Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,36

citizens of North Star. His eyes are hooded as they search the crowd, intense and concentrated. His brownish hair is curling up from under the wide brim of his cowboy hat and I can see his neck starting to glisten from the heat. His bitten-down fingernails curl around the flagpole as the flag waves and flickers in the air just above him. His legs are powerful around the animal that he controls beneath him, but my eyes stop on the big silver belt buckle at his waist. I know it well and can’t help but smile. I gave it to him as a joke when we were going through a rough time at UT. I told him that as long as he was going to act like the king of the assholes, there should be some sort of commemoration. Then I elaborately presented him with the belt buckle emblazoned with a crown on the front and an inscription on the back: EVER THE KING OF THE ASSHOLES. LOVE, QUEENIE.

I can’t believe he still has it. I hate that I’m running through the same teenage list: this means that and that means this and Everett doing that clearly means this and because he did this one thing it means when that happens we’ll do that, but we had that moment in the bar where our love for each other literarily froze us in time and on and on.

As Everett rides by he tips his hat, his eyes fast on mine. The crooked smile that’s just for me. I hate that my face flushes and my body reacts to him as it always has.

Divorced.

The tiniest of voices inside my head offers up that maybe he never stopped loving me. His marriage to Laurel was doomed. And now? Now we can be together. We’re adults, aren’t we? I’ll take this job and we’ll start up again. I mean, what’s worse? Running all over the world alone, becoming a shell of myself, or being back in North Star and being with Everett—in the shadows or not? Why are these my only options? Loving Everett means I’m either alone or his dirty little secret. I shake my head as he trots on down the parade route. He knows. I’ve never been able to hide what I’m feeling from him. What I could never understand was how, if he really did know what I was feeling, how he could treat me the way he did. He must think we’re together in this treachery. We’re both prisoners of the North Star law that says we can’t be together. But that’s not true. He chose not to be with me all those years ago. He could have taken a stand. He could have told his father exactly what he could do with his ideas about dating Laurel. He could have fought for us. He could have fought for me. He could have fought for true love. But he didn’t. I didn’t, either. I ran.

It’s worse knowing he loves me. I keep waiting for him to do the right thing by it . . . by me. Now all we’re bound by is pain and the knowledge that we can never be together, that we can never be truly happy. Knowing that the other is just as miserable—or at least hoping—is what connects us. What do we do? What do I do? I can’t stop loving him and I’ll never be able to hate him. Do I learn from New York? Do I try to muster up the ability to be indifferent to him? Is that the goal? There’s no one else for me but him. He’s the love of my life. So I hold out hope. I read into belt buckles and a tip of his cowboy hat just like I did when I was eleven. And I wait for his parents to suggest another worthy spouse who isn’t me. Loving Everett has molded me, but it’s also taught me that my love is something no one wants out in the open.

And then the crowd goes wild.

“Here he is! Here he is!” Merry Carole yells, jumping up behind me. I steady my legs after they turned to jelly seeing Everett and stand up next to Merry Carole.

The marching band launches into some unintelligible old standard as the cheerleaders jump and cheer down the parade route. The drum major leads the band with an unparalleled enthusiasm. We’re finishing cheers, spelling out our school name, telling the cheerleaders we will