Free The Summer of Lost Wishes by Jessa Gabrielle Page A

root beer and places the bottle back on the table. Then he
leans forward on his elbows. “The county fair is this weekend. It’s
not special or anything, but Nat wants to get away from her mom for
a night, so we’re going. You guys should meet us there. We can hang
out and not talk about the fifty-year anniversary.”
    I’m hesitant, but it’s mostly due to the
fact that this guy hasn’t been very friendly since I met him this
morning. Still, it wouldn’t be so bad to meet his girlfriend or
anyone else we may bump into at the fair. I’d rather not be
one-hundred percent new when school starts this fall. I’d rather
not be alone either.
    “Sounds great,” I say.
     
    It’s dark when Rooks pulls his truck into my
driveway. Mom’s new floors should be nice and settled by now. She
bursts out of the front door before Rooks even has a chance to turn
off his headlights.
    “Finally,” Mom says with a frustrated sigh.
“When I said to make yourself scarce for the day, I didn’t think
you’d actually be gone all day.”
    She clicks down the front steps toward us.
Even at this hour, after the sun is down and she’s spent all day in
her heels, she clicks just like she would at eight o’clock in the
morning. She’s like a motion sensor light, always on, even when she
should be off, as if the slightest movement brings her back to life
constantly.
    I close the truck door. “Do you like the new
floors?” I ask.
    She nods but doesn’t smile. If I recall
correctly, she sent me out with the wolf. She can’t possibly be
mad. If you send your daughter into the woods, don’t be surprised
if she comes home with the full moon.
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Davenport,” Rooks says from
behind me. “It’s my fault for keeping her out.”
    Mom waves away his apology with her
hand.
    “It’s okay. We just need your help,” she
says, immediately back in business mode. “Your dad needs you to
follow us over to the hardware store. They’re waiting for us, and
I’m sure they’re ready to shut down and go home, so we need to
hurry.”
    Seriously? She just completely overlooked
the metaphorical sticks in my hair from rolling around in the woods
with wild animals. For what? Cans of paint and new doorknobs? I
exhale a sigh, trying my best not to let my frustrations erupt from
the surface. I’ll be so relieved when this house is done because
it’s turned my mom into a crazy interior design monster.
    She rushes back inside to grab her keys. My
beach bag never even has a chance to leave my shoulder as I stake
my claim over Rooks’ passenger seat again. These letters are
burning a hole in my bag, longing to be read, just like an
expensive pair of new jeans is begging to be bought and worn.
    I drop the bag into the floorboard of Rooks’
truck. “So much for reading,” I say.
    “Maybe we can make this quick,” Rooks says,
as if it’s a consolation. “Grab whatever they need, haul it back,
and then you can give your mom some kind of line about being
exhausted after your exhilarating day with me.”
    “Exhilarating?” I ask. “If I referred to our
day as exhilarating, she would never leave us alone together.”
    As we drive back through the downtown
streetlights, toward the hardware store, I see a banner spread
across one of the restaurants’ windows. Fifty-Year Celebration of
Life Ceremony is all I can read before the light turns green.
    “Do you think this is a waste of time?” I
ask, turning toward Rooks. “The letters, I mean. It’s been half a
century, and no one has solved the big Shark Island mystery.
Finding a few letters in a wall of an old house isn’t going to
reveal everything.”
    His face glows yellow as he halts at the
light. He looks at me, but it’s too dark to read his face. “Piper,
no one’s lived in that house in fifty years,” he says. “No one had
a chance to find those letters. Maybe they were just waiting to be
discovered. Maybe this half-century anniversary is when all is
meant to be revealed,