by Tess Oliver
Fran clapped loudly and spun her arms around. "Look at this place. It's beautiful. Which brings me to my announcement," she said loudly enough to draw a few more people around the pond. "A week from Saturday, we are going to officially reopen this park. There will be decorations and food and music."
Everyone cheered.
"And Fynn Chandler will be the guest of honor," Fran continued.
"No, really, that's not necessary," I said, hoping the idea would fade away quickly. "I'll be honored enough to see everyone enjoying the place." My pleading gaze shot to Ella. I hoped she would step in and help me out.
Ella snuck me a teasing wink. "Great idea, Fran."
The crowd frittered away, murmuring about food choices and balloon colors. Ella walked around the pond and sat next to me.
I rested my guitar next to the bench. "Some copilot you are," I complained.
Ella curled her arm around mine. "It'll be fine. I'll tell Fran you aren't comfortable being the center of attention, and she'll just make a quick announcement to show the town's appreciation. You have, after all, brought this whole place back from the dead. I wonder if Minnie and Mickey will return, now that the pond is filled again."
"You're expecting the Disney mouse characters to show up because the pond has water?"
She laughed. "No, Mickey and Minnie are two mallard ducks. They used to land here every spring to have babies."
"Mickey and Minnie? Who named them?"
"I did, of course."
"Of course, and that's one of the reasons I love you."
She turned on the bench and brushed a hair away from my eye. Ella's touch had already become as life-sustaining to me as the air I breathed. "So my penchant for naming stone horses and wild ducks is the thing that sealed the deal?"
"Hell no, the thing that sealed the deal are those fucking amazing lips of yours." I pulled her into my lap and kissed her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ella
Opalescent bubbles floated around the park like rainbow colored snowflakes. The seniors had done themselves proud, especially considering most of them had been too young to remember the traditional prank.
"Put those tables over there," Fran instructed the men delivering the party furniture.
When Fran had an idea, she always went out of her way to get it done. It was the reason we voted her into the mayor's office every term. The special Butterfield Angels' Cemetery had been her idea. The closest cemetery was a few towns over and everyone was distraught about it being so far away. Fran assured us all that we would keep the Angels closer to home, and she delivered on her promise. The cemetery was close enough to visit every day. It was a quiet, scenic place, a perfect place to sit and think about the people we'd lost.
Patty watched from the sidewalk in front of the market with arms crossed. I had let her know that I would be leaving Butterfield soon and that she could start interviewing all those prime high school candidates. She had grunted 'fine' in reply.
Fynn was back on the tottering ladder tying balloons on the inside of the pavilion. He and his very smooth dog had, not surprisingly, gathered a crew of high school girls to help. With the park finished, Fynn was getting antsy. He needed to find work, paid work, and soon. We both did. Living at home and not being a big spender on some of the usual things like clothes and cars, I'd managed to save up a good chunk of money. It would help until we found a place to stay and work. We were both thinking the coast where the cities were bigger and the jobs were plentiful.
I couldn't believe how much my life had changed in such a short amount of time. Mom was having a hard time believing it too. She was slowly accepting the reality that her baby was leaving the nest. I kept thinking that I was going to suddenly panic and change my mind and ask myself what the hell I was thinking. But that moment of doubt never came. Not even once. And that was because my feelings for Fynn were solid. He hadn't given me one reason to second guess myself.
Fynn had finished the balloons and sent his eyelash batting, giggling helpers on to assist with the table set up. Boone had happily followed the girls. Fynn scanned the park and spotted me. His white smile lit up an already brilliant day.
We headed toward each other. "Look what you've started with your fountain fixing."
"The pay off for that idea is pretty damn sweet." Fynn slipped his arm around my back and pulled me close for a quick, discrete kiss. He reluctantly lowered his hand. "When Fran gets an idea, she really goes for it."
"She does. I think she was one of the reasons we didn't all just float away in despair. She kept spirits up even when they were at their lowest." The park was bustling with activity. Dozens of people had joined in to help set up for the celebration. "I wasn't sure how everyone would feel about this park being revitalized, but it seems everybody wanted it. It was probably the longest period of mourning any town has ever experienced, but I think people are finally looking at tomorrow instead of yesterday." I brushed my hand over his arm. "Including me."
"And me, Starshine. Fran wants me to plant those flowers around the base of the pavilion. Are you feeling green thumbish?"
I lifted my thumb to show that it was stained blue from paint. "Will blue thumbish do?"
"Yep, that works." We headed toward the pavilion and the two flats of petunias. "What are you painting?"
"I started on Ethan's collage."
Fynn stopped and looked at me. He knew it was a big deal for me to be painting Ethan's picture. That was how in tune he was with my feelings. He waited for me to continue.
"It's hard but I feel better with each brush stroke. My biggest problem is that the memories are flowing out so fast, my paint brush can't keep up. I guess it's how a writer feels when the characters are all talking too fast for fingers on a keyboard."
"Probably a good analogy."
Fynn picked up two trowels and handed me one. "We'll start on that side."
"Hey, Axworthy," Brent's angry voice called across the lawn. It wasn't the tone of the voice but the sound of the name that sent a chill through me. Axworthy was a name that was rarely spoken in town. It was almost like Voldemort in the Potter books.
"Yeah?" Fynn answered as he spun around.
I blinked in astonishment at the man standing next to me. Fynn seemed to realize too late that he'd just answered to the name.
"I thought your name was Chandler." The words sputtered out as I tried to reason why he would have answered to Axworthy.
Brent swept up the attention of everyone in the park as he marched, full fisted, toward Fynn. Even Patty had left the store to watch. He walked straight up to Fynn and threw a punch. Fynn's hand caught the fist mid air. A heated scowl passed between them as I anxiously tried to untangle what was happening.
Fynn released Brent and held up his hands. "You know what? If that's what you need to feel better, then just throw another fist. I won't block you."
"Gladly." Brent pulled back his arm.
"No!" I cried. "What are you doing, Brent?"
Fynn stumbled back with the blow but he recovered quickly.
Everyone had gathered in to see just what the hell was going on. My pulse was pounding in my ears as I tried to make sense of things.
Fynn held out his arms. "You done? Or do you need more?"
"I want you to fight back, you fucking scam artist. I want to have good reason to pulverize you." He shoved Fynn hard in the chest but it barely budged him. It seemed Fynn was on the edge of hitting back, but he clenched his jaw tight and resisted.
"Why the hell don't you fight back, Axworthy?" There it was again. The name. It was one of those names you might hear once in a lifetime, but in Butterfield, it was tattooed across our brains.
Fynn held out his arms making himself an easy target.
"Why the hell don't you fight back, asshole?" Brent's fist went flying behind the question. Fynn caught his hand and twisted it painfully around to Brent's side. Fynn sidled up close enough to talk low, but I could hear every word.
"Becau
se if I fight back, I'm going to leave you in a crying fucking heap on the ground."
Brent's face was red with rage as he pulled his hand free from Fynn's grasp. Fynn's threat seemed to have worked, and Brent backed up a few steps. He turned his wrath toward me.
"So you're with this guy, Lucky Thirteen? You're a fucking traitor." A hideous laugh followed. "We all know that you'll drop your panties for anybody who asks, but—" His words were cut off by Fynn's fist.
Brent flew back and blood sprayed the grass. Richard, Carl and Scott had had enough. They helped Brent to his feet, and Richard stood between them.
"Brent, why don't you tell us what the hell is going on?"
Brent rubbed the blood from his nose with the back of his hand and then pointed that same bloodied hand at Fynn. "This guy has all of you thinking that he's some kind of saint or something. But why don't you tell them who the fuck your dad was, Axworthy?"
Fran stepped into the circle, looking just how I felt, as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. "Brent, what are you talking about?" Her alarmed gaze shot to Fynn.
I moved closer to Fynn. "Fynn, what's going on?"
The look Fynn gave me nearly cut me in two. "This doesn't change how I feel about you, Ella. I love you." He glanced around at the stunned faces. "My dad was Frank Axworthy, the bus driver whose bus went off the cliff."
I knew I was standing upright, but it felt as if someone was moving the grass beneath my feet like a conveyor belt. I shuffled my feet to stay upright. And for those few seconds, I thought finding out that Fynn was the bus driver's son would be the worst thing I could possibly hear. But it was only a spark compared to the explosion about to follow.
Fynn looked around at all the faces. "My dad was not a drinker. He was allergic to alcohol. His doctor told the police that, and it was corroborated with the blood test. But you people couldn't let it go. You couldn't just let it rest as a terrible accident. You dragged his name through the mud like he was some kind of serial killer. You drove a perfectly good man to suicide just to satisfy your own need for answers."
"There was no other explanation for it other than drinking or suicide." Not surprisingly, Carl entered into the fray. "There were no brake marks. Your father drove our children straight off the cliff and to their deaths and then the coward saved himself."
Fynn flinched at the word coward. Watching him dissolve into a hurt, angry man defending his dad's honor against a crowd of people who considered his dad a murderer made my stomach tighten. It felt as if I'd swallowed a ball of cement. I wanted to help but I couldn't. I had no answers, and nothing made sense anymore.
"You don't know anything about the man." Fynn's voice was rough. "He was no coward. And what happened to the witness, the child who survived? When my dad came to, the police told him one child had survived. Why were the police lying? Or were you all covering up the truth? Or maybe you just wanted the truth to match your own anger. You needed someone to blame. Right?"
The faces around me flickered with tension and secretive glances were exchanged.
"Where was the kid who made it out of the bus?" Fynn continued. "What happened to the witness?"
Every word made the ground wobble beneath my feet as if I was standing in a bowl of pudding. Every thought in my brain was jumbled, and I couldn't think straight. The panic I'd felt on the road to the beach returned. My blurry gaze swept around the crowd. Some looked at me with worry, and others, like Patty and Fran, avoided eye contact.
Fynn noticed that their focus had turned away from him and landed on me. And then the screams returned, the screams that had been haunting my dreams.
The tingling sensation started in my feet and quickly rose to my head.
"Ella." Fynn's arms were the last thing I remembered before everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Fynn
Fran, Richard and Jilly led me to the bakery where Jilly had a couch in her back office. Ella stirred slightly in my arms, but she was still out of it.
Fran had her phone to her ear. "I'm calling Derek right now to let him know he and Susan need to get home."
The majorly tense scene at the park, the cool, questioning angry stares and confrontations, had turned to concern when Ella collapsed in my arms. Nothing had been spoken or clarified, but something told me the mystery witness was the girl in my arms, the girl who had stolen my heart so thoroughly that I could think of nothing else but her. Everything else seemed small and unimportant now. My only worry was Ella and how she would absorb the reality that I'd been keeping my identity from her all this time. I was an idiot. If I lost her, I had only myself to blame.
I stepped up on the curb. The movement caused Ella to lift her head. She looked around, seemingly puzzled by her surroundings. "Where are you taking me?"
"I've been told to carry you to the couch at the back of the bakery."
"No," she said sharply. "No, take me home." She wriggled in my arms. "Put me down. I can walk. I want to go home."
Fran and Richard circled in front of me as I lowered Ella's feet to the ground.
"Ella, honey," Fran said, "we need to get you inside. You've had a bit of a shock."
"A bit of a shock?" Ella swayed as she held onto my arm, but she stayed upright as she looked around at all the faces. The only person she didn't make direct eye contact with was me. I had blown it. She was the first good thing to happen to me in a long time, and I'd fucking blown it.
Fran lifted her phone. "I've called your parents. They are on their way."
"Good. They have some explaining to do. You all have some explaining to do." She turned her eyes to me for the first time, and I knew damn well I was included in that. "Take me home, Fynn. Please."
It was stupid and probably more than a little crazy to be thrilled that Ella held tightly to my arm as I walked her along the sidewalk to the van. Still lightheaded from fainting, she obviously needed physical support, and anyone could have provided it.
"Where's Boone," she asked, her voice still shaky. "Call Boone."
I glanced around and found my dog already sitting outside the van. In the chaos, he must have thought I’d left without him.
I gave Ella a hand up into the van. All I could think was that I was going to lose her and it was going to hurt like fucking hell.
Boone climbed right into her lap. Before I could tell him to go to the back, Ella wrapped her arms around him and hugged the dog to her. She buried her face against him. Lucky fucking dog didn't have to do anything but be himself and he was adored.
The crowd at the park stood like clustered statues, talking to each other and apparently so stunned, they couldn't move their feet. They stared at the van as I pulled away from the curb.
We weren't half a block when Ella lifted her face from Boone's fur and looked over at me. "Why, Fynn? Why would you keep this secret from me? Why the hell did you come to Butterfield?"
I shook my head. "Not sure why I came. Part of me came to confront the people who had wrongly accused my dad of being a drunk or a suicidal maniac. I know that motive was there in the back of my head. I hurt too, you know? That accident sent my life into a tailspin. My dad never recuperated, and the shitty things this town said about him only pushed him further into depression. So yeah, I probably first turned my van this direction so I could drive into town and see the faces of the people who led my dad to take his own life."
Ella had no response. She just watched me with those expressive blue eyes and passed no judgment. She was hurting as badly as me, it seemed.
"Once I rolled into town, I got this horrible sense of tragedy. I saw that everyone here had suffered enough loss for a fucking lifetime. I decided I didn't need to face anyone. I planned to just climb into my van and keep driving. Then I walked into the store for some food and water, and this girl stepped out from behind the tower of Twinkies and she took my breath away. I wanted to erase some of my own pain, and I decided right then that Butterfield was the place to start."
We pul
led up to her house. Ella still hadn't said a word. I braced myself for her to tell me to go to hell or leave or fuck off or something that I deserved.
She sat quietly in the front seat, stroking Boone's fur. "You should come inside. I think you're going to want to hear what I have to say. I was there. I was the eye witness."
Her words sent a tremor through me. After all this time, I was going to hear what happened the day my dad drove the bus off a cliff and killed twelve sixth graders. And I was going to hear it right from the lips of the girl I loved.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ella
Dad's car screeched as it hit the driveway. He jumped out and Mom climbed out of the passenger side. They both looked chalky with fright.
"Ella." Mom was the first to reach us. "What happened? Fran said you fainted."
"Is that all she mentioned?" I held her arm. I still hadn't regained my balance. The shocking revelations of the last half hour had knocked me off balance in every possible way.
"She said some other things," Dad said sternly. I glanced up to see that he was standing with his arms crossed in front of the steps as if he were guarding the house. "Son, maybe it's better if you just move on. I think you've done enough."
"No, he's not the one who's done enough," I snapped. "It's you, my mom and dad, and all the damn people in this town. Fynn stays. We are going to go inside, and you are both going to explain to me why the heck you let me believe that I wasn't part of that awful day."
Fynn was quiet and my parents, who were apparently trying to figure out what to say, were quieter still, as I headed inside and found a place on the couch. I closed my eyes for a second to stop the room from spinning. I opened them to three anxious faces. An inappropriate, nervous and somewhat necessary laugh shot from my mouth. "This is surreal. I need the one thing I can count on as real. Where is Boone?"
Fynn glanced at my dad, who nodded his approval. Fynn walked out and returned with his dog. I patted the seat cushion next to me, and Boone hopped up and stretched across my lap. Just having his soft fur under my hand helped me feel better.
