She was sitting on the porch by the time Calum reached 7 Willow Lane. He stared at her for a moment then turned on his heel. He couldn’t handle it at that moment. He couldn’t bear to see the look on her face when she realized their friendship had to end. For her sake. Unfortunately, she called after him, her voice trembling, and he couldn’t resist the siren’s call. He slowed to a stop and exhaled a slow breath before facing her. She glared at him through the distance.
“You get your rear back here right now.”
“I—I don’t wanna talk.”
“Too dang bad, ain’t it?” She shoved to her feet, making quick work of closing the gap between them. “Fine. You don’t wanna talk? Then listen. I don’t know what the heck you’re thinkin’, but you’ll damn well let me make my own choices, Calum Wilson. What these people think don’t matter none to me.”
“Rett—”
She poked his shoulder, scowled at him until he fell silent again. “I said you listen. We all got our things. You, me, even Miss Irene who hasn’t left her house in months. But I don’t care. What matters is whatyouthink about me and our friendship. Cal, you are my friend. Not everybody and their mother in this town.”
“Sure seems like it,” he muttered, and her brows lifted to her hairline when he stepped back. “I can’t do this right now, Loretta. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you—don’t you dare call me ‘Loretta’. You do that, and I’ll think our friendship is over.”
Calum closed his eyes and whispered, “Maybe it is.”
Before she could reply, he pushed past her and rushed toward the front door. The living room walls swirled, floor convulsing beneath his feet, and he closed the door on the sight of her standing in the front yard. Rett hadn’t turned around. She hadn’t moved, still didn’t as he stared at her. She only stared at where he’d stood before he made a mess of things. After a moment, her shoulders squared, and Calum watched her walk away through the window.
When she disappeared around the corner, so did his hope of ever being truly happy in the town. He’d given up the only connection he had to some sort of normalcy. It was for the best, but it hurt like Hell.
Miss Young answered the door the next day, smiling. “I see you can be punctual without Miss Cox.”
Calum wanted to run. It was a horrible decision to meet with his teacher at her house. What if people thought something inappropriate was happening? It would only tarnish his reputation even more. But it was too late: She ushered him through the door and into a tiny room off the entryway. An intricate cuckoo clock ticked away the seconds from where it hung on the wall. The wood paneling gleamed in the sunlight pouring in through the windows, and lace curtains fluttered in the breeze. Three candles—one white, two blush-pink—burned away on the round table between two armchairs. The floral upholstery had seen better days, there was no question, but the chairs looked homey instead of dilapidated.
Thankfully, Miss Young’s tea actually tasted like tea, nothing so horrible as Miss Maudie’s. She set the teapot back in the center of the table and nudged the sugar bowl closer to him. He took a cube, though she dropped three into her cup. Calum sipped from the floral print-rimmed teacup and waited for her tosay something. Anything. She only focused on adding a splash of milk to her tea.
“They all hate me,” he said. His quiet voice broke the silence, and Miss Young only raised an eyebrow as she stirred her tea. “They think Rett and I did something when we didn’t.”
“You mean besides swimming in your underthings in the Robertsons’ pool?”
He gaped. “How did you know?”
“You and Miss Cox managed to sneak out with no one being any the wiser, but it wasn’t hard to figure out when their neighbor saw you two walking by in the middle of the night. You should probably hide your smoking a little better, Mister Wilson,” she chided not unkindly, a knowing gleam in her hazel eyes.
“Does everyone know?”
She shook her head before he finished speaking. “’Course not. Not yet, anyway. It isn’t often the families on the outskirts come to town to visit. They have their farms to grow what they need and bigger cities for what they can’t make themselves. I only know because the neighbor is my second-cousin, and she’s incorrigible when she has something to wag her tongue over.”
“You said we have things to talk about,” he reminded her as he set his teacup on its saucer. “Am I failing class or something?”
“No, no, nothing of the sort.”
Miss Young finally set her teacup down, crossing her legs at the ankle, and rested her elbows on the arms of her chair. Her caramel-brown hair hung around her face in gentle waves. Calum drank his tea as she explained it would take more than a month for everyone to accept him—their latest stunt would only make it that much more difficult on him. The townspeople had watched Rett grow from a baby to who she was at eighteen, and they cared for her as if she was family. She might as well have been.
Calum hated the idea of anyone not liking Miss Young. She wasn’t the most interactive teacher, but she was a pleasant lady to know. The visit had proved that. It wasn’t as awkward as he’d feared it would be, talking to her. She told him of her life before coming to Oak Creek and how long it took Miss Maudie to accept the teacher wasn’t leaving. How she’d been married, but it fell apart. She had run to the nearest refuge she could find—the town in which her cousin lived. It quickly became home, and she loathed the thought of not having the community after such a disastrous divorce.
By the time Calum left three hours later, the hole in his chest closed just a little bit more, and his stomach was full of finger sandwiches that didn’t make him throw up. Miss Young stopped him at the door.
“Please know, Mister Wilson, that my door is always open if you need to talk. But… I suggest making up with Miss Cox and ignoring the incessant busybodies in this town.”
“It was my cousin,” he admitted.
“Believe me, dear, I know. Miss Stone has a propensity for gossiping that rivals Miss Maudie’s. Have a wonderful evening.”
“Thanks, Miss Young. For everything.”
As he turned and walked away, he wondered exactly how he could make things right with Rett.
