“Oh my God,” Summer says, rolling her eyes. “That is not what happened. I mean, I did get mad at him about that, because it was weird as hell, but I had been trying to break up with him for like, a week, and he kept dodging me.” She glances over to the picture book corner, where Ace has knocked over a display of novelty socks with one of his beefy shoulders. “He is just … way too chaotic for me. Total sweetheart, but a hot mess.”
Georgia nods, and Chloe realizes she must have already heard all of this. If she had actually talked to her about the Shara thing earlier, she could have understood so much more so much sooner.
“So,” Chloe says, “if that’s not what you fell out with Shara over, then what is?”
“I tried to come out to her,” Summer says, “and she freaked and jumped out of my car before I could finish. Like, a moving car. I thought she was a homophobe like her dad. Obviously, now I know what was up. One thing about that girl, she is gonna bail before anyone can make her think about being gay.”
Chloe finds herself struggling to argue with that.
“So, you’re not even mad at her for ghosting you when she ran away?” Chloe asks.
“No, I am,” Summer says, pushing her braids over her shoulder. “But she also helped save my girl today, so.”
Summer and Georgia slip away to chat about the call she had with her dad about using the dealership for the ceremony, but Chloe keeps sitting there.
She’s surrounded by a bunch of noisy, awkward, trying-their-best Alabama kids planning a protest against every instinct that Willowgrove has given them, and she’s thinking about Shara tearing across campus to catch Chloe before it was too late this afternoon. What would she do all that for, if not—
No. If Shara really cared about anyone but herself, she’d be here. She’d have stopped her dad herself instead of making Chloe do it. Maybe it was her last shot at getting Chloe out of her way. It worked, didn’t it?
She just doesn’t believe she’s wrong about Shara. She can’t. Everyone who matters is here. Shara isn’t.
This, Chloe thinks for the first time since she left California, this is where I belong.
* * *
Around sunset, people start clearing out. The shop closes at nine on weeknights anyway, so Georgia shuts down the register while Summer rummages through the books behind the counter and Benjy and Ash discuss a Bojangles run.
“Has anyone seen my keys?” Chloe asks.
“Nope,” Benjy says.
“Did you check the loft?” Georgia asks. “Maybe you dropped them while we were eating.”
Chloe makes her way to the ladder at the back of the store and climbs up. Sure enough, there they are behind some antique bird guides.
As she reaches for them, she hears a familiar voice drift up from below.
“I told you,” Rory says. “There’s no point reading the manga when I can watch the show.”
She peeks over the railing and sees Smith and Rory, standing close together by the shelf of graphic novels. She hasn’t seen them in at least half an hour, so she assumed they had left when she wasn’t looking, but they must have slipped quietly into the stacks.
“Man, you’re missing out on so much though.”
She can’t see Rory roll his eyes, but she can basically hear it. “Whatever.”
Smith gives him a friendly shove, and they drift toward the space under the loft. Chloe’s moving for the ladder when she hears Smith say, “Can I ask you something?”
Rory’s voices wobbles slightly when he says, “Sure.”
“Did you really flood the bio lab on frog week?”
A pause. “When’d you figure it out?”
“Last week, at the lake.”
“It was dumb.” Rory sounds genuinely embarrassed. “I knew you didn’t even think about me anymore, but … I don’t know. You really didn’t want to dissect those frogs.”
Smith says seriously, “I never stopped thinking about you.”
Oh, shit.
Is this the moment?
She has to get out of here, fast—but when she glances down the ladder, she realizes they’ve moved to a spot that makes it impossible for her to leave without interrupting them.
Her friends are waiting for her up front, and she really doesn’t want to spectate on this, but it’s taken Smith and Rory so long to get to here. What if she kills it, and they never get there again?
“Do you know what this is?” Smith asks. His voice is a moonbeam in the low light at the back of the store. Chloe chances a peek—he’s pulled out a small leather Moleskine.