Page 101 of Secondhand Smoke
That, in itself, made it the best memory she’d had in a long, long time.
Barrett sat back and took her with him, his arm around her once again and her head leaning against his shoulder as they stared at the stars like they were telling a story of their own.
They sat in silence for a while.
Nell closed her eyes and inhaled. It was hard to completely forget that she was in a car. It smelled like one, it moved like one, and it felt like one. In two days, she would be in this very van for over an hour.
But, for the first time, that felt possible. As long as Barrett was there.
Barrett was partially right—creating new, good memories in a car helped—but what he didn’t realize was that he was her good memory.
It would have to be him or nothing at all.
“What do you miss most about them?”
Nell’s eyes snapped open. Her calm, deep breaths shuddered then quickened. “What?”
She’d come here to forget. Not remember something like that.
Barrett pulled back to look at her, caution guarding his face. “I know how it sounds but . . . it’s the bad things that are hurting you. So, for tonight, let’s just talk about the good ones.”
A part of her wanted to pull away from him, tell him no and that they should leave.
Yet she couldn’t.
She opened her mouth to say no and found herself telling stories.
“Minnie never said goodbye without saying I love you,” Nell said. “Her mom taught her young that you never know when you might never see someone again, so even if you’re upset, you make sure they know you love them. We once had this huge fight—I can’t even remember what about—but she was leaving my house, and right before she stormed out and slammed the door, she paused just to scream ‘I love you’ to me.” Nell leaned into Barrett’s shoulder and laughed. “It was absurd, but I never doubted her.”
She paused, waiting for Barrett to say something, but he didn’t. He fixated on her, a small smile on his face, and nodded her on to continue. His hand brushed softly up and down her arm in encouragement.
“Sam had this bucket list. It had everything she wanted to do before she . . . died. We helped her with some of them. She wanted to go skinny-dipping, so we snuck out to the lake in the middle of the night and got that done for her. But what she really wanted was to travel. She had a million places on that list, and she swore up and down that she was going to make it to all of them once she graduated and had the money. But before that, she painted them. I watched her take these simple descriptions of places and turn them into the most incredible landscapes. I used to tell her that she could probably make enough money selling her art to travel to all the places she wanted.”
Nell shifted so her head came down and rested on Barrett’s lap. He stretched out his legs, and once she was down, his fingers ran from her arm to her hair and played with the strands.
“And KC . . .” Nell’s heart twisted. “Well, you already know. She was my first love. She was . . . everything everyone told her she couldn’t be. She took people’s insults and turned them into her strengths. Nothing ever held her back, and nothing ever would. I knew, pretty much from the moment I met her when I was young, that she was one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.”
Nell looked up and met Barrett’s eyes. They were soft, gentle. Loving. Not judging or resentful. She felt she could say anything she wanted, and that expression would never leave his face. Without meaning to, she kept going.
“I steal things. Or I used to. The things that reminded me of them. As soon as I saw it, I had to have it. It was this obsession, this addiction, to have something that they might have had if they were still here. It was like finding pieces of theirfuture selves, and I guess by having it, I was keeping them here. And I was keeping myself human. I-I’m not like them. I’m not thoughtful, or talented, or extraordinary. Iwasthem. Without them, I became . . . nothing.”
Barrett’s hand stopped kneading in her hair, and his eyes darkened.
Dammit. She knew she’d said too much.
She opened her mouth to apologize, but he cut her off.
“The first time I ever saw you, you were picking up trash in the school hallway.”
Nell blinked. “What?”
“Some kids had thrown a bunch of crap on the ground, as the janitor passed by them, and walked away laughing. No one else really cared. Butyou. . . you stopped, put your books on the ground, and picked every single piece up. Everyone knew who you were: Pastor Duncan’s daughter. A freshman, but no one would mess with you. I was right by you, and I heard you tell Sam that it wasn’t fair to the janitor for them to do that to him.”
Nell recalled that briefly, not in much detail. It couldn’t have been far into her freshman year. A month or so. Not nearly that memorable. “That was—”
“Sophomore year. Margot Schneider was running for class president. We all knew she wasn’t going to win. Everyone thought she was weird. Most of her campaign posters got torn down one day. I saw you after school a few days later, gluing up brand-new handmade posters to replace the old ones. Posters thatyouhad made.”
That memory was clearer. She’d seen Margot crying in the bathroom that day and felt awful for her. Margot was nice. She’d helped Nell plenty of times in class, and she would have made a great class president. She’d just been trying to help.
