Page 16

Mom:

Honey did you pick up my prescription yesterday? The pharmacy is closed weekends.

Lina:

YOUR CAR. HIS SHOP. ALL NIGHT. GIRL. CALL ME.

She sits up. Reads the texts. Something shifts in her face. The softness of the last hour tightens into the woman who runs things.

"I gotta get to the festival."

"It doesn't open for three hours."

"Setup starts at eight. And I forgot Mom's prescription yesterday. I need to figure out..."

"Kennedy." I sit up. "It's seven in the morning. You just woke up. Eat something first."

"I'll grab coffee from Lina."

"You don't have to run out the door."

"I'm not running." She's already pulling on her jeans, hooking her bra, finding her sweater. Moving at the speed she always moves. The speed of a woman who can't afford to sit still because sitting still means something falls apart. "I've got a lot to handle today."

"You've got a lot to handle every day. Sit down. Five minutes."

She pauses with one boot on. Looks at me. Something crosses her face. I can't read it.

"Come to the festival tonight." Her voice is different now. Quiet. Careful. "Walk through it with me. Let people see us."

The warmth in my chest goes cold.

"Kennedy."

"The string lights come on at six. Hank's doing a bonfire. It's the last real night of the festival. Walk with me."

The cabin is quiet. Morning light across the bed where we just made love. Her face open. Asking for one thing. One thing that a normal person wouldn't think twice about.

But the festival is noise. People. Questions. The opposite of the life I built here. Showing up publicly means conversations, eyes on me, people pulling at my attention. It means being seen in a way I haven't let myself be seen in three years.

"That's not what I do," I say. Hating every word before it leaves my mouth.

The light in her eyes dims. Not all at once. Slowly. The wattage dropping in real time.

"Right." She pulls on the other boot. "That's not what you do."

"Kennedy, what happened last night. This morning. That's real."

"Real behind closed doors." She straightens up. Grabs her phone. Keys. "I know what real behind closed doors looks like, Rhett. My daddy was real behind closed doors too. Right up until the door opened and he was gone."

That lands in the center of my chest.

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not." Her eyes are bright. Not tears. Fury. Or worse, the absence of surprise. "I gotta go. The festival needs me."

She walks out of my cabin. The door closes behind her. Through the window I watch her pull out her phone, already texting someone for a ride back to her car at the shop.

I sit on the edge of the bed in the room that still smells like her and stare at the blue mug she left on the nightstand next to her glass of water.