Michael’s eyes widened with guilt. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t…”

“Don’t mind Calvin, he’s a liar. I’m actually banging his sister.” I smirked, watching Calvin grimace as he shoved me away from him, forcing me to hop down.

He jumped down, too. “If I ever hear words about my sister being banged again from you, there’s a good chance you won’t be alive shortly after.”

“Touché.” I would’ve been lying if I said I didn’t like getting under his skin like that. He hated all conversations that included talk of his sister being kissed by me—so banging was really crossing the line. That’s why I always made them.

Every time Brooks delivered a book back to me, I raced through it to see his added tabs with his notes and thoughts included. We started doing this regularly, and each time a book returned to my bookshelf with more Post-its than before, I felt as if Brooks was becoming more and more a part of my world. He must’ve felt the same every time I played a chord right. I had recently played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” using one finger at a time to strum, and he’d just about cried with excitement.

After being with him, my idea of what love was changed.

I’d fallen in love with hundreds of different men from hundreds of different books. I had thought I knew what love looked like based on the words within those pages. Love was togetherness, strength, and something worth living for.

What I didn’t expect were the fears true love brought with it. The fear that I’d never be enough for him. The fear that he’d find another. The fear that sometimes love was worth dying for. The fear that love wasn’t always enough. Loving someone meant being vulnerable to the chance that someday they might leave, and all I ever wanted was for Brooks to stay.

I tapped him gently on the shoulder, and he stirred from his sleep. Sleeping? I wrote once he seemed awake enough to read.

“Sleeping,” he replied with a tiny smirk. “Overthinking?”

He knew me so well. My lips brushed against his ear before I moved to kiss his neck.

Do you promise me the same type of love I’ve read about in my books?

He shook his head, yawning. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer as I became engulfed by his warmth. “No, Maggie May. I promise you so much more.”

“You’re actually drinking your tea,” Mrs. Boone said, flabbergasted on a Monday afternoon at lunchtime. “You never drink your tea.”

What could I say? Love makes us do ridiculous things.

“It’s that boy, isn’t it?” she asked with an arched eyebrow. “Is he the reason you’ve been acting like a giddy schoolgirl each time I come to visit?”

I kept sipping my tea.

She smirked knowingly and continued eating her sandwich.

“Oh my gosh! I know what I want to do with my life!” Cheryl hollered, running into the dining room and jumping up and down with her hands waving wildly while holding a book. “I know what I want to be after I graduate school next year!”

“Well, out with it,” Mrs. Boone ordered.

Cheryl paused her erratic movements and stood up straight, holding her novel to her chest. “I want to be an activist.”

Mrs. Boone and I raised our eyebrows in wonderment, waiting for Cheryl to finish her sentence. “An activist of…?” Mrs. Boone asked.

Cheryl blinked once. “What do you mean?”

“You have to be an activist of something. Environmental issues, or politics, human rights, or perhaps animal cruelty. Anything. You can’t just be an activist.”

Cheryl poked out her bottom lip. “Seriously? I can’t just be an activist?”

We shook our heads. “Well, fuck—err—I mean frick. Sorry Mrs. Boone. I guess I’ll go try to find out what kind of activist I want to be. Ugh. It just sounds like more work than I wanted to do, though.” She glided from the room significantly less enthusiastic than when she’d entered, making both Mrs. Boone and me laugh.

“I swear, your parents must’ve fed you kids stupidity for breakfast each day. It blows my mind how idiotic you all are.” She picked up her sandwich and was a second away from biting into it when she said, “Wait, was Cheryl holding a book?”

I nodded.

She dropped her sandwich, shaking her head back and forth. “I knew the end of the world was coming. I just didn’t know it would be so soon.”

I giggled to myself and kept drinking my tea.

It didn’t taste so bad that afternoon.

“You’re not listening to me, Eric, I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” Mama said to Daddy later that night as he paced the living room. She held a glass of wine in her hand and sipped at it while speaking to him. I sat at the top of the stairs with Cheryl beside me. “Maggie dating Brooks might not be the best thing for anyone. Loren said—”

Daddy snickered sarcastically. “‘Loren said’. Jesus, of course. You know, for a second I believed they didn’t get to you when they came to visit, but it seems I was wrong. I should’ve known this had something to do with those women.”

“Those women are my friends.”

“Those women couldn’t care less about you, Katie. You think they come here to hang out with you because they care? They come here to mock you, to tell you to think about moving, knowing you can’t. To see how your life is so fucking depressing compared to their perfect lives, which is fine, but when they sit all night talking about our daughter—”

“They meant no harm. They were giving me information on how to help her.”

“They were belittling her!” he shouted. Cheryl and I both jumped out of fright. Daddy never shouted. I’d never seen his face so red in my life. “They were belittling her, insulting her as if she were deaf and couldn’t hear them. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you let those women into our house to gossip about your own daughter, or the fact you that you stood up for Maggie just to take it back a few days later. You’re sitting here worrying about her having a boyfriend when she’s the happiest I’ve seen her in years. You’d see it too if you actually looked at her.”

“I look at her.”

“You look, but you don’t see, Katie, and then you invite those trolls to our house, and they talk about Maggie as if she’s nothing.”