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

by Jessa Hastings

“As soon as you said you were staying. Been carrying it around in my pocket since… ” I think back. “Christmas.” “BJ!” She lets out a bewildered laugh. “Had it in my pocket when I walked you home — thought about it. Probably should have, thinking back now.” My eyes pinch. “Would have saved us a bunch of time.” She gives me an exasperated look. Give her a shrug because I don’t really care how we got here, just happy to have arrived. “It was always going to be you, Parks. Just a matter of when.”

“He asked me when he was seventeen.”

OMG

Not to mention the number one house perk, that boy in the foyer I’m marrying who looks like a statue at all times, from all angles with his perfect hair and his pillow mouth and those eyes that make my resolve dissolve with a glance.

“Who the fuck wears Sketchers to the Four Seasons?” I scowl. She raises her hand, all smarmy and annoying.

the fully concious baby makes a return

“I’m right around the corner and you’re finally, for the first time in about five years, exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

sorry that I felt like I couldn’t come to him, that I had to navigate it all by myself, but Magnolia frowned at him and said, “He wasn’t alone, he had me.” And my dad smiled at her and said, “I beg your pardon, he did too.” And then he said he understood, he thinks, why we are how we are. Don’t even know what that means anymore because all I know about us now is that we’re together. But maybe that’s what he meant. Maybe that’s how we’ve always been. Just together. Or trying to be.

Parks will tell a quarter of the story to get a rise out of Mum, I’ll tell the rest because I’m proud of it and I wouldn’t change a fucking thing about any of it. Mum’ll probably have a nervous breakdown about us doing it on her bed again (still hasn’t gotten past that) but who cares because I’m marrying Magnolia Parks.

“She’s not breathing,”

WHAT

My whole childhood is littered with memories of being alone and lonely and abandoned and disregarded in our family, and the only part that makes it feel okay is that Bridget was there with me. Through all the ways our parents failed us, my sister did not. My sister is the lace trimming around all of it and I’m watching my fiancé do his absolute and undeniable best to give my sister breath again. But he can’t. She’s already gone.

I HAVE GOOSEBUMPS OMG