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

by Jessa Hastings

I remember walking into our living room and I swear to god, I can’t think of this moment without Mylo Xyloto blasting out my heart. She was next to Christian on the couch. Little yellow string bikini, legs folded under her, pressed up against him, but the second I walked in she sat up straighter. I don’t know why, don’t know what changed. Waited for her to sit up straighter when I walked into a room since I was six. She uncrossed her legs and it was the first time our eyes caught in that way that they do. They haven’t stopped since.

That whole next week… it plays on my mind like a reel. These long days and late nights, stupid sunsets that weren’t half as good as her face was. Touched her in the most benign ways every chance I had. Put my arm around her chair anytime we were sitting at a table, bent my body around her to reach for some fruit, wrestled her for the remote even though we wanted to watch the same thing. Drank from her cup for no reason. Took her phone off her and held it over her head so she’d jump all over me to reach it. We’d play tennis and I’d help her with her swing even though her swing was better than mine and she’s had professional lessons since she was five. Climbed everything in sight to impress her. Scaled the house, palm trees, cliffs, the mast on boats, anything I could as long as she was watching me. She’d yell at me to get down and I liked the feeling of her worrying about me. I threw her off the side of yachts and would jump in after her. Put her on the back of a jet ski and drive like a fucking maniac so she’d hold me tight. As the first week dripped into the second, I got braver with how I’d try to touch her. Dove in a pool and went to hug her while she was laying in the sun. Grabbed her hand in a crowd. Pulled her onto my lap when we’d watch a film at night and there wasn’t enough space. There was always enough space. I just wanted to hold her.

AW

Forgot we were in front of our friends, the genesis of it all fading to black — me and her in the backyard of our house on that island, my hand in her hair, her hands on my chest — might as well have signed my life away in the moment. Never again would a day go by where I didn’t think of her, where she wasn’t my very waking thought. Maybe that’s unhealthy, maybe that’s fucked up, or maybe I just love her how someone like her deserves to be loved. I don’t know.

AW

We’re fucking complicated, I know that, but I always feel more with her. More… something. More anything. It’s not always good. Sometimes it’s more angry, more sad, more annoyed, but not now. Now I feel… a lot. More nervous. More aware. More alive. I’m in love with her, I can tell you that. Can I tell her that? I don’t know.

omg

She smiles over at me, eyes going soft. “I love it when you say my name.” “Yeah?” She nods. “I love how it sits in your mouth, like you were supposed to say it all the time.” I was, Parks. That’s what I want to tell her, but I don’t. Move in closer again though. She swallows, bites down on her bottom lip the way I wish I was. She shifts towards me so we’re nose to nose. Her little breaths warm my face and I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest by a horse, that’s the way she makes me feel. Her eyes wander over my face, searching me like a room she lost something in.

I won’t ever progress past her though. Ever. Even when I’ve hated her— and I have, and knowing her I will again —she’ll be the thing I’ll always come back to. She’s my Mecca.

“I love you, Parks.”

I press my mouth up against hers and she kisses me back, melts into me like a candle. Wrap my arms around her, she fits how she always has. There’s this thing about her in my arms that makes everyone else feel like they shouldn’t be there. They shouldn’t be there. I know that. She moves with my body — it’s the magnet thing at its peak function. Touching Parks is like touching no one else. It’s like coming home. Even before when I used to touch her all the time, my hands on her body would brush away the heaviest days. I think that’s what we’re supposed to do for each other.

and every time I do this with her, at one point or another — I’m being genuine — I wonder why I do it with anyone else. She’s it. This is it. This is what it’s about. Everything boils down to me and her and just figuring the fuck out how to be together. We can figure this out. It might be a mess, we’ll do it though. Have to. Can’t not have her again. I kiss down her neck. She bites my ear, gets me every time — buries her face in my neck — also gets me every time but different. I’ll never let anyone else touch her again.

“I love you,” she breathes out. “I know.” I smile into her ear. “You already told me.” She pinches me, laughing. I kiss up her neck and down her cheek to her mouth. Pull back, find her eyes. “I love you, Parks.”

I push my hand through her hair, staring over at her like she’s a dream I used to have that just walked through the door. I guess she kind of is.

was perfect actually, how it happened, and it happened a couple of times because I’m like a bottomless pit with him. There’s no such thing as enough. Afterwards, we lay in bed for hours, hands intertwined, me on his chest, our legs all tangled like our hearts are and have been and always will be.

I touch the magnolias woven through a deer’s antlers. “Just the flowers.” He gives me a little look. “You know I love a flower.” “Two dead bees.” I eyeball them on his right hand. “Not my favourite.” He grimaces. “Fuck NYC.” I trace over it with my finger and he just watches me with heavy eyes. “What else?” He flashes me the index and middle finger of his right hand. Index finger: Carver. Middle: Hunnisett. Our school houses at Varley.

“You must have really hated me,” I barely say without taking my eyes off it. “Never.” And then he points to one of his ribs on his right side. It’s the time you wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

On his index is a tiny storm cloud with a bolt of lightning coming out of it; on his middle finger, above the old lilac that was already there, is now a cloud with a small sun poking out behind it, and then on his ring finger is a little sun. I press my lips together and smile. ”How is the weather, Beej?” He drops his index and middle fingers down and grins at me “And you?” He nods his chin at me. “Very pleasant, thank you.”

“I missed you, Parks,” Beej says, staring at the ceiling. “Don’t do that again.” I glance up at him. “Do what?” “Leave me.”

so long, london and say don't go coded

“Magnolia, you are the only person I’ve ever been committed to in my whole life.”

The hurt is old, I can see that. A lake monster that’s lurked beneath the surface til now, it wanders up to the shore and stands there between us. Is he good enough for me? The thought has literally never crossed my mind, not once. And I don’t care if he’s not, I want him anyway. I don’t know what ‘good enough’ even means. All I want from him, the only thing I need from him in the world, is to know that I can trust him. And that I don’t know.

Loving something as much as I love her fucks you up a bit, have I said that before? And maybe it’s worth it, if you get to the end and there’s a happy ending and shit but what if we get there and there isn’t? What if I get to the end and it turns out that actually, there was no such thing as good enough for Magnolia all along, so why try? The chasm her absence creates in me cracks open wide and I only know two ways to fill it.

girl of my dreams,

When I was seven, and I fell off the jetty in Capri? I hit every sharp shell on the way down. They cut me wide open and BJ dove in after me. He saved me. Who’s going to save me now?

you're losing me coded

He wipes my face with his hands, and it occurs to me I fell for the wrong brother. Henry’s the better one. He’s just not my one.

i love henry

It’s never nice to hear what anyone thinks of you if the opinion is unsavoury, but when that opinion comes from the person you love most in the world, it pierces right through to the centre of you. Poisons you a bit, makes you believe the words they’re saying are true. Words are so powerful.

Flirting with him, I can tell. I don’t even care, it’s not a thought in my mind. All I’m thinking about is the only thing I’ve ever truly given a fuck about and how she’s cuddling up in to the arms of the most notorious man I’ve ever met.

I used to think about that night a lot. Me and Julian and what we didn’t do. He’s a strange person, but I sort of love being next to him. There’s just this feeling you get from being by him that’s not like anything else in the world. I never knew whether he didn’t say anything about the night because he was annoyed or embarrassed or he was just a better man than we all give him credit for, but it became apparent that night at his thirtieth that none of the boys knew we’d ever gone home together. It made me look at him a bit differently once I realised he hadn’t told anyone. I don’t know in what way it made me see him exactly,

i lowk ship

He’s funny, kind of a blackhole. There’s a huge gravity about him that pulls you in and you lose time.

“Like, the kind of boy you bring to brunch.” “Not a boy—

i love him

“Pretty hard word,” he says and snaps his fingers in Bridget’s direction. “But not for the smartest person Magnolia Parks knows!”

LMFAO

“Who’s Pikachu?” I jut my chin out at the question. Fuck. I glance from Tausie to Henry, who’s looking at his hands. “I’m Bowser,” I announce just to break the tension. “Wrong game, dipshit.” Henry glances at me.

LMFAO

Fuck, I miss her. Feel like I’ve been stuck missing her for five years now. Had her for a second and then it busted again. Or I busted it, I can’t tell.

When you know, you know. We’re meant to be, me and Parks. Right? That’s what this is about. We’re fated. Woven into the tapestry of the universe, my name right next to hers. We’re in the stars. That’s why whatever the fuck’s happening right now is so fucked up. We’re meant to be and everyone who knows us knows. I’ve known since I was six. Known for nearly twenty years she’s the only person I’ve ever wanted to be with, but I can’t stop fucking up anyway.

I’m quite fond of him, if I’m honest. I’ve always been, to a certain extent. Something about him, isn’t there? You get it. Maybe it’s how deep his voice is, or how big his hands are, or that his eyes are the most peculiar blue I’ve ever seen. And do you know, it is the strangest thing — for all the ways that he’s allegedly the most dangerous man in the country, I feel unbelievably safe with him. He’s different towards me than anyone else I’ve seen him with, even more so when we’re alone. There’s still that rough edge, of course. He feels me up all the time, talks about sex a bit too casually for my preferences as well. He’s a big fan of leaving love bites on me, tiny territorial markings of where his mouth has been, but he always pulls me onto his lap or rests his chin on my shoulder if we’re sitting or on top of my head if we’re standing — he’s so tall. And, when he thinks no one’s looking, he whispers things to me. Sometimes they’re sweet nothings, sometimes it’s about what he’d like to do to me later, other times he whispers funny things about other people in the room, but either way, every time, the way his mouth feels against my ear makes my toes curl and forces me to swallow heavy. I still get the feeling like I’m going down the biggest dip of a rollercoaster any time he puts his hands on my body — and his hands are always on my body. He’s still rude to nearly everyone around us, he can be possessive and brash, and he’s always obnoxious, but then he knows that I love...

The truth is, Julian is so clever and so charming in that awful Hemsworth kind of way where you don’t dislike him for being beautiful and charismatic, you actually like him more for some reason.

“You are polite,” he lists off on his fingers. “You are smart. You are the hottest girl I’ve ever seen. You’re getting there in bed—”

My eyes fall down her face. Forget what I’m doing. Forget the day of the week, the month, the hour. What a face.

“Normal people don’t look at each other how you’re looking at each other right now,”

I give her a look, waiting for her approval. She looks down at my hand, picks it up, angles my finger to see my ring properly. It’s not her family ring — I wish it was. It’s just a blue one that matches my jacket. It impresses her though and that’s enough for me.

Parks says dryly as she reaches over and takes the Negroni out of my hand. Our eyes catch. She has a sip. Has another. I know she does this just to feel close to me. She hates Campari. One more sip. She hands it back to me. Our hands touch.

My girl.

We’ve rounded a lot of corners. Her heart breaks in her eyes like a dropped egg and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore without her. I hate being without her. Rummage through the drawer in my mind as fast as I can to find the words to tell her that I’m coming for her, I’m on my way back, that this is just the long way home. But the drawers are a mess, the words are all jumbled — I love her and then what? — then she pushes back from the table.

I catch my brother’s eye, toss him my Barclay’s Infinite card and nod after her. She’s right. One of the Ballentines should be buying her things. Should be me.

“I’d do anything for her.”

“Pride suffocates relationships, Beej.”

Probably the only thing she is more than proud is afraid, though. Don’t you think?” That one sinks me like a fucking stone. Afraid? Fuck. I hate the thought of her being afraid. I hate even more that I’m the one making her like that.

because without them he feels rather like a knight in shining everything,

he's my knight

because something about him is a bit like Teflon, and all the bad slides right off him, no matter what it is he does.

He smiles at me like no one else is around us — and I miss him so much. More than I can say, more than I can process really, because I’m not only in love with him — he’s also my best friend. And I wish I could crawl into his lap, curl up, face in his neck, tell him about all the ways this stupid boy broke my heart a few weeks ago, but I can’t because it’s him — so I tell him I love him with my blinking and he tells me he misses me with his question: “What is it?” he asks, covering the logo on the front like I don’t already know. “Oh, come on.” I roll my eyes. “Versace La Greca-print sweatshirt.” I feel its hem as though I don’t already know the answer. Graze his stomach as I do on purpose. No one knows but him. Want splinters up my arm like a broken bone.

Cheeks go pink and I think I could throw up if I let myself. Me telling BJ about the sex I’m having with someone else? It’s my worst nightmare. And I’m telling him like it’s nothing, like it means nothing to me, like it’s not going against every fibre of my being, telling him how someone else touched me and held me in all the ways I’ve only ever wanted him to.

and Julian’s face was so cute and so worried that sometimes I think about it for no reason — it’s just a face that floats into my mind sometimes.

I look back at BJ, watching after me. Henry’s speaking to him — yelling at him, maybe — but he’s just locked on me. I drink the drink quickly. Pour another and wait. He’ll come to me. I know it. I can feel him like a fishing line in the water I can’t see.