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Just hearing her name sent a painful spike through my chest. “Well, she’s probably right.”
“What’s going on there, anyway?” My sister looked up at me and I knew she could see right through me.
I shook my head. “She’s a renter, Maddie. That’s all.”
“Bull.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Tell me something that will make me happy, something that will let me stop worrying my big brother will be alone for the rest of his life just because he’s afraid to try anything different.”
I dropped my arm from my sister’s shoulder and stepped back, her words stinging. “It’s better for us both,” I said, my voice harsher than I intended. “She’s leaving anyway.”
“So you might as well pretend she’s already gone, I guess. No one has ever had a relationship with someone who lived somewhere else.”
Sarcasm. Wonderful.
“I’m a grown man, Mads. Let me make my own decisions, okay?”
“Is this about that stupid curse?”
I dropped my eyes to the ground. I knew the curse wasn’t real, and Maddie was the third person to accuse me of being scared. It was starting to piss me off. “It’s about doing what makes the most sense for both of us. It’s about protecting my heart, and hers.”
“It’s about being terrified someone might actually love you.” Maddie climbed into her car and added, “I hope you figure it out before it’s too late. She’s going to Austin in two days.”
Wait, what? Harper had told me her plan—she was going to be in Kings Grove for six months. “Two days?”
“Ha. See? I knew you cared.”
“She was supposed to be here six months.”
“She has to go work something out with her business partner there. She’ll be back.” She pulled her seatbelt on and shut the door, leaning her head out the window. “And when she gets back, you better figure this out because you’ll need to get that movie underway. Something about my wedding better go right.”
I watched Maddie drive away, my head spinning a bit. My chest ached, and I wasn’t sure if it was from thinking about my father or Harper. Or both.
Either way, I knew I needed to figure some things out.
When work ended for the day, I approached the thing that was easier—visiting my dad.
* * *
The drivedown the hill had been like a meditation for me. I knew every turn in the road like a childhood story I’d long since memorized, and beyond traffic and the occasional branch in the roadway, I barely had to be conscious to navigate it, freeing my mind to do other things.
I was headed to see Dad, but my mind was on Harper. I could admit to myself that I’d felt a wash of sadness and disappointment when Maddie had told me she was going to Austin and I thought she meant for good. I could even admit I’d had a fleeting thought that I’d missed an opportunity, let something good glide by without trying hard enough to catch it.
But now that the opportunity still existed, I felt the same reluctance to approach it that I’d been feeling since the day I’d first kissed her. The emotion that welled up inside when I thought about being close to her was overwhelming, like a tidal wave threatening to take me under and never let me up again. I needed to breathe, and I’d been washed away before, only to end up stranded on a beach I didn’t know, a version of myself I didn’t recognize. As much as I wanted Harper, I wasn’t sure I could let myself be sucked under like that again.
Dad was sitting outside on his small patio when I arrived to see him.
“He’s had a pretty good day,” the nurse told me, walking me to his room. “Mr. Turner, your son is here to say hello.”
Dad turned his head, and I watched his eyes scan me without recognition, but with interest. “Hello,” he said, the way you would greet a stranger you thought you’d probably met before.
“Hi Dad.” I approached the chair next to him. “Okay if I sit down with you for a while?”
He nodded. “Sure, I like to have company.” His forehead wrinkled as he watched me sit, and I knew he was scanning whatever memory he had left, looking for some marker that would lead him to me, to an understanding of who I was. Instead, I saw the frustration, the knowledge of what he might be missing. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I… I know I’ve met you, but…”
“It’s okay,” I said, careful not to call him Dad again. I didn’t want to make it harder for him.
