Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Ren was pretty sure she’d never be ready, but it didn’t matter, because they pulled up at the curb of the tree-lined street in Atlanta and it was right there, 1079 Birchwood Terrace. The house was blue, with white trim and a sunny yellow front door. The neighborhood was beautiful, with vibrant greenery and seductive, heavy buds bursting on every branch. It looked nothing like she’d been imagining from her years of reading Toni Morrison and Flannery O’Connor. But this was modern-day suburban Atlanta: Yards rolled down from beautiful homes to the sidewalks; flower beds were immaculate, bordering tidy verdant lawns. Trees lined the sidewalks, throwing soft shade over rooftops, their branch arms reaching for those of their cousins across the asphalt.
She could tell this was a neighborhood full of homes—not simply houses—where families met at a table at six sharp for dinner, where daughters learned to play catch with their dads and sons learned to ride bikes with a mom chasing after them, struggling to keep a steadying hand on the seat. It was so different from her own upbringing that she felt momentarily split down the middle, facing this alternative reality. She imagined playing in a yard like this, going to a real school, and being driven around in a shiny sedan instead of a rusty old pickup. She didn’t want to change how or where she was raised, but she hadn’t realized until she’d left how lonely she’d always been. Her only friends had been pigs and chickens, cats and cows.
Edward pulled a half a block farther down the street and parked at the curb. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
Ren gazed out the window, staring behind them. “I’m sure.”
“Look at me, Ren.”
She turned, and he leaned over, kissing her once. “I’ll call as soon as I’m at the hotel with the phone number and our room number so they can connect you. I’ll have them text it, too, just in case.” He reached over, silencing the ringer. “It won’t ring—I don’t want it to distract you—but it’ll vibrate when the voicemail is there. Okay? You know the passcode and how to get to my voicemail? My texts?” She nodded numbly, and he made her repeat the plan back to him.
“You’ll leave a message with the phone number for me to call,” she said, showing him that she knew where to access the voicemail on his phone. “You’ll tell me our room number so I can have them connect me.”
“Call me either way,” he said. “If you stay for dinner, call me. If you need a ride immediately, call me. Actually, as soon as you have a sense of how it’s going, call me. Just keep me updated. Please?”
“I will. Thank you.” She reached over the console, cupping his cheek, then took a deep breath before climbing out.
Edward called out to her. “Ren!”
She bent down, peeking back into the car to find him leaning across the console, staring up at her. “I…” His smile straightened, eyes searching hers. “I wanted to tell you…”
“Tell me what?” she asked.
Finally, he grinned, making a fist of solidarity. “You got this.”
“I’m going to take your word for it. I’ll see you soon.” With a weak smile, she waved, closed the passenger door, and waited with a strange sadness as he finally drove away.
Even the air smelled different here, thick with a sweetness she couldn’t immediately name until she saw the iconic white star flowers crawling up trellises and weaving through arches over doorways.
Jasmine.
She slipped Edward’s phone into her pocket, feeling comforted by the weight of it against her hip. She wanted to feel like herself today, so she’d dressed simply in cutoff denim shorts and a cropped T-shirt, her hair back in a smooth braid. It felt like they’d only driven ten seconds past the blue house with the yellow door, but the walk back seemed miles long. As she passed others—a yellow house with white trim; a white house with green trim; a green house with blue trim—she tried to imagine five-year-old Ren running across these lawns, eight-year-old Ren getting on a school bus, thirteen-year-old Ren sunbathing in one of the huge backyards. She was so lost in her own head, imagining her fictional life here and her actual life thousands of miles away, she swore she could almost hear Gloria’s voice.
“Ren.”
She froze on the sidewalk, awareness dawning that it wasn’t her imagination at all.
“Ren Gylden, you look at me right now.”
Ren spun slowly, heart plummeting into her stomach.
Gloria’s hair was jet-black and glossy when Ren was little, but it was gray now, salt-and-pepper curls she wore half up, half down, the long waves cascading to the middle of her back. She wasn’t wearing her good clothes that she’d normally wear for a trip into the city; she was in jeans and a button-down shirt, the same thing she’d wear to work their booth at the fair or make deliveries in town. Instead of gardening gloves and a big sun hat, she had a canvas purse over her shoulder and a pair of sunglasses on her face. Ren could see her own reflection in the lenses; she looked small and terrified.