The senior class Homecoming float took up almost all of Jocelyn Tremont’s driveway. The lights were on in the garage, with cardboard and newspaper spread out over the floor, cans of spray paint strewn everywhere. A group of Angela’s classmates were already there, busy moving pieces of furniture onto the float, which Jocelyn’s parents were helping secure to the surface. Music from a playlist carefully curated by Cassie spilled from the garage into the autumn air.
“Hey, Angela!” Jocelyn greeted her, all paint-splattered. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
“You know I’d never miss this,” Angela answered with her practiced smile. “It’s tradition. And it’s our senior year.”
“Don’t talk about that, it’s so sad,” Jocelyn said with a dramatic sigh. “But just another reason to keep up our winning streak. We can’t lose the float competition our last year.”
“Definitely not.”
“So there are snacks over there if you want some,” Jocelyn continued, pointing to a table against the back wall of the garage. “And we have a few extra T-shirts if you need one so you don’t ruin your clothes.”
“I’ve got one, thanks though.” Angela reached into her bag for her old Walcott T-shirt, pulled it over her blouse.
“Perfect. We actually don’t have too much to do today since we finished almost everything earlier this week. You have to see what Skyler’s doing, this is amazing.”
Skyler Gibbs was sitting by herself at a small table, surrounded by boxes of craft supplies. On the table she had sculpted Styrofoam into a plump, slightly lopsided layer cake, thick paint strokes textured like buttercream frosting, heavy with little red and white roses and hearts. Tiny fake macarons the color of peonies and buttercups tumbled down the sides, interspersed with brightly striped candies. Beside it, she’d constructed platters of tiny desserts and tea sandwiches, all fake sugary pastel.
“Wow,” said Angela. “These look great. Do you need any help?”
“Sure,” Skyler answered cheerfully. She moved a box off of the chair next to her. “Here, sit down. I’ve already made all of the designs so we just need to finish painting and decorating them. Don’t worry about making them look perfect.”
They worked in silence for a while. She and Skyler had never been close friends. She was one of those people who had been part of Angela’s larger social circle since middle school but had never made it into her and Cassie’s smaller group.
As she worked, Angela felt herself relaxing slowly. She dusted fake cookies with pink glitter instead of sugar, topped plastic pastries with pom-pom cherries and whipped cream constructed from fluffy cotton filling. She made a spun sugar sculpture from starry gold wire. She felt like she was part of this now, not like she was watching the world she was the center of from a distance and wondering why she wasn’t as happy as she was last year.
Angela belonged here, everyone knew that.
She took a break to wash the paint off her hands in the house, ducking into the bathroom off the kitchen and just managing to avoid Cooper Lyman, who was helping himself to a can of soda from the refrigerator. She’d dated Cooper for almost six months during freshman year and after she broke up with him, he’d spent weeks trying to convince Cassie to go out with him. That made her so angry looking back, like they were interchangeable.
Angela scrubbed her hands with lavender soap, washing away the drops of paint. Watched all the color swirling down the drain.
Cooper was standing in the doorway between the house and the garage when Angela left the bathroom. He was talking to Paige, who was looking up at him with her eyes wide, twirling a strand of her long, black hair.
“Look who’s here,” he said when he saw Angela, his tone mocking, fake-enthusiastic in a way that made her dislike him even more. “Help us settle a debate. I don’t think our float fits this year’s theme. Alice in Wonderland isn’t a fairy tale. Paige says it is. What do you think?”
Paige flashed her a knowing smile as if she expected Angela to side with her because they were friends. Because they were together in the exclusive Westview High School social circle that everyone else wanted to be part of.
You’re not my friend, Angela wanted to tell her. You were just in the right place at the right time.
“I guess it depends on how you define a fairy tale,” she said instead. “But maybe you should have had this debate before we built the float.”
She joined Skyler but as she picked up a paintbrush, the feeling of contentment was gone. It suddenly felt pointless to sit here making little details that no one was going to be able to see as the float made its way down sleepy streets that only awoke for this one day each year. She felt like she was trapped in a snow globe of color and sugar.
She and Skyler climbed on the float and set the table in the dark. The stars were bright above the treetops, the sky clear with a full moon staining the neighborhood silver.
“I think we’re done now,” Skyler called to their classmates, who had just finished cleaning up the garage.
Four autumns of painting little worlds onto platforms in Jocelyn’s driveway and this one was their best. A long table surrounded with mismatched chairs they’d painted vivid colors. Teacups and teapots with stripes and polka dots. Patterned paper lanterns suspended from vines and rainbow lights. Tall potted plants along the sides, fields of cardboard mushrooms and tangerine tissue paper flowers. There was an ornate clock with its numbers jumbled and crooked signposts pointing to destinations in every direction. Cake stands piled high with Styrofoam desserts.
“Wait!” said Cassie, helping them both down onto the driveway. “We have to sign it.”
On the side of the float was a sign that said Seniors in Wonderland. They all took turns signing, leaving little drawings and messages and their names in bold colors like they did every year.
When it was Angela’s turn, she dipped her brush into red paint and paused. Then she just wrote Angela in loopy letters, paint glistening on the almost-cursive, a little flourish at the end. Her name was already all over this town.
***
She woke up on the day of Homecoming and the gala to the sound of her mother knocking on her bedroom door, swinging it open before Angela had a chance to respond.
“I thought we could have breakfast together,” she said cheerfully.
Angela rubbed her eyes. After they finished the float last night, they’d all decided to celebrate by building a fire by the reservoir. She’d sat wrapped up in plaid blankets with Dillon and watched the water fill with reflections of flames and stars until her head was hazy with beer she didn’t even like. As the small hours swept over them, black and blue, it felt like the whole town was silent and sleeping except for their voices, their laughter in ripples across the reservoir.
Now morning sun was shining in through the thin curtains and she could still smell the fire and autumn night in her hair, lingering across her pillowcase. Soon Westview would be filled up with the sound of laughter and cheers and chatter.
She sat up.
“I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes,” she answered.
She pulled her hair back and scrubbed the mascara and eyeliner from her face. She looked at her phone and saw that Jocelyn and Cassie had both posted pictures of the group last night. So she did what she would have done last year. She left comments, little pink hearts on some of them. So excited for today! she texted the other girls on the senior court. She sent Dillon the same message, too.
Downstairs, the kitchen table looked picture-perfect with bowls of yogurt and berries and a plate of flaky croissants alongside a pitcher of orange juice and a little jar of strawberry jam. Her mother brought over a mug of coffee for herself and placed a mug of tea in front of Angela.
“This brings back so many memories of my senior Homecoming,” she said, sitting down and placing a spoonful of berries on her plate. “I’m so proud of you.”
Days like today were when Victoria Witney was in her element, days steeped in town tradition, when her perfect family and perfect life were on display. She was already dressed for the parade in a red dress and pearl earrings. On her wrist was a charm bracelet with a tiny silver W that every former Homecoming and Prom Queen in Westview had, a reminder even decades later that they were still part of an exclusive town tradition. She was energized and smiling, ready to mingle with their friends and neighbors.
Angela’s father was away for work, but if he was here, he’d be the same way. He always remembered the little details of people’s lives, their interests. He was an expert at small talk in a way that made people feel important.
Today, Angela had to be perfect. She could already feel the pressure building up inside her head like storm clouds.
“I think you should curl your hair,” her mother continued as Angela took some yogurt. She was looking at Angela as if she was really looking at herself in a mirror. “It frames your face better. And curls always look so nice on you in pictures.”
“You’re right,” Angela forced herself to say brightly.
“Did I ever show you pictures from my Homecoming?”
Before she could even answer, the pictures were there in front of her. A teenage girl who looked exactly like Angela, hair curled and lips red. On the football field with a crown on her head. In a simple black dress and the same crown with balloons and crepe paper taped to the wall in the background. The same group of people were in every picture, smiling like they had everything in the world.
“Who are they?”
“That’s Helen,” her mother said. Angela could see the resemblance between her and Rose, the same red hair, the same smile. “Trent Prescott, Laura Kent and your dad.”
“You never mentioned being friends with Trent Prescott.”
“It was a long time ago,” her mother said. “We haven’t kept in touch for years.” She held up another picture, two girls smiling on a staircase. “Alex and me.”
If Angela had seen it without any context, she might have thought it was a picture of her and Cassie she’d forgotten about. She smiled and took a picture of it on her phone to send to Cassie.
She looked back at one of the group pictures. She wondered what their lives had been like at that moment. Her parents, who hadn’t fallen in love yet. She wondered if Trent had known then that he’d leave, that the rest of them would stay here.
“Did you always want to stay here when you were in high school?” Angela asked.
“I always wanted to go to Walcott.”
The way she paused, just a second too long before the word wanted made Angela look up.
“Do you ever regret not leaving?”
“Of course not,” her mother answered. Her voice and expression didn’t waver but, for a second, Angela saw it. She saw beyond the pretty clothes and energy that infused the community’s lifeblood. And she saw all of the roots and anchors that kept her in place. Something there that said that once, maybe more than once, Victoria Witney wanted to leave.
“You should start getting ready now,” her mother added before Angela could say anything else.
Angela put on one of Cassie’s new playlists while she shaped her hair into long, loose curls. She changed into a black dress and heels she knew were going to sink into the softness of the football field. Smoothed poppy-bright lipstick on her mouth.
She looked perfect, just like she was supposed to. But she imagined the changes she’d make to her dress if she could. Rip out the scratch of lace at the neckline, make the skirt flare a little more dramatically so that if she twirled, it would spin around her body like a storm-spurred sea.
“Beautiful,” her mother said from the doorway.
Angela felt her heart sink. She turned her back on the girl in the mirror. Years ago, she’d figured out all the best ways to garner praise from her parents, from everyone in this town. She used to collect those words and hold them tight to her chest. But now, she wished that attention could be for something different. Not just for looking pretty or dating the right boy or following family traditions.
Wasn’t she more than that?
And yet, when she saw the small black box in her mother’s hand, she felt a glint of pride. A tiny, sickening sliver of validation.
Her mother was holding the box out now, her fingers warm against Angela’s. “This is for you.”
Inside, a set of diamond earrings shaped like teardrops. They’d been passed down by the women in her family for years, promised to Angela so many times growing up as she sat cross-legged on her mother’s bed, watching her get ready for parties.
“They’re gorgeous,” Angela said, sad and thrilled at once. “Thank you.”
Her mother smiled. “Put them on. You should leave soon so you aren’t late.”
She walked away and Angela hung the teardrops from her ears. In the mirror she could see all the little worlds of light they held inside of them, cities constructed of glitter and stardust.
She stood there for a moment and practiced smiling until she almost believed it, because her own little world was made up of Homecoming parades and the colors of New England fall mornings, fireflies blinking all the way home on late-night drives and fireworks glowing over the town square on the last day of the year. It was made up of pretty diamonds and summers surrounded by the bluest water and those things weren’t supposed to make you feel sad.
***
It was sunny out, and Main Street was closed off for the parade. The meeting point was already crowded when Angela arrived and something about it made her inexplicably nervous. Members of the marching band raced around in search of misplaced music and a group of freshman girls dressed as fairy-tale villains in dark green and glitter and black were posing for pictures atop their float.
Cassie and Adam were already there, greeting the rest of the court as they arrived, iced coffee in hand. They looked just as perfect together as Angela and Dillon were supposed to and she thought for a moment that the two of them should win even though she knew they wouldn’t.
“Is Dillon here yet?” Angela asked as Cassie took pictures with the sophomore court.
Adam shook his head. “I haven’t seen him.”
Angela looked at her phone and tried to hide her annoyance. With the whole town watching, everything needed to go right today. The pressure that had nagged at her temples all morning was intensifying. She could imagine the whispers rippling down the street if people saw her looking unhappy, if Dillon showed up late, if they saw her fighting with Dillon or if Dillon didn’t show up at all. She’d be able to hear their voices all around her as she rode through this blue and evergreen town, down a street closed off for her and her friends.
If Westview was going to talk about her, it was going to be because she chose to put her name on its lips, selected the words they were saying.
“Angela, come here,” said Cassie, pulling her into a picture with a group of their classmates who were waiting to get on the float, all of them in costume.
She posed for the picture and smiled like a summer day. She wasn’t supposed to feel anything else.
Dillon came jogging across the parking lot as they were about to get into the cars. “Sorry I’m late. I slept through my alarm,” he said, wrapping his arms around Angela. His hair was still damp from the shower and he was wearing too much cologne. “Are you excited?”
She nodded, stretching her smile as far as she possibly could. She got into the car and perched on the rear deck and suddenly as Dillon followed her, the thought of performing with him for this entire town was exhausting.
“Wait,” she said. “I want to go with Cassie.”
He looked at her for just a moment too long for her to believe that he didn’t care, but then he glanced at Adam and shrugged.
“Go ahead,” he told Cassie.
She climbed into the car, smiling. She draped an arm around Angela and made the world smell of berries and jasmine.
“I’m so happy,” Cassie whispered. They took a picture together.
Angela and Cassie had been on Homecoming Court every year. This was exactly how this was supposed to go. She remembered how proud she’d always felt when her name was announced. It was always fun to dress up, to ride through town with everyone looking at her. Now she just felt sick.
The cars started moving, slowly following the floats. Her entire world was lining the street, watching. She could see some of her teachers standing together, a group of Town Council members, friends and former friends and neighbors and classmates. She noticed Trent Prescott watching with his parents. Behind them, Westview was a contrast of scarlet leaves and dark pine, and in the distance, Angela could see the glimmering movement of reservoir water. The eastern border was just a few miles up the road, and no part of her life existed beyond those map lines.
She made her face ache with her smile. She waved, waved, waved all the way down the street like royalty. She could see the reactions when they saw her. She was everything they all wanted to be.
Her mother was standing with Cassie’s parents and their extended families. And for a moment, Angela recalled childhood dance recitals, squinting through bright-hot stage lights into an audience hidden in darkness and locating her parents sitting there with flowers, raising their hands in a wave.
“We’re the last ones for a while,” Cassie said as they waved to their families. Everyone was there—the older cousins Angela remembered watching in Homecoming parades down this same street, all grown up now with degrees from Walcott, beginning to start families of their own. Aunts and uncles with the younger cousins who were still in elementary school.
“Maya’s next,” Angela said, smiling at their cousin, who was taking pictures of them from the side of the road, red ribbons in her hair. “I can’t believe she’ll be in middle school next year.” Her old self would have wanted to teach Maya how to dress, how to act like her and Cassie so that they’d be watching her in this parade someday. Just like their cousins standing there now had done for them.
There were so many little girls watching with their eyes wide and she remembered being that age, watching parades of perfect, glittery girls stream by. Now she was one of them.
She wanted to jump out of the car and tell them she wasn’t perfect, that this was all fake. Save someone from suffocating in small-town whispers. There was a whole world outside of Westview and they could chase after anything they wanted there, she’d say. A whole world where they were allowed to be messy and flawed and make mistakes without everyone they knew watching all the time.
She wished someone had told her that, some runaway princess with torn-up maps. Instead of handing her a legacy of chasing perfection.
The parade ended at the football field. She and Cassie lined up with the rest of the court. She kissed Dillon because every eye was on them.
Brady Davis and Staci Lyman, last year’s King and Queen, were there to announce their names and crown this year’s winners. Both of them were studying at Walcott now. They were both wearing their crowns from last year and they somehow looked so much older than they did at graduation just a few months ago. She’d seen them both at Walcott parties in the meantime and she hadn’t noticed that until now. And then she realized that if she won, she was going to have to come back and do this next year.
She watched the freshman court stride across the field as Brady and Staci called their names. She tried to block out everything around her, all the red and white and blue and green and cheers.
She didn’t hear them say her name but they must have because suddenly she and Dillon were moving. Her heels pressed into the field. Everything was blurry. Perfect perfect perfect singing across her consciousness.
The court stood there together, a row of picture-perfect people. Cassie reached over and squeezed her hand as they all smiled for photographers. Then Brady unfolded a square of paper and it was time.
“Westview, put your hands together for this year’s Homecoming King and Queen,” he said into the microphone, little echoes of his voice floating out toward all the shiny cars in the parking lot.
A drumroll, starting out slow like the prelude to a rainstorm, speeding up to the frantic pace of a downpour. Angela wished the sky would open up all over this field.
And then, for a moment, the entire town went silent, and Westview was just this: sunlight lingering across the slow curve of power lines. Quiet water and trees in jewel tones. And bleachers of people she’d known for seventeen years blurring into magazine cut-outs as they held their breath waiting for something else to talk about.
It was so quiet, and in a heartbeat, it wasn’t.
“Dillon Winsor and Angela Witney!”
The town exploded into applause. It was like her name was up in lights, the way it always was here. She could hear the syllables flying around in the air, newspaper headlines draped all over the trees. She was drenched in words.
Dillon squeezed her hand and they stepped forward together to be crowned. She never stopped smiling as Staci put a plastic tiara glittering with rhinestones on her head and handed her a red bouquet of roses. She clutched them to her chest.
Someday she was going to wake up in the middle of the night with this smile still frozen on her face.
The whole town was lit up with whispers and camera flashes.
She thought about Cherwell, where she could be anonymous. She could stand in the middle of a street there and shout her own name to the sky and it would just drift away, unweighted by all the expectations of this place.
Dillon had his arm around her. For a heartbeat, Angela wished he could see the gray clouds crowding her mind, hear the torrent of twisted words in her thoughts. And in all the noise around them, she couldn’t tell if what she really wanted was to pull him even closer or push him far away.
She let his arm stay, holding her here so she couldn’t sink or float. She smiled and smiled and hoped she’d never see these pictures, the way the cameras captured this version of herself.
***
The seniors won the float contest and Westview won the football game.
And there she was, caught up in the moment with them all, a girl in a crown under small-town skies. The whole world was gone except Westview, a storm of confetti, the smell of popcorn in the air. The entire town celebrating. The mood infectious. The way this always used to be.
She wanted to keep this feeling from fading away. To be that girl made up of summer, the girl Westview wanted her to be.
She and Dillon went back to his house because no one was home and she tried to tell herself that today was different, that she wasn’t running back to him right now.
At his house in the summer, there were ceramic pots of tall basil on the patio and flowers in the windows. On the few days they were there instead of the beach house, they’d play music she could hear when she swam underwater, her hair swirling long like kelp around her face until she emerged to fill her lungs with air and sunshine. On the deck, the sun dried her hair into curls like ocean waves. Sometimes they’d lie in the soft grass and watch the clouds chase each other across a sky bluer than the seas could ever imagine. Watercolor flowers blooming inside her eyelids when she closed them. Back then, she was in love with his lips and the feeling of his hands on her skin.
And now, in his bed. Sheets crinkled like newsprint beneath them. She could feel everything crashing down around her.
She should have known that feeling wouldn’t last long, that the energy of this whole town would burn out when she remembered who she really was.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, and she wished he would stop looking at her.
She stared at the ceiling. She could feel the weight of sunlight on her face.
“Why aren’t you happy?” He was sitting up next to her now, frowning.
“I don’t have to be happy all the time.”
“You’re Homecoming Queen,” Dillon said, confusion in his voice. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
She didn’t know how to explain it to him. At this time last year, she’d floated around this town, daydreaming about today. And when she’d pictured it, this was exactly what she had imagined. Her and Dillon, Homecoming King and Queen. Senior year, when everything was theirs.
But she wasn’t that girl anymore. And he wasn’t who she’d thought he’d been.
“You’re right. It’s what I wanted,” she said, forcing herself to smile, because that was easier than telling him the truth. Less complicated. He only wanted the shiny version of her. A happy girl he could kiss and take pictures with and show off to everyone in this town.
“Good,” he said. “I can’t wait for tonight.”
He kissed her and again, for a moment, the world stopped like it used to. But then it all came back and she could feel words all over her skin, pressing nerves and bones together. Letters in her bloodstream, the start of an implosion.
She picked her clothes up from the sunshine on the floor. Put them on her body, let the warmth saturate her skin.
“I need to get ready. I’ll see you later,” she told him and she drove home with tears in her eyes and the plastic tiara on the passenger seat.
***
Sometimes Angela liked getting ready for events more than actually attending the event itself. Even though she was dreading the Tricentennial Gala, she loved her entire outfit. She loved the process of putting together a look. Last weekend, she’d found the perfect pair of shoes for tonight while on a date with Dillon in Cherwell. She wore pink lipstick and they’d wandered around the waterfront, watching the sun sink behind the skyline and city lights glow gold against calm water and cobblestones. They ate dinner at a nearby restaurant, in the quiet conservatory with long mirrors that reflected infinities of blossoms and vines and galaxies of twinkling lights, a solar system of white flowers and manmade stars in place of a ceiling. Angela was in love with almost all of it, the city and the way the restaurant made her feel so grown up but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t belong there with Dillon. Even though that night he’d been the witty, charming version of him she’d fallen for. In the mirrors’ reflections, they looked so perfect together from far away.
She’d spotted the shoes in a shop window after they left the restaurant, tall and shiny and strappy, the exact color of her dress. She tried them on, and they were, of course, perfect. She held Dillon’s hand on the way back to his car but she didn’t mean it when she kissed him. She’d felt that way at his house this afternoon, too, and she almost didn’t want to see him again tonight.
Now she stood in Cassie’s bathroom with Naomi, Rose and Paige, teasing her hair into the same loose curls she’d worn earlier to the parade. Loud music played from the tiny speaker on the counter, a collection of rhythms and lyrics that reminded her of the smell of summer thunderstorms and late nights driving through small towns whose names she couldn’t remember but she’d memorized what they felt like. Sound pouring out of open windows and lighting up empty roads until the notes touched the trees. And now, the leaves fire-bright outside and a plastic tiara she didn’t deserve.
“Okay, here’s the plan for tonight,” said Cassie, standing in the doorway between her bedroom and her bathroom with her hair curled like wind and lips lava-red. She was wearing pajama shorts and a cropped shirt that showed off the anchor tattoo she’d gotten on her hip over the summer when she visited the Winsors’ beach house. Back when they were Adam & Cassie and Dillon & Angela and summer days were sand and saltwater taffy, sneaking into bars and sunrise conversations on old docks. “We’ll go to the gala for an hour or so. We’ll come back here and change, then go to Adam’s for the party…”
Angela’s party dress was waiting in Cassie’s closet. Short and tight, all dark sparkles. She was so tired of changing in and out of all these different personas today, in and out of dresses that felt like masks. She walked away from the mirror, back into Cassie’s bedroom and carefully lifted her gala dress out of its garment bag.
She put on the dress and stared at her reflection as Naomi helped her zip up the back. Slid her shoes on while her friends finished changing. Then they all stood at the mirror together.
Five faces with red lips, dressed in metallics and jewel tones.
“Almost everyone I’ve talked to is wearing black. We’re going to stand out,” Rose said. “In a good way,” she added, which they all knew was unnecessary because they only stood out in a good way. Everyone wanted to be them.
Angela studied their backwards faces. They all looked exactly the same, and so would everyone in Westview tonight, regardless of what they were wearing. A whole room of mirror images, everyone trying to keep up with everyone else to survive here. Rose and Paige even had identical earrings. The same lipstick.
She reached into her bag for her own earrings, the diamond teardrops from her parents, and realized she’d left them in her bedroom when she’d taken them off to shower this afternoon.
“I have to go home and get my earrings,” she said.
“Are you sure? You can borrow some of mine,” Cassie offered.
“No, I have to wear these. I’ll just drive back and meet you at the gala,” Angela said. “I’ll see you soon.”
Even though their houses were within walking distance of each other, just a few roads apart, she’d driven to Cassie’s earlier with everything she needed for the gala and Adam’s party. Careful not to step on the hem of her dress, she got into her car and backed out of the driveway. She’d walked home this way so many times beneath dusk and starlight she could trace her footsteps with her eyes closed. On summer nights to cricket harmonies and in snowstorms that made the road and sky blur together.
The house was empty but it smelled faintly of the white candle her mother had been burning earlier, extinguished pear and freesia still lingering in the air. She was probably out for a drink with her friends before the gala.
She wouldn’t have admitted it to him, but Angela was disappointed that her father couldn’t make it to see what she’d been a part of. He would normally never miss an event in Westview but this trip was essential to the company’s latest efforts to expand internationally.
She thought about the Witney Estates in northern Westview, identical houses with tall arched windows and sleek backyard patios with reservoir views. Her father’s last project here before the company had started expanding beyond New England, stylish apartments with amenities in up-and-coming cities, cozy chalets for mountain getaways, and long, low villas blooming among the colors of the deserts. Someday, her last name would join skylines in other countries. Her name would build skyscrapers on ground her feet had never touched. Someone was going to rent an apartment with a name like Witney Towers in a place so far away they wouldn’t even know who the Witneys were. They’d look out their window to see their city spread out before them, all the lights that made it alive, the silhouettes of famous landmarks, while here, Angela Witney looked at a reservoir.
The earrings were on her dresser. She put them on and looked in the mirror one last time. Practiced smiling. She was shiny and sparkly tonight, a perfect girl with everything bright ahead of her.
She tripped going down the stairs and stopped in the kitchen to fix her shoe. The mail was out on the table—an invitation, some bills. The latest issue of a travel magazine her parents subscribed to and kept in the guest room upstairs.
Angela sat down, flipping through the magazine until she found what Trent Prescott had written. She remembered Owen telling her that there were plenty of people who left here, she just hadn’t been paying attention.
Lately she’d wondered if people who left forgot they were from Westview when they were oceans and skies away, if a place like this deserved a flicker of reminiscence as they were taking in the world.
She wondered how people remembered small towns. Maybe they carried around the worst of their toxins, exaggerated by years and miles apart, or maybe they romanticized their memories. She wondered if Westview roads and fields were still tattooed into their consciousness or if it was all hazy, everything out of focus.
Maybe it was just easy to erase places like these from yourself. Maybe when your world got bigger, the only place you’d ever known before was disposable.
But returning, she thought, couldn’t be as simple. Different maps drawn all over your heart, insides full of pictures that no one else could see in a town that never changed and remembered everything. It must feel like getting hit with cold water. Stranded in a snowstorm.
Reading now, it was like his words were drenched in photographs. Paragraphs and pages describing beautiful places bursting with colors that could break hearts, every place so, so alive in ways she knew Westview could never be. Snapshots into lives and experiences she couldn’t even begin to fathom.
Angela thought about how she’d just stood upstairs practicing smiles. And she understood why he’d written himself out of a small town that lived and dreamed in shades of blue and green. She imagined him inhaling the blaring colors of far-away places and scribbling all these words, sculpted into sleek columns in glossy magazines that landed in muted suburbs like paper airplanes. His face on televisions all over town, part of him always here, even when he wasn’t.
She wondered if any part of this place was still home to him.
He wrote about places like people he loved. No one would ever write about Westview like that.
Angela could feel an ache to leave this place with every word, all the way to her bones.
The fabric of her dress felt heavy on her body as she went outside to her car. For a moment, she imagined driving anywhere else as fast as she could, a place where she hadn’t memorized all the stoplights and none of the roads knew her name. But instead, she backed out of the driveway and followed the lines toward Main Street, stilettos shiny on the accelerator as she approached the last place in Westview she wanted to be, a glitter-lit gala loud with the sounds of clinking glasses and rumors playing like an orchestra.