Page 40 of People Like Us

I looked down at my half-grown-out manicure and frowned. “You do?”

“I liked them when they were brown, but blue is nice too.” His voice was warm over the engine’s hum.

Streetlights flickered across his face. “How do you remember that? I haven’t had brown nails since junior year.”

“I told you I’m attentive,” he replied, a hint of pride in his tone. “Why did you switch?”

“It’s a tradition,” I said, voice low. “All the girls pick our polish color to match our boyfriend’s eyes.”

He nodded, thoughtful.

“Sorry,” I whispered, avoiding his gaze.

“For what?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t talk about him so much.”

August switched hands on the wheel, then reached over to lace his pinky with mine. His skin was warm causing my heart to flutter. “I told you it doesn’t bother me. Talk about him if you want. But if it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to.”

I stared at our linked fingers, the car’s interior smelling faintly of leather and rain. “I don’t know why I feel bad. He’s my boyfriend.” I said, maybe more to myself than him.

“Do you love him?” August asked, voice gentle.

“I don’t know.” I swallowed.

“Have you said it to each other?”

“We used to. I can’t remember the last time.” I admit.

He frowned, and my chest tightened. “Don’t say it,” I muttered.

“Say what?”

“Don’t say I deserve a boyfriend who tells me he loves me.”

He paused, then offered a crooked smile. “That’s not what I was going to say. Not in totality.” He glanced at me, mischief dancing in his eyes.

I tilted my head. “Then what were you going to say, in totality?”

He exhaled, rain pattering on the roof. “I was going to say you deserve to be loved.”

Chapter Sixteen

The plane tickets sat in my email, proof of a decision I couldn’t get a refund for. Two adults, and one child for a round trip to Charlotte.

I stared at the confirmation screen a moment longer than necessary, as if it might rearrange itself into something less permanent if I waited. Charlotte was still nearly two and a half hours from Woodland, so I’d have to book a rental car as well. And pray that my son would be delighted by all the transportation that day.

Between my fingers, the small plastic leg of a Barbie bent and clicked faintly.

The paint on her face had worn down to a ghost of itself—eyes half-erased, lips chipped into something crooked. The outline of her shoe was deliberately erased with nail polish remover a decade ago. I turned her over, thumb dragging across the scuffed plastic, and tried to remember why I’d kept her.

Something about her felt like proof.

I set her down beside the keyboard and opened a new tab. Social media loaded in a blur of color and noise—faces I half-recognized, names I didn’t care to remember, lives arranged neatly for public consumption. A game I used to be particularly good at, but lost interest in somewhere in my mid twenties, though I still kept the account.

August had hated it. He’d refused to make a profile on any of the big sites back then, he’d said something once about not wanting to be cataloged. I’d admired that in a way I hadn’t known how to name. It felt…free. Or maybe just stubborn in a way I couldn’t afford to be.

Now, I found myself hoping he’d changed his mind on the matter.