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

by Jessa Hastings

“Do you really dare wear those Balenciaga monstrosities in my presence?” “I know, I know,” she groans. I shake my head at her wildly. “They look like—” “—Geriatric shoes,” she jumps in. “I know.” “Have you no pride, Taura? No sense of self-worth?” “Alright—” She rolls her eyes. “I’m wearing a shoe you don’t like, I didn’t sell my baby…” “I might have preferred it if you did.”

I cock my eyebrow in defiance of her — she of little faith, waiting for my heart’s knees to buckle at his name. Never again.

“Yeah, but she did fuck BJ, so…” “Yeah.” Taura rolled her eyes. “But who hasn’t?”

We weren’t just in the foxhole. He was more like a shield and a security blanket and a pacifier and bandage and a stitch for my broken heart.

Rush never ordered a Negroni in front of me, he once told a girl to fuck off because she smelt of orange blossom, he fought an old boy from Varley when I told him he started a rumour about me back at school, he’d take me shopping and let me dress him and he turned the other way at night times, pretend I didn’t have to spray Dark Rum by Malin + Goetz to fall asleep.

Bridge hasn’t spoken to me directly since it all went down, but around June, the day after a particularly damning article about me ran in The Mail, ten prepaid sessions with one of London’s top psychologists arrived in the post with a note that just read Or lose her forever.

I started therapy to get her back, wanting to grow into the kind of person she’d want to be with, be good enough, be the sort of person worthy of a girl like Parks. I definitely wasn’t before and maybe I won’t ever be — even if we’re dead in the ground for good, can’t hurt to try to be good enough anyway.

Sometimes her photos just pop up. Algorithms and shit, you know? Also, I love her, so sometimes I peek.

“Because she’s Magnolia Parks,” Madeline says. If Parks ever heard this specific sister of mine defending her she’d probably die happy.

She doesn’t know that I’m a wolf and Parks is the moon whose name I’ve howled since I was fifteen. Jordan doesn’t know how me and Parks are. Were. I mean were.

“Three weeks?” Henry asks, poking his head out of the study. “What for?” “Couple of work meetings.” I shrug and it’s a bit of a lie but what else can I say? December 3rd? They’d never understand, not even Henry.

He leans against the bar. “How’s the weather, Parks?” he asks and I don’t turn to face him. I can’t. My heart’s going too fast, it’s run up into my throat.

He laughs and for some reason it sounds like I’m ringing the doorbell of the home I grew up in.

“Is that a tattoo of two dead bees?” He looks sprung and covers it with his over hand, flashing me an apologetic smile and my shields slide on up. “Yeah.” He shrugs like it’s silly and not callous. I nod once. “Right.” He peers down at it, mouth pulling a bit strangely. “Someone told me once that they’d never go extinct—” He looks over at me. “She lied.” I give him a curt smile. “She wasn’t the one who killed them.”

I slip into the bathroom, lock the door and lean against it as a terrible revelation dawns on me. It’s like the morning sun when you forget to close the curtain — it’s my fault, I should have closed the curtain, I knew the sun was there, I knew the sun would eventually rise again, but I didn’t close the curtain and now this invasive, bright, shimmering light wakens me from the slumber I was using to avoid it. I still love him.

I’m fine finally, I’m doing good, she comes back and wears fucking lilac, the twat.

I scratch the back of my neck. “We have all the same friends—” Jordan shakes her head. “Yeah but she left—” “Yeah, because I fucked her best friend.”

Being the girl I’m with who isn’t Magnolia Parks has to be a bitter pill.

There’s something about Magnolia — it’s as annoying as it is fascinating — even when you fucking hate her, even when she’s being the biggest twat in the world, you want to be in her good books. Like there’s something holy about being in her light or some shit.

“And okay,” he shrugs again, “in the scheme of it, gun to my head, you’re my boy, I’d do it again, but… there wasn’t a gun to my head and I still did it so she hates me for it.”

“Plus, you know what she’s like when she’s pissed…” I roll my eyes. “I am familiar, yeah.” He gives me a steep look. “Fucking scary.” “You’re a gang lord,” I remind him. Jonah shrugs but not exactly indifferent. “Not my favourite term, but sure.” “A gang lord,” I repeat. “Just want you to think about that for a minute.” He nods. “And I want you to think about how grateful you are that I’m the gang lord and not her.” He drops his chin, lifts his eyebrows. “Imagine London if it was Magnolia ruling with an iron fist.” I sniff, amused. “And what kind of fist do you rule with?” Christian walks up behind us. “Compared to her?” He clocks his brother. “Aluminium, at best.”

She’s so fucking hot I want to neck myself. It’s so Magnolia, everything about it. If I let myself be caught off guard here I reckon I could choke up.

She turns to me. “She’s beautiful, Beej — well done.” She leans in. Bumps my cheek with hers. And that’s when I feel it on her — the lie. It’s a lie. She hates those kinds of kisses. They’re fake. Her mum does them. Drives her mad.

And then a shadow casts over our table. I look up. Julian Haites.

“Oh shit—” he says, watching her as she looks over at him. “Here’s trouble…” Her mouth drops into a delighted smile. He gives her a small scowl. “Come on — get up and give me a squeeze.”

I wonder how many ways New York’s changed Parks and if all of them are going to make me feel like dying.

“You’re welcome.” I give her a courteous nod that’s mostly met with an amused glare. “Right.” She gives me a glib look. “Thank you for that.” I poke my tongue out at her. She pokes hers back.

I look over at her more tenderly than I should, feel an old kind of missing her in my chest that I wish would just die but it can’t seem to take its last breath. Every time it takes one it takes another and another, and it’s never a last breath. Loving her like this is a kind of breathing that feels like dying.

Oi It’s BJ. I figured. The only person on the planet who greets me with ‘oi’ and lives to tell the tale.

“He’s a ledge in the sack,” she tells me. Bridget shakes her head adamantly. “Magnolia, do not even think about it—” I roll my eyes. “I’m not.” “He is though,” Taura insists.

He’s accidentally romancing the pants off of everyone at all times — he’s practically fabled.

“Parks—” I squeeze her hand, shake my head at her. “I’m telling you because I know for you, the who and the why were big deals, and I couldn’t tell you before. You knew the who. Now you know the why.”

She’s crying for me in a way I’ve never done for myself and I love her for it.

She looks around frantically like she’s lost something, but she hasn’t — just me, maybe.

“I just… wish you would have told me.” I breathe out once, shrugging. “I didn’t know how.” She nods. She’s crying again.

She says nothing. Her eyes don’t move from me. It’s just me and her alone in the universe, how it used to be, how it’s supposed to be in all the lifetimes. Maybe even this one.

Maybe after he backs into the front of my car and he tosses a diamond at my head. Maybe after he cuts me wide open for heart surgery, he’ll ask me through the anaesthetic. Maybe never.

Probably never because he’s never not kissed me before. He’s never not kissed me ever in the existence of time.

“But you’re supposed to be home for another week — you can’t just run away every time something happens.” “I’m not running away.” I shake my head. “We’re done. There’s nothing to run from.”

“And get changed,” she calls after her. “They’ll never let you in first class in those pyjama pants.” Bridget looks down at herself then back up to Taura, frowning. “These are just my pants.” “Oh.” Taura grimaces. “Then don’t pack. We’ll just buy you a new wardrobe in Paris.”

‘Or lose her forever.’ Wasn’t going to chance

“BJ, you can love someone and not have it rule you, not have it dictate your every waking thought and decision. You can love someone and still retain your power and autonomy. You can love someone and have it just be there, a part of you, and still have a completely functional life—” She pauses and gives me a long look. “Even if it’s a life without them.” Doesn’t sound much like any life I’m interested in, actually.

I reposition myself, hugging my knees. “You may not ask why when I say what I’m about to say—” “Okay.” He nods cautiously. “But I should have never broken up with him.” My voice chokes up a little. He blinks a few times. “Even though he cheated on you?” I nod back solemnly. “Even though he cheated on me.”

That there are worse things than cheating. She was right.

Christian was fucking horrified. “Bedtime?” he gawfed. “Who do you think he is? Tiny fucking Tim?”

I don’t fucking know, to say goodbye to me?

No matter what, or where we are, we’ve never missed December 3rd.

My eyes trace the tree, find our initials carved into it. All three of ours. And then my eyes fall down the trunk to the stone we lay to remember the tiny baby girl we lost that no one even knows we had, and there are magnolias laying there and I know he was here. He was here and now he’s gone.

I lose him again and I lose her too for the billionth time in my life and I feel like the world is ending again.

There’s no ceremony to December 3rd, but maybe the ritual is we’ll always find a way to hold each other.