Magnolia Parks: The Long Way Home (Magnolia Parks Universe, #3)

by Jessa Hastings

There’s no ceremony to December 3rd, but maybe the ritual is we’ll always find a way to hold each other. Sometimes it’s overt — she’ll just take her hand in mine, kiss it. Sometimes she’ll come and lean her head on my arm. Won’t say a thing. That’s what she did the year she was fucking around with Christian. Just wordlessly leaned against me. We steadied ourselves against each other how we’ve done all our lives. The tree’s a bit of a hard reset for us. I’d be a liar if I said a part of me hadn’t wondered whether Paris was just a cover and she came up here early — that’s the kind of shit she’d pull to be alone with me. I know it is because I’d do it too to get her to myself for a day or even a half of one. I thought about it, just coming up early in case she was there, in case she was waiting for me and she didn’t just fuck off all over again without a word. Hard with Jordan though, she’d ask questions. Fair enough I suppose, she should be allowed to ask them. But whatever she’d ask, there’s nothing I can tell her that won’t just prove to her that I haven’t changed at all, that won’t let her down, because I will. I’d let the whole world down to keep Magnolia afloat if I had to. Or I would have before. Not now, I tell myself. But I know it’s a lie. Try to convince myself for the two hundredth time this week that Parks is nothing except the hardest habit I’ll ever have to break.

AW