Chapter 26: : Part 2 – Chapter 26

June, age 18

My heart feels scorched and tangled as the door shuts behind me, and I lean back against it, cool metal pressing into flushed skin.

Flushed from the sun.

Flushed from the look in his eyes.

Flushed from the memory of our kiss that still tingles my lips, regardless of how much I try to pretend it never happened.

I told him it was a dare, and it was. It started as an innocent dare.

But we both know it became so much more.

It grew wings.

And the only way to prevent wings from soaring, from flying too high to where danger is imminent, is to clip them.

“June Lampoon, my darling daughter,” Dad says, stepping out of the kitchen with paint-smudged overalls and sawdust in his salt and pepper hair. “Want to help your old man with these cabinets?”

I straighten from the door, tossing my hat to the foyer and slipping out of my flip-flops. “You’re running out of decent rhymes, Dad.” A forced smile pushes through the tears, despite my grievance that my father told Brant about my struggles. I can’t blame him for being concerned.

I can’t blame him for anything right now.

“Nonsense,” he says, scratching at his stubble and leaving a smear of white paint behind. “I have a whole arsenal of them, waiting for their remarkable debut.”

“You have them all documented in a spreadsheet on the laptop, don’t you?”

He winks. “Nope. They’re hidden away with my trove of amazing animal-themed slippers that I’m dying to showcase.”

My smile turns genuine for the first time in two months.

Two months.

The last time a real, sincere smile graced my lips was at Prom when I caught Brant’s eye from across the ballroom, sent him a small wave, and smiled at him with my whole heart.

Then everything fell to pieces, starting with a kiss and ending with a funeral.

Dad smiles back at me, his silly grin softening with a trace of sadness; almost as if he just remembered Theo was gone, and that smiles weren’t something we did anymore.

I jolt in place when my cell phone rings from the elastic band of my shorts. Shooting Dad an apologetic glance, I snatch it from my hip and trudge my way up the staircase to my bedroom. It’s Celeste trying to video call me.

I decline it.

Celeste is leaving for New York this week to live with her aunt, eager to jumpstart her dancing career. She wants to be a backup dancer for performers and musicians.

My own legs tickle with the urge to tap and twirl, but I dismiss the sensation.

I’m not sure I want to dance anymore. To dance is to flourish, to release, to thrive—and I’m not that girl anymore. I’m just a poor imitation of her; a gloomy shadow.

I rely on an inhaler and a man I crossed a deadly line with just to breathe. Without either of those things, I would wither away into nothing.

Collapsing onto my unmade bed, I reach for Aggie and pull him to my chest. Tears begin to sprout when the silence settles in, my smile long gone.

I think of Theo. I think of how he’d react to the knowledge that I kissed our beloved brother—and I didn’t just kiss him with innocent lips, I kissed him with clenched thighs, wicked thoughts, and a blazing fire smoldering low in my belly.

Then, I almost kissed him again; last month, before he moved out. I crawled into his bed, vulnerable and desperate for comfort. Any kind of comfort.

My heart raced with turmoil.

My hands roamed with recklessness.

My core ached with… something.

And when he grabbed my hair, pulled my mouth a centimeter from his, and demanded why I’d kissed him, I froze up.

A different need took over—a need to replace the gaping hole in my heart.

I’d already lost Theo. If I kissed Brant again, there would be no going back, no stopping the runaway train, and no pretending there wasn’t a terrible, forbidden spark crackling between us.

I’d lose him, too.

I’d have no brothers left.

My eyes dart around the cluttered bedroom as I suck in a shaky breath, landing on the canvas painting framed along the wall above my dresser. Theo picked it out for me at a flea market two years ago when he went furniture shopping with Brant and Veronica. It’s an abstract painting of a bluebird with rainbow wings taking flight toward a sky made of funny looking clouds.

He said it reminded him of me.

A soaring bluebird, destined for great heights.

Theo told me on the patio before I left for Prom on that godawful night, that he’d be cheering me on, all the way to the top.

But he’s not here. I’ve lost one of my stalwart defenders, and I’ve pushed away the other with a kiss that never should have happened.

A kiss that grew wings.

My cell phone vibrates on the mattress beside me as I slide beneath my comforter and reach for the phone, expecting to see an aggravated text from Celeste. She’s been trying to convince me to join her in New York, to move in with her and her aunt and pursue our dreams together.

Only, my dreams died the day Theo died.

And if I leave Brant behind, far more than just my dreams will die, too.

Swiping open the notification, my belly flutters when a different name flashes on the screen. It’s a message from Brant.

My mouth goes dry.

Brant: I know you’re not okay. I know you were lying, and I know that because I know you better than anyone else in this world. You wear your heart in your eyes, Junebug, and I can see that your heart is torn apart. Mine is, too. Over Theo, over abandoning you, and over what happened between us at the dance. It may have started with a dare, but that’s not where it ended. We both know that, we were both responsible for letting it escalate, and we’ve both thought about doing it again.

A breath catches in my throat as another message comes through.

Brant: I know that scares you. I know you’re afraid and confused, but you don’t have to be. We’re not going to do it again. I’m not going to risk losing the most important thing in my life over a moment of weakness. An indiscretion that, right now, can be filed away as a lapse in judgment. It was just a blip. We’re still the same people. I’m still Brant, and you’re still June.

Tears trickle down my cheeks, recalling the night I said those very words to him as I crawled into his bed, desperate for him to chase my nightmares away.

Brant: I’m still that same boy who loves you with everything he is, who wants to be your comfort and your courage, and who would use his dying breaths to sing you your favorite lullaby. That kiss meant something, but it wasn’t everything. We’re going to move past it. We’re going to be bigger than it. We have to be… because we’ve already lost too much.

Three last words pop up, and I break down.

Brant: I love you.

Falling sideways onto my bed, I pull the covers up to my chin and squeeze Aggie tight, my heart seizing with both relief and fear.

Relief because we’re going to forget about it.

Fear because I’m not sure we can.

I stare at the bluebird on my wall with blurry eyes, thinking about that kiss, thinking about the wings it grew and how I tried to clip them.

Realizing and knowing that they may not rise…

They may not soar…

But clipped wings can still fly.