The Love That Split the World(34)

“You wanna ride up there?” Beau asks.

“That’s okay. It’ll feel good to walk.”

He pulls out his phone, which is two models older than mine and looks like it got caught in a lawn mower, and passes it to me without a word. I type my number in, save it, and pass it back. “Thanks again,” I say, then hurry to add, “for saving me from that party. I’m sorry you missed it.”

“I told you why I went,” he says.

Neither of us speaks for a minute, then I awkwardly say goodbye and turn to walk up the hill to Megan’s car.

“Bye, Natalie,” Beau says, and I turn around one last time and wave.

As soon as I get in, Megan begins to apologize again, but as we turn around and drive off, she falls silent then says, “Okay, so he was pretty faraway and tiny from where I was parked, but wow.”

“I know.”

“Wow,” she says again. “I can’t imagine what Summer Incarnate looks like up close.”

“You really can’t.”

“Oh my God,” Megan says. “I’m shaking I’m so giddy right now.”

“And what about you and Brian?” I demand.

“Eh,” she says. “We kissed. Then I fell asleep. Bad sign?”

“Not necessarily.”

“I didn’t say bye to him this morning. What about that?”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I say. “You probably just felt awkward.”

“I guess.” She looks over at me, scrunches her nose up. “He tasted like Cheetos.”

“Ugh, I’m going to be sick.”

“I know,” she groans.

“The literal kiss of death.”

“Exactly,” she says. “I’m dead. My body just hasn’t gotten the memo.”

“Those Cheetos probably had some kind of reanimation spell on them,” I suggest.

She drops her forehead against the steering wheel for a second. “I liked him so much. There, I said it. How could this happen?”

“Is it possible he just, I don’t know, ate Cheetos?”

“I mean, I’m no forensic investigator, but I would say there’s roughly a one hundred percent chance that’s exactly what happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? I abandoned you to make out with a Frito-Lay product.”

“Honestly, Meg, if I needed you, I would’ve found you, mid-cheese-powder make-out or not.”

“I die,” she says. “I die a thousand deaths every time I think about it.”

“I think you should give him another chance.”

She looks at me, utterly aghast. “That’s just because you’re all moony! Because you obviously just kissed someone who didn’t taste like the floor at Derek Dillhorn’s fourth-grade birthday party!”

“I would bet money Brian’s mouth doesn’t always taste like that.”

“We’ll see,” she says. “I may just be too scarred. Hey, do you want Waffle House? I’m starving. Starving for details. Starving for waffles and starving for details.”

“That sounds good, but I think I need to sleep for ten hours first. Maybe reconvene for dinner?” We’re driving past the Presbyterian church now, which is back to normal—the additional wing vanished, and the parking lot too big for the small Sunday crowds. “Hey, does anything about that building seem different to you?” I ask.

Megan peers out the window. “Just the haze of flaky, cheese-flavored orange hanging over everything, but that could be my imagination.”

We pull up to the curb in front of my house, and Megan presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and drops her head back into the headrest, groaning again for good measure.

I pat her arm. “This too shall pass.”

She straightens up and sighs. “From your mouth to Grandmother’s ears.”

I get out of the car, legs wobbling from fatigue, and wave goodbye as Megan pulls away. I turn back to the house just as Gus comes running through the front door and across the yard. “Jack!” I shout, annoyed. He’s always leaving the front door unlocked, and half the time it pops open and Gus takes a jaunt around the neighborhood. I lunge to grab hold of his collar before he can take off, but as my fingers curl around the leather, it happens again.

One second Gus is there, the next he’s gone, and I nearly let out a shriek as the collar drops limp in my hand. I turn in circles, searching the abandoned block. “Gus?” My dog is gone, and I don’t know what to do. I turn in circles, calling his name more loudly. “Gus! Gus!”

And then he’s back. Like it never happened, wearing his collar and trying to pull me up the street to where a decidedly terrifying standard poodle lives. I dig my feet in and try to yank him back toward the front door.

My mind is reeling. My stomach roils. I drag Gus across the yard and run up onto the porch, but I come up short. It feels like my heart just slammed into a wall. And now Gus is gone again. The door and the shutters are red, not green like they should be. I’m so freaked out that for some reason, I still try to jam my house key into the lock, but it won’t work. My insides are screaming, I can barely breathe, and I fumble with the key, panic filling me up like a flood of acid. “Gus,” I say again. Then, “Grandmother. Grandmother! Are you there? Please!”