Page 2 of 6 Clues Your Nemesis Loves You

I blink until my wooziness clears, then hop up and straighten my T-shirt. I find Mr. Bajwa easily and give him a timid “Hello, sir.”

I was friends with his son Mizhir in high school. We played video games together and sometimes ate at each other’s houses. There may also have been a time or seven when I coaxed Mizhir into harmless trouble. The last day I saw his father, we were sitting outside the principal’s office, because I’d dared Mizhir to toss cherry bombs under the school bleachers during a football game.

Mr. Bajwa blinks at me, then grins. “Lennon Bower! How wonderful to see you.”

I guess when you skip town for eleven years, some of your misdeeds are forgiven. “It’s fantastic to see you too.”

Mr. Bajwa helps me gather all four zoning applications I need. Apparently, turning an abandoned conservation camp into an activity and adventure center takes a ton of paperwork. Since I’ve recently joined forces with my pain-in-the-butt brother for this venture, I know exactly who’ll be filling out these tedious forms.

I debate asking Mr. Bajwa how Mizhir is doing, but we drifted apart before WITSEC, mostly because I didn’t pass certain high school courses. Mizhir advanced to college without me, at which point he quit returning my calls.

Papers in hand, I slough off uncomfortable thoughts of that fizzled friendship and walk down the hallway. It’s nearing the end of a standard workday. I have no clue what hours Maggie keeps at her job running town events, but my lungs can’t handle another closet situation.

Before I reach the central elevator area, I flatten myself along the wall and peer around the corner. An older man ambles from the opposite hallway. The elevator makes an earsplitting screech. A few people, who decided riding that death trap was smart, exit the elevator. No red hair is in sight. Keeping my eye on the prize, I hightail it to the stairwell and jog down the three flights of stairs, busting outside into the sunshine and doing a small fist pump for making it out alive.

Yes, I am that pathetic.

The fact that Maggie reduces me to running and hiding is an embarrassment. At least in high school we didn’t overtly hide from each other. We had a silent agreement—mutual invisibility. We didn’t talk to each other in public. We didn’t make eye contact or breathe in each other’s general direction. Whatever happened between us at her family’s hidden pond wasn’t discussed or acknowledged, as if that section of forest existed in a different dimension, apart from social expectations and peer judgment.

Things have changed since then. Our last night at the pond was both amazing and shocking and did not end well. I pushed Maggie too hard, took us places neither of us expected. Then there’s the whole witness-protection-ruined-my-life thing. I disappeared on her, losing the chance to apologize for crossing a boundary. I’m not sure what will happen when Maggie lays eyes on me. She could slap me. She could pepper-spray my face. There’s no question she was upset the last night I saw her. I just don’t know how upset she was.

Hence the running and hiding.

With the area outside of town hall clear of Maggie land mines, I hit a more leisurely stride. I pull a penny from my pocket and flick it into the mermaid fountain. As it plunks into the water, I make a wish. Please let me get through the rest of the week without seeing Maggie.

I linger a moment, watching the water stream into the pool below as another memory hits—my father and me out to get ice cream, but he detoured to the fountain. Said he loved the trickle of falling water and watching the nearby birds. He gave me a penny and said, “Wish big.”

If I had any foresight, I’d have wished my father weren’t a money laundering criminal.

Alas, I cannot see the future.

Shaking off that unpleasantness, I cut through the grassy square at the center of downtown. Handsewn scarecrows still decorate the surrounding lampposts from last weekend’s Scarecrow Scavenger Hunt, a fun event where they hide scarecrows in stores and around town, encouraging tourists and locals to visit shops in search of them.

Trying to loosen up, I fit on a smile and spot Mrs. Jackson. She’s a tall Black woman who ran Mom’s quilting group before our WITSEC vanishing act. She’s also the town’s unofficial disciplinarian and my landlord.

I wave to her, thankful I got my rent check in on time. “Mom told me to tell you she started a new quilt.”

Mrs. Jackson cringes. “Have her sewing skills improved?”

“Still abysmal. Might have even gotten worse.”

She tuts with an indulgent smile. “Woman refuses to quit.”

No truer words were ever spoken. Mom didn’t quit when her husband’s lies ruined her life. She didn’t crumple when her five boys ranted and yelled and cried, furious with our father and devasted that we had to leave our old lives. Chelsea Bower is as strong as women come and as horrible at crafting and quilting as a person gets.

“She’s one of a kind,” Mrs. Jackson says. “And thank you for taking such good care of my property. It gives me peace of mind knowing someone responsible is living there.”

“It’s a special house. I’m lucky to be there.” I smile, hoping she doesn’t see the tension behind my grin. A responsible man wouldn’t be scrounging to pay her monthly.

I walk on and nod to a couple more familiar faces as I head to Duke’s Market. When Crystal Tanaka waves at me, I stop to say hi. She ran my high school’s skateboarding club and doesn’t look like she’s aged a day.

“Wow,” she says, her eyes wide as she takes me in. “So wild to see you again. All that craziness with your family.” Her hands do an erratic jazz number. “Hard to believe that stuff happens in real life.”

“It’s as unpleasant as you’d imagine. What about you? Still a skateboard master?”

“Master?” she scoffs. “Hardly. I veered into art. Graffiti art, actually. Doing a commission in France next month, which should be really cool. Gotta run, but it’s great to see you!”

Graffiti art in France is beyond cool. I wave goodbye, seriously impressed by Crystal. This part of returning to Windfall is nice. Catching up with periphery friends who didn’t invoke a silent pact to ignore me in public.