Tumble (Dogwood Lane 1)

“She was special to me,” I say slowly, testing the waters. “She’s a special person.”

“And so are you in your own way.” She flinches. “I can’t believe I just said that. Anyway, I love this love story.”

I reach down and yank up the dishwasher door. It latches with a pop, making Haley jump.

“It’s not a love story,” I say.

“Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic, but I have hope.”

“You do that.”

She jabbers on while I clean off the rest of the table, telling me how second chances happen and she has a good feeling about Neely and me.

I can’t tell her I want to have a good feeling about us too. That would put the guard a little too far down to be safe. And would be stupid. It would be really stupid since she’s leaving us again anyway.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NEELY

You’re awfully quiet this morning.” Mom glances at me from the passenger’s seat. “Everything all right?”

“I’m fine. Just sleepy.”

The sun beats through the windshield as I pilot us to Calvary Church. Usually, the sunlight wakes me up and energizes me; I count on that as I head into the office every day. I’m too far gone for any rays to help me today.

Once I finally fell asleep, somewhere around two in the morning, my dreams were loaded with koi fish and green eyes and memories of sitting on the bluff and talking until our curfew hit. Images of dinners with smiling faces and visions of Mia tumbling along grass lawns invaded my dreams too. It was a compilation of the past, the present, and things that will never be. Each time I woke up, once an hour or so, the reality would hit me that none of those things were true, and it was tough getting back to sleep.

I slow the car and make a wide circle around Blue. He doesn’t bother to lift his head.

“It’s amazing no one has hit him,” I note.

“I said the same thing last week. The town ought to get a sign or something that warns people. Like a ‘Child Crossing’ sign or something.”

“Yeah, but really—how many people come down this street who don’t know to look for him? There’s nothing down here but a few houses, and all the families have lived here forever.”

“That’s true.”

I hit the brakes at the end of the street, and the dishes laid carefully on towels in the back jangle together.

“How many things are we taking to the potluck?” I look in the rearview mirror. “It smells like a kitchen in here.”

“It’s a carry-in, so I had to bring a covered dish.”

“You brought four? Five?”

“Well, I made green beans with bacon because no one ever brings vegetables to things like this. And everyone loves my green beans.”

I laugh. “Of course they do. You cook all the vitamins out and flavor them with bacon fat.”

“I don’t hear any complaints,” she says. “I whipped together a Seven Layer Salad and found the prettiest strawberries at Graber’s, so I made a strawberry pie for the kids.”

“Screw the kids. That’s mine.”

She shakes her head as we make the turn toward the church. “I also made a raisin pie.”

“Who likes raisin pie?” I curl my nose. “That’s old-people pie.”

Mom looks smug. “Mr. Rambis likes it.”

“Ooooh,” I tease. “Mr. Rambis likes it. What else does Mr. Rambis like, Mom?”

She swats my shoulder as I pull into the parking lot. “You knock it off. We’re at church, missy.”

“Like God doesn’t know all the unholy things you’re doing with Mr. Rambis. Ouch!” I say as she smacks me with her purse. “Kidding. I was kidding.”

We step into the parking lot. The large tree in the front still has the tire swing that my youth group put up forever ago hanging off a bottom limb. The front window has been changed, and a plain sheet of glass sits in place of the gorgeous stained glass I remember.

Mom catches me looking at it. “A limb fell off the tree a few summers back and went right through that window. Such a shame.”

“It is. It was so pretty,” I lament. “I used to sit through the sermons and count the different colors.”

It’s such a small thing, really, a tiny change in the grand scheme of things. But as I peer up to the spot that used to be so colorful and is now a sheet of plain old glass, I wonder what else I missed. The things I can’t see so easily.

There’s a part of me that suddenly feels vacant, like there’s an empty space that should’ve been filled with all this knowledge and these experiences—as silly as they are. I stand on the sidewalk trying to make sense of this until the church bell rings.

“Hey!” I call after Mom. “What are we doing with the food?”

“Leave the car unlocked, and someone will come out and get it in a bit.”