Page 6 of Distant Shores (Stapled Magnolias #2)

ADAIR

“ I can’t believe you’re getting out of the car looking like that.”

Delly’s gaze swept over me from where she stood outside my open door, and she scrunched her nose when she got to my face, which was pretty rude, but I tried to not take offense.

“And with your hair just….” She waved her hand at me and presumably my hair, which, admittedly, was longer than it’d ever been. “And the baby beard?”

I smiled broadly at my little sister as I got out of the driver’s side, then waved my tightly wrapped foot at her, gritting my teeth against the throbbing pain.

It shouldn’t be hurting anymore. Not so many weeks later. But nothing was going to stop me from spending time with Delly today, and I felt confident enough driving.

“That’s it, Delly?” I asked, glad my voice came out normal. “I need a haircut, a shave, and a more masculine bandage wrap with, what? Skulls and flames? Maybe you can bedazzle it for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t call me ‘Delly’ in front of my classmates. I’m ‘Adeline’ here. And it was a phase . ”

“One of many,” I said with a smile, pushing my hair out of my face.

She didn’t return it, though. Her gaze zeroed in on the fresh scar that was usually hidden by my hair. “Don’t ever go hiking again, Addy. Promise me right now.”

I turned from her to open the back door and grab my crutch from the back seat, shielding what was for sure a guilty expression. Once I got it under my arm, I hobbled over to my sister, crushing her into a hug. Despite her squeak of protest, she hugged me back tightly.

“I’m okay. Everything’s okay,” I said to the top of her head, which just barely reached my chin. Then I rubbed my new beard against her, making her shriek in protest and pull away.

“Gross!” She scrunched her nose again. “I’m glad you’re not allowed to have that for work. Let’s not make it permanent.”

I snorted at her and gestured to the huge dorm building. “Let’s go get your things, sassy pants.”

She’d gotten a full ride scholarship to one of the best universities in Georgia, and was kicking ass in her pre-med program.

This was where she’d been when Pops called her after the accident.

When I’d woken from the anesthesia, the first words out of her mouth—through tears she’d tried her best to hide—were a thanks for coordinating my near-death experience so close to her school’s spring break.

I pulled my shirt away from my body, shaking off the memory and poked her with the crutch. “Let’s go.”

Delly used her student ID to buzz us into the building she’d called home over the past three years—a perk of graduating high school early and starting college at sixteen.

We passed several groups of girls as we made our way down the hall.

I vaguely recognized a few from previous visits, and a pair even came over and asked about my foot, which Delly apparently did not appreciate, if her dramatic sigh was anything to go by.

“I am so tired of dealing with that when you’re here.” She huffed as she unlocked her dorm and kept the door open wide for me. “I’ll be glad to finally be in off-campus housing in August.”

I frowned at her as I stepped inside. “People? I’m pretty sure you’ll see them whether I’m here or not.”

“No, you moron.”

I looked around to see if there was anything obvious she was lacking even though she’d be out of here for the summer in a week.

Delly hated any insinuation that she couldn’t care for herself, but she didn’t protest too hard when I had supplies delivered for her.

We might be more than a touch co-dependent because of our upbringing—or lack of—but her slight independent streak burned with the fury of a thousand suns.

“Wait,” I said, registering her words as I swiveled toward her on my good foot. “Not only am I drab, but I’m also a moron?” I frowned at her and slumped my shoulders dramatically. “This is really a tough day for me, isn’t it?”

“Tough life,” Delly countered. “You’re clueless, you know that?”

I shrugged. “I suppose I wouldn’t know, since that’s the definition.”

Her lips twitched before she walked to the mirror mounted on the wall and started fussing with her ponytail. “So…,” she asked casually, “heard from Sophie?”

“Weird question.” She hadn’t even crossed my mind until now. “But no.”

“Hmph.” She grabbed two sections of her hair and pulled them away from each other, tightening her ponytail.

“Why do you ask? ”

Delly eyed me for a long moment, abandoning her mindless primping. “Because, my dear brother… Sophie sucks. And I just wanted confirmation of that. And to subtly point it out as a reminder for your future self.” She shrugged. “Just in case.”

I raised my eyebrows and circled my crutch at her in a “go on” gesture.

“Such a dork,” she muttered, but smiled. “My sweet, sweet brother. You fell down a mountain, and she didn’t even visit you in the hospital. And I’d know if she had, seeing as I was there until you were discharged.”

“I did not fall down a mountain,” I said, clinging to what truth I could. “That’s an extreme exaggeration.”

“You had a concussion,” she shot back, “and fucked your ankle.”

“Meh.”

I didn’t need to linger on it. I was still dealing with it every moment of every day—and some nights, too, thanks to the anxiety-induced nightmares. “It was a ravine. A creek bed, even. A small one. Not a mountain. And… actually, you know what? She did text me. Once.”

Delly pressed her lips together, forming an unimpressed line. “Because she wanted something, didn’t she? I told you she was a user from the start.” She glanced over her shoulder at me, a sad look on her face. “Users love you.”

I kept my mouth shut as she stared me down, because, well…

Yeah. It had sucked that the person I’d been casually seeing didn’t care to come to the hospital, but at the same time… I hadn’t missed her either.

“Whatever. I know I’m right,” she said, reaching down to grab a sparkling water from her mini fridge .

I leaned on my crutch to see how many she had in there, but she slammed the door shut before I could.

“Either way,” she said, then paused to take a long sip. “It shows how shitty she is, and now we can move on from her. Right?”

Delly had never even met Sophie, and I hadn’t cared to introduce them yet, which was the biggest red flag, really.

But at the same time… it was easy to remember the intense loneliness during those long nights in the hospital.

When visiting hours were over, and Pops and Delly went back to the cabin, and the nurses finally kicked my best friend Cole out of my room.

When I’d stared at the ceiling and wished for someone—not Sophie specifically—but someone to talk to when I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Pops’s vacant eyes before I fell or the flashes of morphine-induced hallucinations from those first couple days in the hospital.

Or even just… someone to hold my hand through them.

“Sure,” I said belatedly when my sister eyed me expectantly. Judging by how little I’d thought of Sophie, I had apparently already moved on.

Delly nodded, satisfied with whatever she saw in my expression, then returned her water to the fridge. “I’ll walk you out. And for the love of God, don’t loiter and bait my classmates.”

I frowned, racking my brain for what I did during past visits to make her say such a thing, but I came up blank.

But then her arms were around my neck again, pulling me into a fierce hug.

“I have no idea what you mean by that,” I said into her hair.

“I know,” she said, patting my back in a way that was definitely patronizing. “Thanks for taking me to lunch. I needed to get out. ”

Once I was back in my old Jeep, I sat in the parking lot for long enough to look suspicious. I hadn’t been back to Pops’s cabin since the accident.

At first, it was because of the cast and the painkillers. Then it was Pops blowing me off, making paper-thin excuses, and being generally cagey.

That ended today.

I threw my arm across the back of the passenger seat and looked behind me, but then I scowled.

My vision was hazy, my glasses smudged. I hated when they weren’t clean.

I grabbed a lens cloth out of the console and cleaned them off, thankful for the hundredth time that I’d had a spare pair. My others had apparently cracked when I’d smacked my head.

The haze from those memories was harder to clean off, but I put my glasses back on, and my clear vision snagged on the dashboard.

My ducks were in a row—literally.

The rubber duck thing that came with being a Jeep owner hadn’t been around when Pops helped me purchase this beauty from an aging local when I was seventeen.

Twelve years later, I’d slow burned myself into a cult.

Smiling at the little doctor duck that was Delly’s favorite, I pulled out of the parking lot and hit the road.

At the first glimpse of the North Georgia Mountains almost two hours later, the hairs on my arms stood on end.

I loved and hated this place. As much as those mountains had sheltered me, I’d also needed shelter here more than anywhere.

The accident hadn’t helped dissipate that horrible mix of dread and nostalgia.

When I passed the small gravel driveway that led to my childhood home, it tipped all the way toward dread, making my ankle throb and stomach knot.

Cringing, I drove right on past the rusted mailbox.

The last thing I ever needed was comments from my parents about literally anything. They were toxic to everything and everyone, including themselves.

I’d let the only phone call I’d received from either of them this year go to voicemail, and I’d glimpsed at the transcript just long enough to see that they’d been asking for money.

I hadn’t called them back.

Despite my extremely limited contact with them, I dropped by a few times per year to check around the old single-wide trailer to make sure there weren’t any major safety hazards being ignored, like broken windows or AC units.

Darryl and Crystal Jacks didn’t have a place in mine or Delly’s lives, but I didn’t wish them harm either.