Has to Be Love Read Free Page A

the woodwork on the walls and ceiling. I swear I can feel Dad beam from here. He built this house and loves talking about it. In seconds he’s launched into the story about the people who milled the wood from trees my dad cut down himself. I’ve heard this story about a million times.
    â€œClara?” Dad steps into the kitchen, and I shove the old cork into the bottle of wine. “This is Ms. Bellings’s nephew, Rhodes Kennedy. Though he’ll be ‘Mr. Kennedy’ to you.”
    I brace myself for the stare and turn from the stove to meet with … My heart does some sort of fantastic leap because … brain fuzzing … just wow.
    Blond, curly hair in serious need of a cut (if you’re my dad) or just perfect (if you’re me), relaxed smile, sparkling blue eyes.
    And then his eyes do the predictable scan across my face. A quick frown is followed by a hard swallow (I note by his very manly Adam’s apple) and then a forced smile. This is the point when my brain checks out of the moment because his reaction makes my neck heat up and my stomach tighten. I will never meet someone face-to-face without getting some kind of stare or nervousness—at least not until I’m rid of my scars.
    I tilt my head down enough that my hair cascades like a shield.
    Rhodes Kennedy reaches his hand out and shakes mine. Any weird expression on his face is gone. I’m not so lucky because the tension’s going to stick with me for a while.
    â€œNeed help finishing up?” he asks.
    â€œNo, I …”
    Dad gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Come sit down, Rhodes. Clara loves to cook.”
    And I do love to cook, but in this moment I’m ready to be alone in the kitchen, even though a million questions about Columbia rest on the tip of my tongue.
    I give Mr. Kennedy a quick smile through my hair, carefully not watching his reaction. But instead of following Dad, he helps himself to a fork and pulls out a noodle.
    â€œThey might be ready,” I say, even though I’m supposed to want him gone. He’s just … I don’t know. There’s something about how his hair is perfectly messy and how his jeans are a little too skinny and his shoes a little too trendy and his glasses a little funky. It reminds me of how I imagined going to college out of state would feel. Like beat poetry and unexpected rhythms and quirky rhymes … like everyone would be more like him and less like me, whose jeans are stained from playing with horses and riding four-wheelers.
    The stupidity of wanting a school so far out of my reach hits me again. I desperately want to be there. To be one of the too-cool people with smart opinions and term papers with deadlines. I just … It’s overwhelming. And it’s so far. And I’m so horribly ugly. I have just over a month to give them my yay or nay on the acceptance, and the thought of answering either way makes air hard to breathe.
    Mr. Kennedy tosses the noodle onto a cabinet just like Dad and I do.
    â€œLooks like it.” His brows dance up once as he pulls the noodle from the cabinet and slides it in his mouth.
    Dad chuckles. “We’ve tested noodles that way for ages.”
    â€œBest way.” Mr. Kennedy gives Dad a smile.
    â€œYou, um … go … um … to … Columbia?” I ask, only my voice catches like three times during the four-word sentence.
    â€œIt’s the best.”
    I nod, wanting details. Smells. Sights. Feels. Rhythms.
    â€œI’ve read your writing,” Mr. Kennedy says.
    Dad’s beaming again. I can feel it, like his pride is something that floats in the room. “I’m definitely proud of my Clara.”
    I stare at the spaghetti sauce as I stir, once again tilting my chin down so my hair falls forward. Ms. Bellings raves about my stories, essays, and poems, but her praise has never felt like a big deal to me because again, small town, small school. But