithered down her shirt and seeped into her sneakers. Her socks were already soaked, and her hairdripped on her shoulders. It wasn’t the arrival moment she’d pictured.
At least Auntie Zee will be happy I’m here.There was clearly a lot of work to do. Calisa wasn’t afraid of hard work. Just afraid of being pathetic. Far better to be the unpaid, overworked help than the heartbroken girl everyone felt sorry for. She’d cheerfully be Cinderella so long as it meant she didn’t have to dance with any kind of prince.
Her original plan for the summer hadn’t involved any of this. Before Ethan upended everything, she’d had it all nicely mapped out: she’d secured a job at a vintage boutique called Buttons and Bell-Bottoms, which would have been fantastic. She’d work there for a few hours every afternoon, primarily playing on her phone and trying on the most random outfits she could assemble. After work, she’d meet up with her friends. She, Maddy, and Crystal had set themselves a challenge to visit every single coffee shop in Brooklyn before the end of August. Every evening, she was going to meet Ethan at the bodega where he’d be working, downstairs from her apartment. They’d have dinner (sometimes with his family, sometimes with hers, sometimes just the two of them), watch movies, and cuddle, or go out and drop in on one of Ethan’s friends’ parties. It would have been a very, very different summer than this.
Now…even if she spent the entire summer on nonstop yardwork and housework and whatever else until she had blisters and calluses on both hands, it was still a better option than having to see Ethan every day when she walked past the bodega and feeling as if she were being ripped to shreds from the inside out all over again.
At least here, her heart would be okay.
If a bit damp.
She’d be able to start her life anew in the fall, with her head held high for senior year.
Calisa took a deep breath and continued down the hill toward the Faraway Inn. She hurried along the path, ignoring the way her socks squished inside her shoes. Her suitcase bounced over the uneven walkway as she pulled it behind her.
A gray stone statue of a woman with hands clasped in front of her watched Calisa pass. Rain dripped down her stone face and pooled in her blank eyes.
Hauling her suitcase up the steps, Calisa climbed onto the porch. She exhaled and resisted the urge to shake like a wet dog. Instead she just dripped. But it was an improvement: she was under a roof, though the porch roof clearly had multiple holes in it—rain collected in puddles every few feet.
She studied the front door, unsure if she was supposed to knock or just walk in. She was expected, and this was an inn, not a house. You didn’t knock at a Marriott. But it had a knocker, made of brass and shaped like an owl…. Calisa told herself to quit delaying. She had nothing to be nervous about. She’d made the leap: backed out of her summer job, said goodbye to her friends and parents, and come here. The hard part was done.Knock, then enter,she decided.
She took a step forward—
And the wood planks beneath her snapped. She plunged through the porch, and her breath whooshed out of her. Her backpack caught on the unbroken boards, hiking up above her shoulders. Her suitcase sat innocently beside the hole.
“Gah!” The sound came out of her like a chicken squawk.
She wasn’t hurt, was she? She took stock—knees, ankles, elbows. All fine.
She’d fallen up to her chest, and the hole was about as wide as she was, plus a portion of her backpack. Placing her hands up on the unbroken boards in front of her, Calisa tried to hoist herself out.
It didn’t work.
At all.
Maybe if she hadn’t been wearing her pack when she fell—but she had been, and now her backpack was wedged behind her. With it, she was a cork in a bottle.
Calisa tried again, jumping up while pushing with her arms and, after she was a few inches off the ground, bicycling with her feet. After huffing and puffing for a solid minute, she sank down again into the hole.
Okay, this is not good.
She was not going to panic, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she’d fallen into a hole in the middle of the Vermont woods with bears and wolves and strange men with axes. She was on (or, more accurately,in) the front porch of a respectable bed-and-breakfast. If she yelled for help, someone would hear her and come to her rescue. Except this wasnothow she wanted to start her summer job. How did she say to her aunt, whom she hadn’t seen in years, “Hey, Auntie Zee, I’m here to help, so I broke your porch”?
No, she’d figure out a way to get out of this herself.
If she squirmed out of the backpack first and then—
“Hello?” a voice said. Male. Youngish. “Are you hurt?”
Calisa felt herself blush, torn between relief that someone was here to help and embarrassment to be stuck in a hole in the first place. “I’m fine.”
She twisted as much of her upper body as she could to see the owner of the voice. Standing on the porch above her, he looked to be her age (as far as she could tell) and handsome (thatshe could definitely tell), with tousled wet-from-the-rain hair. In addition to looking absurdly fresh-off-a-movie-set pretty, he was strong, which was obvious not just from the bulk of his arm muscles but also because he was carrying a large stone gargoyle on one of his shoulders like it was a sack of potatoes.
“I’m Jack. Groundskeeper,” he said. “Or, technically, groundskeeper’s son, but I help out.” He was frowning at her as if she didn’t belong here, which she thought was a fair assessment. She didnotbelong mid-porch.
“Uh, hi, I’m Calisa, Auntie Zee’s niece. Grandniece.” It wasn’t the most poetic of introductions, but at least she hadn’t stumbled over her name, which she had done the very first time she had set eyes on Ethan. He’d told her it was charming. But she hadnotcome here with the intention of having another awkward meet-cute like that. In fact, she hadn’t even considered the fact that she might have to interact with anyone her age at all. She’d thought the summer would be just her and Auntie Zee, with a few aloof adult guests who came and went. She did not want or need any complications. Like falling through a porch.
He pointed to the gargoyle with his free hand. “This here isZef. He’s supposed to be in room eight. I’m just bringing him out of the rain before I get the cheese.”
