Twice Shy

by Sarah Hogle

Sharing a house with a stranger who doesn’t like me is a punch to the stomach: either I cooperate with him or I end up homeless. Again.

“Who gets the third floor?” It’s more of an attic, and largely unfinished, but still valuable real estate to stake a claim for. Another shrug. “The ghosts?” And off he goes again. I can’t pin him to one place for the life of me.

As I open my mouth to express my gratitude, he says, unprompted: “The house has always been gray.”

Wesley’s footsteps are getting stompier. I can tell he wants to say Do you have to sit right THERE, but he swallows the words. He presses his lips together to keep them from falling out as he grunts and sighs from heavy lifting, dismantling the living room furniture around me.

“Oh, Violet,” I say mournfully, since maybe a theatrical performance will bring the tears. “I wish I’d been able to say goodbye.” I can’t help a glance at Wesley, whose expression is incredulous until he realizes I’m watching him. Then it smooths over, impassive. He’s judging me. “I wanted to call,” I sniff. “It’s complicated.”

“Are you going to ignore me forever?” Sweat rolls from his hairline, down his forehead. His gaze lifts briefly to mine, impatient and piercing, before he continues focusing on his task.

It’s been too long since I’ve felt heard by anyone, and I want to talk to somebody about Violet. Nobody else shares my memories of Falling Stars and my amazing great-aunt. I think that about half the people still alive who cared about her (or at least, he might have cared about her) are in this room.

“In their early twenties, Violet and Victor were officially just friends, but obviously she was still holding a grudge about him dumping her, because she knew he was her soul mate. She knew from day one that Victor was the man for her, but teenage Victor was a little too slick and he wanted to play the field.

Wesley, I notice, has been loosening the same screw for two minutes now. He doesn’t want to appear like he’s listening, but I know I’ve got an audience.

“Her letters were petty brilliance. Hello, Victor. Would you be a dear friend and ask Henry if he’s single? I’m dying to finally be kissed by someone who knows what he’s doing.”

The Mighty & Majestic Violet Amelia Parrish, Knower of Her Worth, You’ll Wish You Had This, Runner-Up Miss Good-Looking 1953. Victor wrote back with fevered desperation, penmanship atrocious to convey his passion, confessing how jealous she’d made him.

Once a week, Violet got dressed to the nines and flounced past his store, all carefree and stunning, rubbing it in. She’d send him photographs, too, of her posing on the hood of other guys’ cars.” I cackle. “She really let him have it.”

The bride wore a ruby-red gown to match her hair.” It’s the reason I idolize nontraditional wedding dresses and why, if I ever do get married, I want to wear a bright color, too.

Wesley is looking sterner than ever. This must be the face he makes when he’s firmly decided against feeling anything humor-adjacent.

“Violet, how long are you going to make me suffer? I can’t sleep. I don’t eat. Your grandmother thinks you’ve put a hex on me and I don’t care if you did, I just need you to either lift the hex or marry me. Love, your future husband (hopefully).” He bites his lip.

I stop cold at the curious noise that punctuates Victor’s plea. “Was that a chuckle?” Wesley’s eyebrows slam together. He doesn’t respond. “Oh, c’mon,” I tease. “You’re so serious.” That was definitely a chuckle. Or a mouse.

She took one look at Victor in his hospital bed, right as rain aside from the busted ankle, and said, ‘You can propose now.’ He tried to get down on one knee, with the cast on. Aunt Violet could never finish telling the story because she’d be laughing so hard.” I grin.

I think he loved hearing it because it made his wife laugh. He was always just so gone for her.

It’s a picture of the manor, with a little girl in front. She’s in corduroy skort overalls and a bucket hat, face rosy with sunshine, front teeth a little too big. I want to reach into the picture and give that little girl a hug, because I know why she’s smiling so hard. She thinks she’s there to stay. She wants her wonderful aunt to adopt her, so she’ll never have to leave.

The house behind her is gray. “I don’t understand,” I murmur, turning it over to the other side. There’s a cursive inscription, but the soft pencil has worn away all but the letter M. “It was pink. Why do I remember it being pink?”

“I hate restaurants and shopping malls,” he grumbles. Jeez. “What do you like?” If his scowl is any hint, Wesley doesn’t like that question.

after he hauls it outside, he doesn’t return.

He’s been avoiding me all week. Any time I walk into a room, he finds a reason to leave that room. When I try to make chitchat, I get crickets.

I ignore him. A taste of your own medicine is healthy, now and then.

Imagine being a professional groundskeeper and getting paid to make someone’s yard look worse.

An unreadable face scrutinizes me, but says nothing. I drape a hand over my heart. “How do you keep sneaking up on me like that? Please announce yourself!”

Wesley places the shoebox on a shelf out of reach, followed by the other boxes. His face is tight as his eyes sweep mine, estimating whether putting the boxes out of reach is going to stop me. It is. I’m curious about them now that I know they’re off-limits, but scrounging up a stepstool sounds like too much work. Life is short, like me.

Once we’re out, he slams the padlock on the door closed and spins its dial. I raise my eyebrows. “Seriously?”

I give up. He’s heading swiftly back to the cabin, where I hope his macaroni and cheese is cold. A few beats pass. My hands are frustrated little balls at my sides, and it’s like being picked on by school bullies again. “I liked you a lot better when you weren’t you!” I yell once he’s a good distance away. If he hears, he makes no indication.

In a smooth, whorled eye, a heart has been carved. Within the heart, initials. I trace the engraving with my thumb: V + V. So touching I could melt, lasting evidence of love that’s survived them both. What would it be like, to know love like that? To carve my name on someone else’s heart? Mine has been dropped and broken a few too many times, held together with sheer, dumb optimism, a few ribs, and maybe magic.

Between one footstep and the next, I disappear from the woods and rematerialize in my own little world. “It’s not your fault,” Jack tells me, springing to my side. My mind always, always misses its footing and lands on Jack unless I’m carefully, consciously choosing my steps.

“Your aunt was in here earlier,” he tells me soothingly. “She had to go, but she wanted me to tell you how happy she was to see you yesterday. How much she appreciates your visits.”

He gazes down at me, moonlight dusting the curves of his features. Bears don’t have wavy blond hair or cotton T-shirts. I’m so happy to see Wesley Koehler that I’d cry and leap at him, if only I could unstick my feet from the ground. He waits. Watches. I still can’t talk, and he chooses not to. Finally, my voice starts working again. “I’ve grown roots,” I say weakly. He must think I’m a huge baby. I can’t deny he’d be right. Tonight I’m sleeping with all the lights on.

Slowly, he holds out his hand, palm up. I examine the pale fingertips from a slight distance, as if this might not be real, but his gesture has a strange effect on my muscles, freeing them. I’m moving before I know it. I lay my hand over his, which he tugs lightly, reeling me in. Once I’m safely at his side, he lets his hand drop, then motions for me to proceed down one of the trails.

Out of the corner of my eye I glance at Wesley, who’s staring straight ahead. I don’t think my imagination could paint the tension he radiates, though, his awareness of me but refusal to glance my way.

When my arm accidentally brushes his, I don’t think I imagine how his hand clenches.

fabric darker from saturation. His nape glistens. It’s cool enough outside that the tip of my nose is numb and my teeth are chattering, but Wesley, not even wearing a jacket, is drenched in sweat.

The manor soars larger than life, laced up with climbing roses rather than creeper vines. There’s a wrought-iron archway in front—FALLING STARS HOTEL—and beneath, in vivid color, Wesley waits for me with an unreadable expression, hand outstretched. I sit up straight in bed.

I don’t want to think he intentionally gets up an hour before I do to avoid bumping into me, but my skeptical side has its third eye narrowed.

“I want to make the house a hotel again, like it was in that newspaper you found.” “I didn’t find that newspaper, you did.” I’m trying to make this his idea, so that he’ll be more receptive to it.

Our stares lock, and it’s unsettling how much his attention weighs when he decides to pin me with it instead of looking right past me like he generally does. He has long eyelashes, brown at the root and fair at the tips. The freckles on his cheeks, the gold locks of hair curling every which way above thick, stern eyebrows—the effects of each detail pool into an exceedingly distracting portrait that will derail me if I don’t fight hard against the current.

I’ve only ever wanted to be liked, and I’ve only ever wanted to be liked by absolutely everybody I come in contact with, however temporarily and inconsequentially. It’s my most dominant and simultaneously weakening driving force, which leads to my toning down various wants and needs in order to make myself digestible, easy to get along with.

I lean forward, matching his determination. It surprises us both. “Yes.”

There is no possible way you can convince me to agree to that.” “Let me try.”

really, really, really want it,” I plead, throat scratchy. I watch my flow of power redirect in midair. Wesley leans back in his chair, crossing his impressive, tanned arms, siphoning it off. My brain blinks. Forearms. Shh, I scold myself. Not now.

I have found myself in a job interview without warning.

I don’t have many enemies, but if I ever meet Lori Greiner …” His face clouds. Oof.

“I enjoy those jobs. Like the golf place one?” He takes a casual sip of coffee. “With that woman, Gemma, who’s the reason you have a picture of me at my brother’s wedding on your phone. The why of which you still haven’t shared.”

“I haven’t forgotten that,” he finishes impassively. I do a flawless impersonation of Wesley by opting to ignore what he said.

How does he keep rerouting this conversation? “It’s a big house. There’s plenty of living space for us along with the guests.” “I’ll never agree to it.” “I’ll never agree to the farm animal sanctuary, then.” Checkmate. He arches a brow, jaw tensing.