Candy Colored Sky, стр. 36

It’s just a mystery.

It’s just a kidnapping.

It’s just a possible homicide.

“Maybe it will be a miracle, so, sorta like Christmas.” I shrug, but she slows her pace, which slows mine too since we’re still linked at the arms. I kick myself internally for saying something so hopeful. It’s clear that’s not what she wants to hear or think. I understand. I didn’t want to hear empty promises after my dad died. People constantly told me “It gets easier,” and that phrase never quite fit. It only made me feel guilty for not falling to pieces. If anything, it’s gotten harder the more distance I have from losing him.

Stopped in the middle of our street, Eleanor steps to face me, her hand sliding to my elbow, where she clings to the sleeve of my flannel. “Jonah.” She stops after my name, and it’s obvious she planned on following it up with more. Her mouth hangs open for a few long seconds and her eyes dart from meeting my gaze to somewhere else entirely. She snaps her mouth shut again, forcing a closed-lip smile in its place instead and nods.

“You’re right. There are a lot of maybes up in the air.” She nods again, almost as if she’s convincing herself of her words. I let that be the end of that, out of fear of saying something that will only make it worse.

Eleanor lets go of my arm when we reach my garage, and I think of how pathetic I will seem when I don’t wash this shirt for several days. And when I sleep in it. I can feel her anxious energy behind me while I punch in the sevens to open my garage and I get so rushed to busy ourselves with the Bronco that I end up spilling the contents of my backpack on the garage floor as I free my arms from the heavy burden.

“Why did I expect to see dozens of calculators come flying out of that thing?” Eleanor jokes as she bends down to help me corral everything back into the unzipped pouch. She pauses with my dad’s notebook in her hand and turns it over a few times as she studies it.

“Is this the magic notebook?” She lifts her gaze and the shot of her green eyes knocks me on my ass, literally. I fall ungracefully and make an actual harrumph noise as air gets knocked out of my body from the impact on my tailbone.

“I wouldn’t call it magic. Maybe . . . insightful?” I finish stacking papers and folders to slide back into my bag while she takes a seat on the ground across from me and flips through the pages. She comes across the photo and pinches it at the edges to get a closer look. Her smile spreads into something spectacular, and I’m as caught looking at her as she is looking at this odd little memento from my parents’ story.

“Your mom looks exactly the same. And is that your dad?”

I nod.

She glances up again.

I swallow.

“You look like him,” she says, her grin somehow pushing a rosy color into her cheeks.

“Maybe,” I say, taking it from her between my thumb and finger. I stare at the image for a few seconds, the first time I’ve really looked at it since I initially found it, and for some reason I pair it in my mind with the song on the playlist Eleanor made for me.

“That song you sent me, about the guy and his Bronco?” My mouth goes dry. I look at her and I know I’m doing a poor job of hiding my emotions. I decide in a breath that it’s better to just let the tears well up in my eyes than it is to actually reach up and wipe them away.

“I thought it might resonate,” she says, filling in my thoughts for me, as though she knows I won’t be able to fully voice them.

“It did,” I say through a breathy laugh as I look back down at the picture in my palm. I stare at it without saying a word, long enough that the quiet becomes obvious and heavy. I can’t seem to get myself unstuck.

“Hey, have you ever watched the sunset from your roof?”

I pull my brow in tight and smirk at her abrupt and out-of-left-field question. I look up and close one eye to show my confusion, which makes her laugh.

“I know. Random, right? But seriously, have you?” She’s so excited about the prospect I hate to tell her that I have. It’s been a while, though, and maybe going up there with Jake to throw water balloons into the street doesn’t count.

I shake my head no and commit a tiny lie.

“It’s settled. Come on,” she says, taking the photo back from me and tucking it safely inside the pages of the notebook. She slips that into my bag, secures the zipper then insists I follow her to the side of my house where the eave is at its lowest.

“We climb,” she says, and I stop hard and let out a punch of laughter.

“Oh, yeah. No. You climb. I get ladders,” I say, moving beyond her toward the side of my house where our tools are piled on top of each other in the shed.

“Suit yourself,” she says, jumping the few inches it takes to reach the eave. She pulls herself up easily and I watch in awe. I think she may actually be more athletic than my best friend, and I would harass him about that if not for the fact that I still intend on using a ladder.

It takes me a few minutes to fumble through the mess in the shed. I can’t complain because I’m the one who left it that way. I figured I wouldn’t have to see hedge trimmers or the mower again until spring. I wasn’t counting on a beautiful girl talking me into a trip up the roof.

By the