by Mila Gray
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For Åsa
Prologue
The woods are dark as a grave. Not a sliver of moonlight breaks through the firs and alders. The dank, loamy smell of wet leaves and earth fills my lungs and I draw it in deep as though I have been holding my breath underwater for the last twenty-four hours and have finally broken the surface.
I break into a run, stumbling over buried roots, ignoring the branches that whip my arms and face, ignoring the cold that slaps my cheeks and makes them sting, ignoring the damp that has soaked through my shoes and socks and jeans.
As I run, I can hear his voice echoing through the trees. He’s chasing me, gaining on me. I run faster. I need to make it to the tree house. I’ll be safe there.
“Em!” He calls my name again. This time closer. “Em!”
It sounds like he’s right beside me.
I push on, sprinting now, desperate to escape him, but I can’t because his voice is in my head and there’s no running from it.
Fighting through a moat of ferns, I make it into the clearing, dart toward the tree house, and start scrambling up the ladder. A hand grabs my foot; another hand grabs my thigh. I yelp, kick out, almost fall, but manage somehow to keep climbing.
Dragging myself onto the landing, I lean over the ledge to look down. There’s no one there. I’m imagining it all. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s only in my head.
I dig my fingers into the wooden boards I’m lying on—like it’s the deck of a storm-tossed ship—and I hold on tight, until my breathing finally returns to normal and my heart rate begins to slow.
“Em?”
I jolt upright, scanning the forest floor, my heart bashing wildly against my ribs. There’s no one there. Scrunching my eyes shut, I curl into a ball and press my hands over my ears.
“Shut up, shut up!” I scream at his voice in my head.
My skin prickles as if worms are crawling all over my body, leaving dirty, slimy trails in their wake. Another nest of worms writhes in my stomach. Why? Why? Why me? a voice mumbles over and over again, but there’s never any answer. I must have done something wrong. That’s the only thing I know.
Exhausted from crying and shivering from the cold, I finally open my eyes. My gaze lands on a half-empty packet of marshmallows. Have the Walshes been here? Or Jake?
A rustle in the undergrowth makes me jerk around in fright. Automatically, I cower backward into the shadows, holding my breath.
Is it my parents come looking for me?
Is it Jake?
Or . . . is it him?
7 Years Later
Emerson
With my eyes closed and my face turned toward the sun, it’s easy to pretend I’m somewhere else, like an island in the Caribbean, and not one in the Pacific Northwest. Though it’s at least twenty degrees too cold for the pretense to last longer than a moment.
I stand there, hearing the water lapping the shore, trying to summon some images of my other life—the alternate version, that is. The one I planned for and imagined for years. The one where I get to escape from here—from this island that’s turned into my very own version of Alcatraz, only with higher walls and not even the slightest chance for escape.
When the images won’t come, I give up and open my eyes. The kayak still lies in the sand in front of me like a beached red whale. Sighing, I reach for it. And that’s when I hear a voice behind me.
“Need some help with that?”
I spin around.
It takes a couple of seconds for my brain to confirm that it’s actually him. That it’s actually Jake McCallister standing in front of me and not a hallucination. My heart does this fierce smash and rebound against my ribs as though it’s been violently woken from hibernation. I draw in a breath so big it feels like my lungs might explode, as if all that air is filling a vacuum and I’ll never be able to let it out again.
I hate this feeling. Hate the way the adrenaline floods my bloodstream and tears sting my eyes. Hate the way my body reacts in a thousand contradictory ways at the sight of him, as though someone has plugged me into the wrong socket and fried all my synapses.
I have an impulse to throw myself at him, but I’m not sure if it’s because I want to hug him or beat the living crap out of him. I drop the kayak, my hands fisting automatically at my sides.
I watch the smile on his lips fade when he notices the set of my jaw. His expression started off wary, but now I see him swallow and press his lips together, something he always does when he’s nervous.
I take note of that and at the same time notice a dozen other tiny, insignificant, monumental details about this new old Jake. I see the faded white scar on his chin—the one I gave him—and the new scar cutting across his eyebrow. Then there’s his height—we were always the same height, but now he’s tall . . . much taller than me. His dark brown hair is the same, though—unruly, untamed, falling in his eyes. He’s looking at me with the same mix of uncertainty that he looked at me the very last time I saw him.
I glance away, down at the sand. My whole body is shaking, and I can’t seem to get it under control.
“Em?” I hear him say.
My head flies up before I can stop it. No one calls me that anymore. His voice is deeper, mellower. The inflection, though, when he says my name is still just the same . . . and instantly something inside me starts coming undone. Jake always used to say my name like it belonged to him, and only him.
I grind my teeth, steeling myself, and grab for the kayak and paddle, realizing only then that I’m wearing just my bikini and wet suit, which I’ve stripped to my waist. The arms are flapping freely against my legs and my bikini top is gritty with sand and sweat. My hair is plastered to my head, clinging in wet strands to my neck. Great. Just great. So many times I’ve imagined what I would look like, what I would say, how I would act if I ever met Jake McCallister again, and the universe does this to me.
Without looking at him, I start dragging the kayak up the beach, the blood pounding in my temples almost drowning out his renewed offer of help.
I push on past him, but as I do, the end of my paddle smacks him hard in the stomach. He grunts and stumbles back a few steps, hands pressed to his abs. I trudge up the beach, suppressing a smile, feeling his eyes burning into my back.
As I shove the kayak into its rack and ram the chain through the loop to lock it up, I’m aware of him watching me, the same way he used to watch his opponents on the ice, trying to figure out their play. Well, good luck with that, I think to myself. There’s no way he’s playing me.
I don’t know what Jake’s doing back in Bainbridge after all these years, but I do know that I am not going to let him ruin my life for a second time.
Jake
Shit. That went well.
I watch Em slam the padlock shut on the rack of kayaks and then shoulder open the door to the store. It slams behind her, rattling the glass, and I wince, rubbing my stomach where Em hit me with the paddle. Was that deliberate? No. If it were deliberate, she would have smacked me around the head with it.
I want to move. I want to follow her. But I don’t. I head down to the water instead and stand staring out across the bay. What was I thinking? Coming here. Turning up out of the blue. What did I expect? For her to be happy to see me? Yeah. I laugh rueful
ly to myself. I guess that’s what I had hoped for, deep down, but not what I had expected. I always knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Damn. I reach for the oar she left by the shore and pick it up, still feeling a little winded.
So much time I’ve spent thinking about what her reaction would be to me, and I never once stopped to think about what my reaction would be to her.
But there it is. All those years between us are a chasm that probably can’t be bridged. And there’s a mountain of lies and pain and hurt that might be impossible to climb. But the fact remains that Emerson Lowe is still the only girl who’s ever taken my breath away.
Emerson
I’m shaking so hard I can’t get my wet suit off. After a few attempts, I lean forward over the sink and take in a number of deep breaths. Why is he here? What does he want?
There’s a knock on the door, and I startle.
“You okay in there?” Toby yells.
“Fine. I’m fine,” I tell him, glancing up and seeing my reflection in the mirror. I’m lying. I’m so far from fine. I look like I’ve seen a ghost. Which in a way I have.
“Okay,” Toby says, and I can hear the deep note of skepticism in his voice. “Does it have anything to do with that hottie you were just talking to on the beach?”
“No,” I say too fast, too loudly.
I hear a chuckle from Toby. “Did he want a seal-watching tour of the harbor? Because, you know, I’d be more than happy to oblige if you’re too busy.”
I roll my eyes and start trying to peel off my wet suit again. “No!” I shout through the door. “He was just lost. Wanted some directions.”
I am not going into details with Toby. He’s about the only person on the whole island who doesn’t know anything about my past, and that’s the way I plan on keeping it.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, wrestling off my wet suit.
Jake
The store is pretty much how I remember it. Walking over the threshold feels a bit like taking a ride in the Delorean and hurtling back ten years into the past.
Em’s family has owned this place since before she was born. Her parents used to be in business with my uncle, though now it’s just them who run it. Em and I used to hang out here a lot when we were kids. I glance at the counter, where the Chupa Chup stand still sits like a balding porcupine. Her dad would turn a blind eye to our shoplifting every time we came in.
I smile despite myself and look around, feeling a jolt of nostalgia and a wave of sadness wash over me. It’s as if I can sense the ghost of my ten-year-old self in here chasing Em into the stockroom waving a fistful of seaweed in my hand, can hear the echoes of her screams, our laughter.
Kayaks are propped against the far wall, and I notice that now the store is also renting and selling paddleboards, skateboards, and even skates. I walk over to the rack of Rollerblades and smile. I wonder if she still plays ice hockey? Emerson Lowe was the fiercest player on the Bainbridge Eagles team. She could have played at the state, maybe even the national level. It’s just one of the many questions I want to ask her. Along with Can you ever forgive me?
Even the smell in here is familiar—board wax and musty, damp wet suits. I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. Other memories flash through my mind, things I haven’t thought about in years: Em’s mom yelling at us when we took a kayak into the bay and almost got pulled out to sea, an argument over who got the last cola-flavored Chupa Chup that left me with the scar on my chin.
“Can I help you?”
I turn around. There’s a guy in a LOWE KAYAKING CO. T-shirt standing in front of me. He’s about my age, maybe a little older. Midtwenties at most. Tall, blond, athletic. I try to place him, but I can’t. His name tag says Toby, and I don’t remember any Tobys at school with us. Maybe he’s not from around here. I’ve been gone seven years; who knows who’s moved here in that time?
“You want to try those on?” he asks.
I frown and then realize I’m running my hand over a pair of skates. “No,” I say. “I’m good. I was just looking for Em.” As soon as I say it, I regret it. What am I doing? I should walk away, regroup, figure out a better approach.
Toby’s eyebrow lifts and a sudden thought strikes me. What if this guy’s her boyfriend? I’ve often wondered whether Emerson was dating anyone. I had heard rumors a couple of years back but had dismissed them, not wanting to think about it. I stopped asking people for news about her when it became too painful to hear the answers.
The guy crosses his arms over his chest and tips his head toward the storeroom door. “She’ll be out in a minute,” he says.
I nod and start flicking idly through a rack of T-shirts, glancing surreptitiously over my shoulder at the storeroom. Should I just leave? Why am I still here?
“You on vacation?” Toby asks.
“Yeah, kind of,” I mumble. “Actually, I used to live here.”
“So you know Emerson, then?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I admit, nodding. “Since she was born.”
He appraises me with narrowed eyes and I think I see a sudden flicker of recognition cross his face. He opens his mouth to ask me another question, but I quickly sidestep him and head toward the storeroom. I’ll knock, walk in there, and get everything out into the open.
“Wait, I’m not sure . . . ,” Toby calls after me.
Emerson
The door flies open just as I’m stripping out of my bikini and stepping into the shower. I let out a scream.
“Shit. Sorry. Sorry.” Jake turns away, spinning on his heel, flustered.
I grab for my towel. “Get out!” I yell.
“I thought it was the storeroom. It used to be the storeroom,” he says through scrunched-up eyes, searching for the door handle. Behind him I can see Toby with his jaw on the floor.
“Get out!” I shout again, kicking the door shut in their faces.
I turn off the shower and sink to the floor, wedging my back firmly against the door. There’s silence on the other side of it. Is he waiting for me to come out? If he is, he’s going to be waiting a long time. I’m not leaving here until he’s gone. If that means staying in here until next Tuesday, I will.
I lean my head back and close my eyes. Instantly, and annoyingly, Jake’s face flashes in front of me. Not this new Jake. But the Jake he was back then. The Jake who was, once upon a time, my best friend.
After a while—God knows how long—there’s a timid knock on the door. My eyes fly open. I’m still sitting on the floor of the bathroom in my sandy bikini.
“Emerson?”
It’s Toby. I slump back with relief. At least I think it’s relief. “Yes?” I ask tentatively.
“You can come out now. He’s gone.”
I take that in and then laugh bitterly under my breath. Of course Jake’s gone. That’s his MO. He gives you the surprise of your life, tips your world upside down, and then disappears without explanation.
Emerson
(Then)
I slip out of the girls’ changing room, dragging my duffel behind me. It’s stuffed with my uniform, helmet, and pads, but I’m pretending it’s stuffed with Reid Walsh’s big, fat body and bigger, fatter, uglier head. I’m still fuming over what he just said and wishing that I’d hit him harder . . . and with the blade side of my skate too. It would have been an improvement, that’s for sure.
“Hey.”
I freeze. It’s Jake. What’s he still doing here? I was sure that everyone, including him, had left by now. I hid out in the girls’ locker rooms waiting, listening to the boys as they made their way out the building, laughing and joking as they went, slamming one another into lockers. After the door clanged shut for the last time and silence finally fell, I waited another full minute, counting off the seconds in my head, before slipping out into the hallway.
Clearly, I should have waited longer. Until next Tuesday even.
Jake’s gaze drops to the ground. He toes his sneaker along the linoleum, making it
squeak, and then looks up at me, brushing his hair out of his eyes and giving me an awkward half smile. “I figured I’d wait for you,” he says.
He’s wearing his ice hockey jersey and holding his skates in his left hand. He has a sprinkle of freckles across his nose, and I focus on those because I can’t look him in the eye. Straightaway, I think about those man-made coral reefs we studied in science. They build them out of wire and then shoot a low-level electric current through them to encourage new coral growth. When the teacher explained it, I remember thinking that that was exactly how I felt whenever I was around Jake: like a low-level electric current was being zapped through me.
The first time I felt it, I was so appalled I ran away from him. Then I tried to avoid him. But that’s impossible. I mean, we live on the same street, go to the same school, and play on the same ice hockey team. And when we aren’t skating, we’re out in the woods with our friends or biking over the island, climbing trees, trampolining in Shay’s backyard, swimming off the beach, kayaking, or making stunt movies together. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing; the fact is, we do pretty much everything together.
There is no way of avoiding Jake, so I figured the only thing I could do was ignore the coral reef electrocution pulsing through my limbs and carry on as normal, hoping that one day it would just go away of its own accord—a bit like a stomach flu that’s run its course. But it didn’t. It hasn’t. And now everything’s ruined. Now Jake knows how I feel about him.
I’m such an idiot. I stare at the ground, silently cursing Reid Walsh with every swear word I know and simultaneously wishing for a sinkhole to open up and swallow me.
“You okay?” Jake asks as we walk toward the door.
“I’d be better if Reid Walsh had never been born,” I mutter, still not looking at him. What if he no longer wants to be friends?