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

by Jessa Hastings

Lock the door, give myself a minute alone with her, even if it’s not in person. A blank card reads: I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking for a time machine. Until I find one, here’s a time keeper instead. It’s the Vacheron Constantin’s ‘Historiques’ watch. On the back she’s engraved: On borrowed time without you. I press my hands into my face. Swallow the sound my body tries to make. Fuck, I miss her.

I’ve spent my whole birthday thinking about the girl that she didn’t invite — but I know that girl. Know how Parks thinks, what she does when her heart’s backed up against the wall. It was the other night and she didn’t even give me a minute to fix it, she just legged it straight to Julian. And you want to think that at this point, we’re past it — that we’re beyond the hurting each other to feel close to each other — but I don’t know. And I don’t even want to think about what she’s doing tonight if she feels like I’ve rejected her. But I don’t need to think about it, I already know what she’s doing. I do it too.

All clothes I picked out at a store the other week while imagining BJ taking them off my body and I wonder for a few seconds what’s wrong with me? How I can have gotten dressed thinking about BJ’s breath dragging across my skin and then get in the car and run straight into Julian’s arms? Something’s wrong with me, I know there is, and I can barely get the sentence written down onto the page of my mind before the answer presents itself. I love him too much. That’s the problem. That’s the only problem I’ve ever had, really. The only reason I’m sad how I am, the only reason I’ve been hurt how I have been, it’s all because I love him too much. And I wonder how I’ve moved through life stuck on loving the same boy since I was fourteen, which is far too young to be in love, but I dare you to find anyone who loves anything more than I love him.

I’m on my tiptoes trying to be close to him and this is a feeling I’ve begun to grow terribly fond of — how big he is, how much he shadows over me, how his arms feel like branches that are protecting me from a storm.

“I don’t want to talk about him.” He gives me a look. “You always want to talk about him.”

“In another life I reckon I could have loved you.” I tilt my head, looking up at him. “In another life I would have let you.”

OMG

“I mean he’s in everything — everything. I’m always thinking about him and I want to know what he thinks, I want to know what he wants. And I worry about how he feels and whether he’s safe and what he’s doing.”

“He’s not my every second thought, he’s my every thought.” The way ‘every’ sits in my mouth, it feels like a burden. “He infiltrates all of them. All my decisions, all my feelings—”

He stares at me for a few seconds and I think if I were to acknowledge the moment in the fullness it deserves it would weigh differently in my heart, but I don’t. I tell myself that he combs his fingers through the hair of all the girls he does this with.

And now I’ve got a trip in the pipe with the wrong girl. I’m going away with a girl I don’t want to be with but can’t not be with because it turns out I’m in love with a fucking emotional terrorist.

She smacks him quiet. I hate it. Hate that she smacks him without thinking. She’s too mindless in how she is with him around her body. Scares me.

and straight away his hand is in her hair. She doesn’t seem to notice either, and I wonder how many times someone needs to touch you before their hands on your body stops being something you notice.

Magnolia glances over at me, looks a bit wounded — that’s a positive at least — I want her chest to feel heavy how mine does, watching her not noticing Julian touch her — but then I flash her the watch she gave me to tell her I love her anyway.

I catch her eye, try to tell her without having to say it that at this point. I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do to be alone with her for five minutes. Fly to another country, watch another guy feel her up in the pool just so I can stay up late to watch shitty documentaries with her, swallow heavy as her fingers graze mine when she passes me the remote.

omg

I have all the time in the world to stare at the girl I love over there in that dress and cardigan. I watch her how I haven’t been allowed to for too long. Love fucks you up, man. In what world, what shit has to happen between you and someone that you miss just being able to stare at them, because I’ve missed staring at her. I love watching her do nothing, love how she moves, especially when she knows I’m watching, which she does right now. She’s swallowing, nervous, and peeking over at me whenever she can squeeze it in naturally. I can’t look away because I’m thinking about all the things I used to do with her on an airplane. Never wasted a minute I had alone with her, not an inch of her skin I’d have left untouched or a corner of this plane I wouldn’t have kissed her in. Julian’s a fucking idiot.

“I never want to make her sad.” “Even if—” she starts but I cut her off. “Even if nothing, Jords,” I tell her firmly, but it’s kind of bullshit. I’m a professional at hurting Parks, but over my fucking dead body am I letting anyone else do it.

I don’t know how to tell her that it’s true, I don’t want anyone but her, she’s the only thing on this whole fucking planet that I need and I’d marry her right now here on the spot if I could work out how to be good enough for her.

“I would have done anything for you. Cheated for you, lied for you. I would have died for you. I think maybe I kind of did.”

OMG

“I’d die for you.” “That, I believe.” She nods. “I too trust you with my life.” “Just not your heart.” I sigh it out. She nods slowly. “Just not my heart.”

Let it make me feel everything Jordan hasn’t made me feel ever. Breathe her in. Beg her to marry me fifty times in a second but I can’t out loud because Parks doesn’t trust me and I don’t think I’m good enough anyway. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make her trust me other than time, and I’ll give her all of mine, I don’t care about that. I’m not even worried if we never get off this track, I don’t care, I’ll stay on it forever with her. I am worried, though, that she’ll figure it out and get off it without me. She pulls away from me and as she does, I slip my heart in her back pocket. That’s a lie. She already had it. But I give it to her again for good measure.

AHH

It was hard to do that with BJ in the house. I feel like we’re too connected, like he can hear my thoughts. He’d know what I was doing, feel it in the air, see it on me after. And I have fun with Julian, and he’s very good at what he does — but kissing BJ on his cheek last night was my favourite thing that’s happened since BJ gave me my necklace back.

I don’t know where BJ is. Around, I hope. We’ve always had a knack for stealing moments away with one another.

My whole stomach flip-flops just watching him. I love watching him. It’s my favourite pastime. I used to lose hours just following him around from room to room at the weekends. How he’d butter his toast, how he’d drink from the carton, how he’d bite an apple, how he’d hug his mum. The way he’d hold his phone, the way he’d spin the remote on his index finger. The way he’d open a door. I loved the way he’d sit, the way he’d lean, where his hands would fall—and that was just the mundane things. Never you mind what it was like to watch him swim at school or play rugby. Him on a skateboard, him climbing things he shouldn’t, him driving a car—

“Which one are you watching?” “One of the ones on polar bears.” He unpauses it. “Oh!” I tuck my feet under me. “I love this one.” He looks over at me for a few seconds. “I know.”

The backs of our hands touch and I freeze because touching him even in the smallest way is electric. His hands are always so warm and I love his hands anyway, I always have. They’ve always been big but not grubby. Long fingers, not too skinny though, not too square, not too rounded, just strong hands that have held me through everything this life has ever thrown at me. And then those hands that I love, that I think about touching my body every day, in my hair, on my face, under my pillow, those hands shift ever so slightly and his pinky finger links with mine.

“I think she was just scared by how much I… you know?” ‘Love him’ is the end of that sentence. Present-tense, not past. Always present-tense loving him. Marsaili always found it concerning. With good reason in the end, I suppose.

I’d learned immediately upon dating BJ that were I to under-dress and be cold, he’d either be forced to hug me or give me his sweaters — sometimes both — and I loved both outcomes.

He slipped his hand into mine immediately, kissed it three times, stole my heart forever with the quarter-smile he gave me, etcetera etcetera.

I like how his face goes when we talk about being young. Like all the pain and trauma and shit we’ve put each other through lifts for a minute and his face looks how it lives in my mind anyway.

“I loved being a kid with you.” He smiles over at me. “I was going to tell you before I saw you that I thought we should wait. But then I saw you.”

“Probably my favourite night of my life up to then—” “And then after that?” “Dartmouth and the lock.” Beej nods his head towards my stomach. “And then probably us at the tree last year—” “Are all your favourite nights with me?” I ask him. “Yeah.” He nods without thinking. “Why? What are yours?” With him. Of course with him. All my best nights, all my worst ones, all are with him and I wonder if this is the point. This is what I’m swimming towards: not just in love with him but a whole wonderful, terrifying, beautiful, painful life with him. I purse my lips. “I love the ones you said. I loved the day you gave me your family crest—” I give him an apologetic smile for throwing it away. “I really loved the night after we first had sex.” “Why?” He laughs, confused. “Because we weren’t nervous anymore.” I shrug. “And it was so fun and new and I loved sneaking around with you.” Our eyes graze and my heart casts a line out to him. It catches and I swallow heavy. He nods his chin over at me. “Want to make another favourite night soon?” I straighten up a bit. “We could make one right now.”

“I just want you, Beej.” I shrug. “But my wanting you has never really been the question.”

I stare over at him and he over at me and it’s like we’re both lost at sea on different pieces of driftwood and the tide is pulling us in different directions.

and I press the bow necklace into my chest, try to feel closer to BJ than I am right now.

It wasn’t mine to lose like that. And there are a million ways I could spin that, say that I wasn’t BJ’s to break and he broke me, but I was. I was, I am. And he has.

And then I saw you with Magnolia—” She gives me a bit of a grimace. “And I thought — well, fuck. That’s what it looks like when he loves you.”

She’s not in here for the wine. She’s in here because she knows I’ll follow her. I’ll always follow her.

So I say nothing, even though I want to say everything and bite down on my lip to keep quiet.

If she’s in danger I need to be with her.

We match. We completely match. It’s hilarious and accidental and I love it because it makes me feel sure our brains are still connected and I wish all of me was connected to him, but I guess I’ll take what I can get.

He stands next to me and my heart swings on a vine back to the days where it used to be me and him and his parents. We used to talk all night and laugh. BJ would be so embarrassed of how in love they were, but I think we’re like them. We used to be anyway.

“You’re ridiculous.” “You used to love that about me,” I tell him in a quiet sort of proudness. He stares at the back wall lined with different spirits. “Still do,” he says without looking at me.

“Do you think I can’t love you and be angry at you in the same breath?” I shake my head at his ridiculousness. “If I can’t, I’ve never loved you.”

“You think I can’t see it on your face, how you’re looking at me?” He gestures to my face. My head pulls back. “And how am I looking at you?” He gives me a smile. It’s sad and quick. “Like I’m not good enough.” “BJ.” I blink at him and my mind floods with a million memories and thoughts I have to prove him wrong.

You look at him like he’s Michael fucking Angelo.”

“You’ve both fucked up,” Henry tells me, both eyebrows up now. “Doesn’t mean you don’t belong together.” I swallow, press my tongue into my bottom lip. “She’s not forgiven me, Hen.” “I know.” He nods slowly. “Give her time.” I lift my shoulders, feeling beat. “How much?” Henry shrugs back. “Does it matter, Beej? It’s Parks.” I drop my head in my hands and rub my eyes. “It’s been years.” Henry pulls a face like he’s unsure. “Has it?” I look up at him, confused. “She found out it was Paili a little over a year ago, yeah? Then she left for a year. She didn’t think about it, she ignored it, she avoided you and it at all costs.” I cross my arms over my chest, staring at him. “Then she comes back, sees you again, loves you again — or still — depending on how you look at it.” He shrugs to himself. “And is just now, for the first time since it happened, actually dealing with you fucking Pails.”

“What I was going to say was you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen but you’re a fucking pain in the arse, so now that’s what I’m saying.”

Stupid Bridget. Don’t know why. Just feels like it’s her fault somehow.

LMFAO

The canary that lives in my ribcage jumps onto its bird swing and starts to chirp away and the loudest room in London can feel like a slow river running over small stones at a quarter past midnight when he zones in on me, when he turns down the volume of the world with eyes I’ll never get past.

Julian tries his best to keep this part of himself separate from me.

i love that he tries to protect her but i wish he would tell her fully what he does