Page 50 of The Dangers of Daydreaming

I chuckled, forcing myself to turn and stop looking at her.

Her bed shifted too, and I guessed she’d turned as well. “What was your best day, Finn?”

I had to think about it. I could call up a ton of bad days—why was it that the crap stuff stuck with you more than the good? But the best day?

“Sixteenth birthday. All my friends came, Pops hooked up the trailer, and we listened to music on a hayride, then played night games.”

“Sounds like a fun birthday.” There was a smile in her voice.

It was, but that wasn’t why it was my best day. And for some reason, I wanted to tell Lucy about it. All of it. “I think the real reason it was the best was because it… I… That was the first time I remember feeling like this was home.”

She was quiet, but I didn’t give in to the pull to turn back toward her bed.

“I’d been there for a couple of years by then, but two months before it had been decided that I was staying permanently. Dad was out of jail… and he didn’t want me back.”

She made a sound that was pure disgust. “I don’t like your dad much.”

“Me neither.” My chest swelled with the appreciation of her disdain on my behalf. “But until that day, I didn’t ever feel like I could settle down. That day… on my birthday… something changed. I showed my friends around like it was my home, not my grandparents’.”

“I’m so glad you had people there for you… But I’m sorry it was so hard for so long.”

I shrugged, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “It’s okay. Life happens. You’ve talked about your mom a bit… but what about your dad? What happened there?”

She made a noncommittal noise, then yawned again. I let myself turn back and watch her shadowy figure.

“I don’t really know, to be honest. I remember they fought more before it happened—the divorce. But I’m not sure what the deciding factor was, if there was one. Too often, I think people just stop seeing the good in the other person and the stuff they could improve in themselves. Relationships don’t work after that. But my parents did a good job shielding me from it, at least. Mom, because she let me be a kid and didn’t rag on my dad; and Dad, because he just stopped talking to me.”

“Ouch. That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. I could defend him and say it was new territory for him too, and he married a woman who wanted to build her own family… but at the end of the day, he was my dad, and he should have tried harder.”

“Yeah, he should have. I’m sorry, Luce.”

She yawned, and it was contagious. “Enough questions from you, we need sleep.”

“Would you rather sleep now or give that karaoke plan a go?”

Lucy laughed, but it was cut off by another yawn.

“Okay, okay,” I said, making myself roll over and face the wall. “Goodnight. We can do karaoke tomorrow.”

Another small laugh, this time slower, more sleepy. “’Night, Finn.”

Chapter 15

Lucy of Green Gables

Lucy

ThesightoftheGreen Gables house made the whole trip worth it. Straight from the pages of my imagination, just past the red barn, there it was. With the white exterior beautifully maintained, trees swaying in the light breeze, and the most charming green shutters adorning each window.

I think I sighed with ecstasy. It was perfect. And a little surprising that it so perfectly lived up to my expectations—exactly as I’d imagined.

I went ahead of everyone, partly because I couldn’t wait to get inside and partly to avoid Finn. He’d been polite, charming, and not overly flirtatious all morning as we danced around one another, getting ready and heading to breakfast, but that look in his eyes was getting to me. It was like every time he looked at me, he was taking me in. All of me. And he liked what he saw.

Even now, I was ninety-seven percent sure I was blushing.

I slowed on the packed dirt path after walking through the barn-turned-mini visitor’s center. A weathered, but still white, picket fence spilling over with large bushes of pink flowers surrounded the house, and the glass on the windows glinted in the bright sunlight. The breeze seemed to carry a hint of nostalgia from my past, and it was as if… well, as if my soul was sighing with content. Is this how Anne had felt when she first arrived at Green Gables?

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