Page 29 of Wish You Were Her

Jonah felt his arms slowly wrap around Allegra.

His chin fit perfectly atop her head. The rain came down around them and he felt all of the noise stop.

The sound that had always buzzed in his head, made worse by an unquiet world, suddenly turned to stillness.

As a child, he had always loved stories: That was what had led him to bookshops, his hunger for stories and his need for patterns and order within the chaos of a neurotypical world.

The stories always spoke of true love. Of Gods and gathered flowers, of princes on horses and lonely men in large houses with no room big enough to hold a broken heart.

To him, it had always seemed as far away as stories of dragons and wolves who could speak.

Now, as he linked his hands together, he felt as though he were holding the whole world. The stories made sense.

Color showed up in the world in ways it never had before.

“You don’t need to like me back,” he told her as he held her. “It’s okay. But I don’t think I’ll ever stop liking you. So, maybe… maybe if it’s you and him, I shouldn’t be around you both anymore.”

“Shut up, Jonah.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Jonah, I don’t like Simon. He kissed me , I didn’t want him to.”

He felt himself scowl. “Then I’ll kill him.”

He felt her laugh against his lungs. Lungs she had robbed of breath from the first moment he saw her.

“I shouldn’t even have come out with him tonight,” she said. “I saw you talking to Kerrie, and I felt jealous. I’m so stupid.”

“Not stupid.”

“And lonely. I’m so fucking lonely.”

Jonah looked up at the stars that were always brighter in Lake Pristine than anywhere else he had ever been. Stars that couldn’t be seen in the hellish smoke of the city, where everything was too much and all at once.

Allegra was just lonely. In Lake Pristine for a season and then gone like the fine weather. She wasn’t staying. She just needed a new palate for a while.

He could be that for her.

“Come home with me,” he said against her hair. “Please.”

He knew she was going to say “yes” by the way she looked up at him, but before the word could come out, a strangled, excitable scream made both of them jump. They turned like two spooked animals to see Saffron Billingham and her older sister, Rebecca, staring at them in visible glee.

“This is too cute,” Saffron cried, her smartphone out and filming the two of them like they were two exotic flowers or a stag in the mist. As if they were something far more interesting than just two teenagers in the street with their arms around each other.

“Please don’t film me,” Allegra said softly, and Jonah knew it was a plea she had made so many times before.

More people were gathering, most of them people Jonah did not recognize—out-of-towners who had come to see Pamela.

Jonah felt a stab of fear as he looked into some of their faces.

He was invisible to them, as they stared at Allegra, ravenous.

It completely terrified him, especially as they started to edge closer.

He tightened his arms around Allegra. “Back off her.” They ignored him.

They progressed with terrifying intensity and Jonah saw the world, in a flash, through Allegra’s eyes.

People’s individual natures, the parts that made them whole and loveable, gone in an instant as they formed into a mob.

Their faces all looked the same. “I said back the fuck away from her!”

He pulled Allegra with him as he started walking toward home, and she followed him, gripping his hand tightly.

The crowd, however, moved after them like an amoeba.

Jonah wondered if they would follow him all the way up to his apartment, when a jeep suddenly lurched into his eyeline, pulling to a stop before the two of them.

“Get in!”

Jasper Montgomery, Lake Pristine’s twenty-three-year-old golden girl, was a sight for sore eyes.

Allegra seemed hesitant but after noticing Arthur Lancaster in the passenger seat, and Grace in the back, she piled into the beat-up old car without a second thought.

Jonah followed suit and, as he pulled the door shut behind them, the car tore off into the woodland surrounding Lake Pristine, leaving the unforgiving mob behind in the dust.

“Hoo, this is the getaway car!” cried the beautiful girl in the driver’s seat.

Allegra stared at the back of her head, feeling dazed. She had to be Arthur’s girlfriend, the one Grace always spoke about with such reverence. Arthur, the cinema manager, sat in the passenger seat and he watched Jasper with a look that made Allegra feel like giving them some privacy.

“You okay, sweets?” Jasper asked, throwing a quick look to Allegra through the rear-view mirror.

“Fine,” Allegra said, smiling gratefully at the stranger. “But thanks. That’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it can get a bit ugly when you’ve nowhere to go.”

“Not many places to escape to in this damn town,” Arthur muttered darkly.

Jasper flashed him a look. “I know a place.”

Allegra glanced away. The looks the two of them shared felt so intimate that it smarted. They were poking a wound that Allegra was not prepared to bandage up just yet. She turned to give Grace a sideways hug.

“Thanks for the rescue,” she said, to everyone in the car.

“We should have prepped for this,” Jonah said, sounding frustrated. “We should have known the fans would stay in town.”

“You didn’t think Pamela would even come,” Grace pointed out, leaning across Allegra to glare at Jonah.

“No,” Jonah admitted. “But… it wasn’t a lack of faith in you, Allegra.”

“No, just past experience with temperamental authors?” She turned to smile at him as she asked the question. He slowly smiled back and they stared at one another for a moment, his eyes dropping to her mouth. They were incredibly close, side by side in the backseat.

“Anyway,” Arthur Lancaster’s deep voice interrupted the moment. “We’ll drop you back home after they get bored, Allegra. And we’re not going far.”

“Jasper, isn’t this the ditch you crashed this car into?” Grace asked cheerfully.

“Gracie!” cried Jasper. “You’ll have them thinking I’m a dangerous driver.”

“I feel like I’m meeting a local legend,” Allegra said.

“You are,” Arthur, Grace and Jonah said all at once.

“No, you’re not.” Jasper batted the compliment away while checking her mirrors. “I’m mostly a chauffeur, these days. Driving her highness in the back to all of her auditions and callbacks.”

Allegra glanced at Grace, who was beaming.

The car was moving very smoothly now. Allegra watched Arthur’s hand slip across and grasp Jasper’s, the one that was not gripping the steering wheel.

Their fingers interlocked. She knew they were long-time residents of Lake Pristine and she wondered how many drives they had taken together, with their hands laced together just so.

Jasper pulled up next to the large house by the actual Lake Pristine.

It still looked like a sleepy little mansion from a holiday card.

It sat alone by the glassy lake, making it seem like a fortress and a haven all in one.

Jasper ushered everyone inside, after checking that they hadn’t been followed.

She grinned at Allegra and said, “Any trespassers show up, I’ll set my old cat on them. ”

Allegra chuffed out a small laugh and followed her inside.

“No offense, Jasper, but this house looks a lot nicer than the last time I visited,” Jonah said bluntly.

“You’ve been here before?” Allegra asked. She realized everyone knew one another in Lake Pristine, but the Montgomery house always seemed so separate and intimidating.

“Yep. For the annual Montgomery Christmas Party.”

“I redecorated it all for Dad’s birthday,” Jasper said. “They’re in Florida right now, but I’ll pass on your compliments.”

“You’re a decorator?” Allegra turned to Jasper again.

“She’s a designer,” Arthur said firmly, the pride in his voice unmistakable.

Jasper invited everyone into the large, glossy kitchen and she poured some ice-cold water.

Grace was immediately very at home, fetching a tin of tiny cakes to pass around.

Allegra and Jonah stood beside one another by the breakfast bar and his fingers brushed against hers, out of everyone else’s view.

“Did you grow up here?” Allegra asked Jasper, staring up at the high ceiling.

“Yes,” Jasper said, as she switched on a kettle.

“It’s unbelievable.”

“Thanks. I think so, too.”

“Do you still live here?”

Jasper smiled. “No. I live with this one now.”

She jerked her head toward Arthur, whose serious face softened for a moment.

“I’m going to build her a house on the other side of the water,” he said quietly, brushing his lips across her knuckles.

Jonah wandered into the small den area while Grace excitedly spoke to Jasper about another dance callback for the conservatory she wanted to go to.

Allegra followed him and they sat, a little away from the rest of the group, on one of the sofas, staring out of the ceiling-to-floor windows that looked out over the whole lake.

“You don’t want to go to university when the summer is over?”

Jonah glanced at her, shrugging. “No.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I don’t do very well in educational environments. I always argue with teachers.”

“I think at uni, you’re meant to kind of argue with the teachers.”

“No, everyone hates that guy.”

Allegra laughed. “What do you mean?”

“The ‘this is more of a comment than a question’ guy. The guy who challenges the person with a PhD and tenure. The guy who just wants to have his voice heard.”

Allegra arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying going to uni will turn you into that guy?”

He smiled and she marveled at his dimples. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Don’t want to risk it.”

“How long have you been at Brooks Books?”

“Started helping out when I was fourteen. Employed officially at sixteen. I wore your dad down.”

“Are you two close?”

Something appeared in Jonah’s eyes for a moment but it was gone in an instant. “I thought we were.”

“You did?”