Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I swallowed. “That is magic.”
“You can ask for that,” she said. “From Thrasher. From anyone. You can make a list of the magic tricks you allow.”
“I like that,” I said. “A list.”
“Number one: If he can’t make you laugh, don’t take your clothes off,” she said, counting on her fingers.
“Number two,” I offered, “if he makes you feel dumb for saying what you want, don’t let him in your head.”
“Number three: Text a friend your location.”
“Number four,” I said, “enjoy what you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, change it or stop.”
Lyric grinned. “Now you’re getting it.”
We went on like that for a few minutes, half joking, half serious, building a code out of the scraps of our old lives, weaving it into something we could use. It felt like sitting at a table with needle and thread, stitching our names into the hem of our own clothes so nobody could pretend not to know who they belonged to.
A shadow fell over the far end of the concrete, then moved on. The sound of a bike rumbled to life, low and promising. My body answered in a way my mind was still catching up to. I didn’t hate that about myself. I didn’t love it either. I just noticed it, like you notice a summer storm building over the trees.
Lyric leaned her shoulder into mine. “If you want to see him again, see him. If you don’t, don’t. If you want to see him and tell him the new rules, do that. None of this has to be permanent. Not the claim. Not the fear. Not the confusion. You’re allowed to be in the middle for as long as you want.”
“What if he says I’m his again?”
“Say you’re yours,” she said. “Say that if he wants to be part of that, he can ask.”
I liked the shape of that in my mouth. I pictured saying it. The image scared me and steadied me at the same time.
“What about you?” I asked. “What do you say to Tiny when he claims you?”
She smiled. “I tell him I’m not a patch he can sew on. I’m a person who chooses him back. And I do. I’m choosing him back. That’s the difference.”
We fell quiet again, but it wasn’t the heavy kind. It was the kind you can put your feet up in. The kind you can breathe in without counting.
“Thank you,” I said after a while. It felt small for everything she’d just given me. She knew me well enough not to make me reach for fancier words.
She bumped my knee. “Always.”
A car door slammed on the other side of the building. The shift change was happening. Evening would bring a different crowd, louder laughter, rougher shadows. I knew I’d have to go back in soon, change into my jeans and tank, tie my hair up again. But for a few more minutes, I let myself lean into the shade and into my cousin and into the fragile net of rules we’d woven.
“Do you ever think about going back?” I asked, surprising myself. I never asked that. I never wanted to give the thought a chance to come to life.
“To Montana?” Lyric snorted. “To the people who decided who we were before we had a chance to find out? To the man who called me wife like it meant owner? Hard pass.”
“What about the parts we miss?” I pressed. “The mountains. The cold mornings. Our family around Grandma’s old table for every holiday.”
“We can make new tables,” she stated. “We can hang a picture of a mountain and call it a window until we get a real one.”
I smiled. “Maybe I don’t need a mountain. Then again, maybe I do.”
“We’ll get there.” She said it like a promise she believed in, and because she believed it, I found a little slice of belief for myself.
We headed toward the back door, the metal push bar warm from the day. The hallway inside smelled like whatever the kitchen had been cooking—fried something—and lemon cleaner. Voices bounced off tile and metal. The world was still the world.
Before we split—she toward the kitchen, me toward the laundry—Lyric caught my arm. “Hey,” she said. “Last thing.”
“What?”
“Enjoy it,” she said, and her grin went wicked and soft at the same time. “If you want it, enjoy it. That’s allowed.”
It took me half a second to realize my face had heated again. I rolled my eyes at her, but the smile tugging at my mouth gave me away. “Bossy.”
“Generous,” she corrected. “Don’t confuse the two.”
I hugged her again, quick and hard, then let go before either of us could make a joke to hide how much it mattered.
Back in the laundry room, the machines spun like planets, steady and sure. I loaded a basket and tugged it onto the folding table. A white sheet slid across the steel, the cotton cool under my palms. I smoothed a corner to make it neat, then another, then another. My hands remembered. My body remembered other things now too. That didn’t make me new or ruined. It just made me here.