Best Kind of Broken

49 Pixie

The kitchen screen door squeaks as I take out the last trash bag of the day. Mable left early, so I’ve been on my own for the past few hours, which is just as well. I haven’t been much of a conversationalist today.

Partly because it’s Charity’s birthday and I wanted to indulge in a private stroll down memory lane in my head. But mostly because I made my decision about NYU this morning and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.

I spent the past year struggling with my college plans because planning seemed pointless. Why bother plotting out the future when everything about life can change in an instant?

But life is going to happen to me no matter what. Not planning won’t keep the future from coming. So I may as well try—or better yet, hope—for something my heart wants.

So I have a plan now. And it scares the crap out of me. But it also makes me feel alive.

I hear tires on gravel at the front of the inn and then a door slam. Levi’s truck. I’d know the sound of his truck anywhere.

I throw the trash bag into the Dumpster just as he rounds the corner, looking worn-out and sweaty, but in that good kind of way. The way that feels liberating and strong and helps you sleep soundly at night.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say back, noticing he’s got a football tucked under his arm. “Where’ve you been?”

“Uh, practice.”

I lift my brows. “Football practice?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Wow. Good. Okay. Good.” I sound dumbfounded. I am.

He laughs. “I was surprised too. Zack kind of roped me into it.”

“Good for him.” I hold my hands out and he tosses me the ball. “Whoa,” I say, catching it and turning it in my palms. “I haven’t held one of these babies in a long time.”

“Do you feel powerful?”

“Like a god. Go long.”

He blinks at me and smiles. “Go long?”

“Yeah. Go. Long.” I wind my arm up to throw and wait for him to back up.

He shrugs and takes like four steps backward.

“Seriously?” I say. “Don’t insult me.”

He lifts his hands in apology and takes a few more steps back. “Far be it from me to insult a god.”

“Keep going.” I wave him farther and farther away until we’re standing a decent distance apart in the lavender field. Then I throw a perfect arc to him.

“Damn, girl.” He catches the ball with a smile. “Who taught you how to throw?”

I shrug. “Some hotshot quarterback I knew in high school.”

He throws the ball back to me. “He sounds wildly talented—and extremely good-looking.”

“Meh.” I catch the ball. “He was okay. He was a decent ballplayer but an awful artist. The boy couldn’t draw a stick figure to save his life.” I grin and throw the ball back.

He catches it with one hand. “Stick figures are overrated.”

“So are quarterbacks.”

He shakes his head with a smile and sends it flying back to me. I catch it.

“Charity’s birthday is today,” he says.

I wasn’t sure if either of us was going to bring that fact up. But now that it’s here, out in the open, it’s… nice. It doesn’t feel sorrowful. Just true.

I throw the ball back to him. “I know. She would be turning twenty.”

He catches it. “Yep. And probably be getting herself arrested.”

He throws it back. I catch. “Or thrown out of a bar.”

I throw. He catches. “Or running away to Vegas to get married.”

Throw. Catch. “Or all of the above.”

He laughs. “Yeah, probably all of the above.”

We stand there, two thousand lavender flowers between us in the setting sun, smiling at the memory of our favorite person, and it doesn’t hurt. Not at all.

“Hey, Pix?” Levi holds the ball still and looks at me. “I’ve missed you.”

I smile. “I’ve missed you too, Leaves.”