“When they get back, I’ll take you on the snowmobile.” Henry gathered me into his arms in the cold condo garage. “You’ve seriously never ridden one?”
“They’re not street legal in Pittsburgh.”
“True.” He inched over to the door, leaning us both close so he could listen. “I don’t hear anyone, do you?”
“No.” I pressed my cold hands between his jacket and his shirt.
“Good. Kiss me.” He leaned down, tilted my head to the side and kissed me. With a hundred layers of coats and flannel between us, he backed me up next to a wall and we tangled together as close as we could get. He tasted like spearmint gum and Dr. Pepper and I wanted more. I put my hand on his face, tracing his jaw. He pressed his hand into my lower back and made my heart race.
“You’re really good at this,” he whispered, his lips never leaving mine.
“So are you,” I whispered, the truth of that making me think of Brooke and other girls he might have kissed. I must have shifted.
“Don’t you dare stop,” he said.
I smiled, the curve of my lips making his turn up, too. “We could disappear in Jackson Hole,” I said.
“We could call some kind of mountain man cab and find a little chapel,” he suggested.
“We could jump the broom and rent an empty trailer outside of town.”
“I’ll support you by driving a salt truck.”
“I could take in ironing.”
He chuckled. “You’re not even legal.”
“Darn,” I said, smiling.
“There’s something about a seventeen-year-old girl, though. Lots of songs written about you.” He ran his fingertips from my ear, down my neck to my collarbone. “You’re like the star of every boy’s dream.”
I tilted my head into his touch. And unzipped his jacket so I could look at the Christmas present I’d given him. I touched the word Guapo on the gray vintage shirt he’d opened this morning. I’d bought it for him to wear in Nicaragua because I thought it would be funny for Henry to advertise how cute he was.
He smiled. “I like my handsome shirt.”
“Me, too.”
“We’d better head back in before they send out a search party, my Meg,” he whispered.
***
Inside, Tennyson and Matt prepared to go to town with Johnny for more food. Adam had fallen asleep on the couch and Sara was reading John Green next to him. Martha, still in the kitchen where she’d started her morning, was making chili for dinner. Henry and I found a place to sit and started a movie.
No one had mentioned my mom or Wyatt once on this trip and I was beginning to feel like they accepted me here, unspeakable heartache and all. The warmth of Henry’s arm around my shoulder made me sleepy and I dozed through most of the movie.
Tennyson’s rap ringtone woke me, and I reached for it to make the Drake tune stop. Seeing Taylor’s name, I answered it.
“What’s up?”
“Meg?” Taylor said. She sounded upset.
“Taylor? Where are you guys?” I glanced out the window. The sky had darkened to that early evening color since I’d fallen asleep.
“Grayson is an idiot,” she said. “I’m in town.” I heard her rustling around, struggling with something. “I’m in some café called Deadcenter. Ah.” She opened a door that sounded like its hinges were rusted out. “Yeah, that’s why. It’s in the center of Jackson Hole.” The door slammed shut again.
“Where’s Grayson?”
“I don’t know,” she said, clearly frustrated. “We got close to town on that stupid snowmobile and he decided he wanted to run it on the street.”
“You can’t run a snowmobile on a cleared street. You have to have snow, right?” I stood up to stretch and look for Henry.
“That’s what I screamed into his ear for a good five minutes until he told me to get off and he’d pick me up in town later.”
“How later has it been, Taylor?”
“Two hours! He’s not answering his cell.”
“He’s probably been arrested,” I said, half in jest.
Henry leaned his head into the room and saw that I was awake. He handed off a pool cue to someone. “Who is it,” he mouthed.
I covered the phone. “Taylor. Grayson dumped her in town two hours ago and she can’t get hold of him.”
Henry’s face went twenty shades of red and he motioned for me to give him the phone. “What’s going on, Taylor?”
He listened quietly. Taylor had broken down and started crying as soon as she heard Henry’s voice. Henry walked through the living room, picking up his coat and gloves and cap. “Mm-hmm,” he said. “I know. I know. What’s the name of the place?”
He held his hand up to Johnny and called him over. “Know where Deadcenter is?”
Johnny nodded.
“We’ll be there in a minute, Taylor,” Henry said. “Stay put.” He ended the call and tossed the phone back to me.
Keeping his voice low, he explained the situation to Johnny, who cursed under his breath, and then put his own coat on and grabbed the keys to the van.
Henry motioned with his chin toward the game room. “Don’t let ’em get too riled up and mob-ish about this, okay?”
I nodded.
As soon as the door closed behind Henry and Johnny, Tennyson came out of the game room squealing, “Hot tub!” Sara followed and they disappeared to put on bathing suits.
Martha appeared out of thin air. “I turned the hot tub on an hour ago so it should be getting warm now.” She patted me on the back. “Go put on your suit, Meg.” Then, after doing a three-sixty, she said, “Has anyone seen Johnny?”
I frowned. “He and Henry ran to town for a minute. They’ll be right back.”
***
The steam from the hot tub clouded my vision when I shucked my sweats and eased into the water. I had planned to let Tennyson and Sara have it to themselves with Matt and Adam. But Martha watched them through the window for a second and then called to me from the kitchen. “Meg, would you mind getting in the tub and chaperoning? I can’t see Matt well enough to know what he’s doing in that water.”
I was pretty sure I knew what Matt was doing in that water. And I didn’t really want to be a fifth wheel. But…since she’d been so nice to let us all come, I obliged.
“Hey, crazypants,” Tennyson said, sliding a mini-cooler filled with beer my way. “Mom has no idea. See, we’re cloaked in mystery and steam.”
I giggled. “Yeah, she sent me out here to monitor the underwater activity. So you guys had better treat me nice.”
“Are you kidding me?” Matt said. “My sister’s in this hot tub. Adam knows to keep his hands to himself and I’m a gentleman with Tennyson.”
Tennyson rolled her eyes and put her arm around me. “I’m so glad you came, Meg. I’ve been worried about you.” She cupped a handful of water and poured it over my shoulder. “I’m sorry about how weird things got at school,” she whispered into my ear. “I didn’t bring it up because I knew you were tired of talking about it. But you know I’d do anything for you, right?”
I nodded my head. Tennyson, despite all her bravado, really did have a good heart. She’d been smart about helping me out without making a big deal about it. “Thanks, friend.”
“Where do you think Taylor and Grayson are?” Sara said. “They’ve been gone a long time.”
Adam and Matt shared a look. “I figure they found some privacy somewhere,” Adam said.
“Ew,” Tennyson said. “They did not. That’s disgusting.” She looked around. “But seriously, where are they? And where’s Henry?”
“Henry and your dad went to town to bring Taylor back,” I said. “Grayson’s MIA with the snowmobile.”
Tennyson laughed. “Right.”
“I’m serious. He dropped her off in town and hasn’t been back in two hours. She was really upset.”
Headlights bounced over us as the van turned in and parked. Four doors slammed, meaning all four of them had returne
d. Tennyson looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I shrugged.
After a few quiet minutes of holding our collective breath, the kitchen door opened and Taylor, who’d changed into a bikini, slipped quietly into the hot tub. She rubbed her temples, grabbed a beer, and swallowed half of it.
“Swear to me you will never let me be alone with him again.” She shook Sara’s shoulder.
“I swear,” Sara said. “What happened?”
“I thought he would be all romantic and intense if I could get him alone.” She leaned her head back on the padded mat around the hot tub and groaned. “He’s the same bombastic rudenik that he is in public.”
“Shoulda seen that coming,” Tennyson said.
“He nearly killed us a hundred times on that thing. He missed trees by inches. Inches!” She finished off the beer and went for another one. I sighed, thinking about my dad’s trip conditions.
“When he decided the mountain wasn’t challenging enough, he drove closer and closer to town. We could see this road just beyond a snowdrift. It had a couple of inches of snow on it and he decided to drive the snowmobile on the road.”
Matt laughed, a loud burst of surprise. “Do you know what that’ll do to a snowmobile’s engine? It’ll blow it up in a few seconds.”
“Yeah, well, when I refused to be part of it, he pointed toward town and said, ‘Find somewhere warm to wait and I’ll call you in a minute.’” She’d nailed Grayson’s hoarse voice.
“Where’d you go?” Sara said.
“A café. I waited a while and then gave up and called. Henry and Johnny and I drove around town a while looking for any sign of Grayson and then we saw it.”
“What?” Adam said.
“The snowmobile. It was trashed and sitting in the parking lot of the little police station downtown.”
“Holy crap, that’s golden,” Matt said.
Tennyson swatted him. “That was my dad’s toy. It probably cost a couple thousand.”
“Yeah, but insurance’ll cover that. And the story’s priceless.” Matt put his arm around Tennyson and squeezed her.
“So?” I said. “Was he in the station?”
“Yeah,” Taylor said. “We walked in and he was sitting at a desk with an officer. He looked all forlorn and repentant.” She chuckled. “The cop was getting ready to call Johnny.”
“They just let Grayson walk out?” Sara said.
“They released him to Johnny, but he has to pay a humongous fine for operating a snowmobile illegally, and reckless driving, and some other stuff that sounded made-up.”
“Why is he such a prick?” Tennyson said.
“You know why,” Sara said. “Remember that whole thing with his mom and dad? The whole town knew and he could barely look anybody in the eye in eighth grade.”
“It was jacked up,” Matt said. “Sara and I remember—the girl Grayson’s dad messed with lived on our street.”
“Remember how cute Grayson was when he was little?” Tennyson said. “He was just a nice kid. So sad.”
The hair on my neck, even damp, stood up. Here was a perfect example of why it was so difficult to leave the past where it belonged. No one, even friends, had any intention of letting people move on. I didn’t want to know anymore of Grayson’s history. “I’m getting kind of pruny.” I made a show of examining my fingertips, which actually looked normal.
I stood and reached for the top towel on the stack, shivering while I dried off. Instead of taking time to put my sweats back on, I wrapped up in the towel and skipped to the door, welcoming the warmth of the condo’s heater. I heard voices in the loft, but I focused on ignoring them. I was sure whoever had gathered around Grayson to talk preferred privacy.
Retrieving my bag with clothes and makeup, I locked myself in the bathroom for a shower. There, in the spray of warm water, under the glaring bathroom light that doubled as a heater, I cried. Mostly for Grayson, as crazy as it sounded.
Whatever he’d gone through had turned him into an attention-seeking abuser without much of a conscience and it broke my heart. He was just protecting himself. We all had to find our own way with that.
I ran a comb through my hair and put on a pair of jeans and a sweater. When I finished in the bathroom, I opened the door slowly, listening for activity. The house was silent but, through the wall of windows, I saw everyone outside. Those who weren’t in the hot tub, including Henry, were bundled up in coats.
I turned to put my bag up and ran into Grayson in the hall. “Oh, sorry, Meg,” he said. “Didn’t hear you coming.”
His shoulders hung crooked as he veered around me, holding my elbows to make sure he didn’t crush me on his way to the stairs. Laughter reached into the house, curling around me and probably intimidating Grayson. I’m sure he felt alone now. Because I have no gene for self-preservation, I set my bag down and followed Grayson.
He lay on the floor, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. I knocked on the wall that gave the loft its only privacy. “Yeah?” he said.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” I sat on the edge of an old futon. Henry’s duffel bag was by my feet so I knew he’d slept near.
Grayson chuckled darkly. “Wanna piece of me, too? Your boyfriend chewed on me enough earlier.” His voice was razor-edged but underneath I heard honest longing.
“I’m sorry.” I watched his shadow moving on the wall. “I just wanted to say I don’t hold any grudge against you for what happened that day in the locker room. I mean…it hurt my feelings, but I’m okay.”
He pointed at me. “That, I can honestly say, wasn’t my fault. You were the one who tripped.”
I tried not to get angry again. “I know. I was upset over how Thanet looked, though.”
Grayson sighed. “That was probably my fault. I’m sorry.”
I smiled. “I forgive you. But you should probably apologize to Thanet.”
He chewed on his bottom lip. “I really do feel bad for talking about your brother. People in this town have a sick desire to dig up old dirt. I know that as well as anyone. I shouldn’t have done it.”
I nodded. “It’s okay. I needed to talk about it and I guess that was kind of the icebreaker.”
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his stomach. “Henry’s all yours. You know that, right?” He looked like he wanted to drift off to sleep.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”
“You’re all right, Meg.” He yawned so I stood up to leave.
“You are, too, Grayson.”
When my foot hit the first step, I paused to listen to Grayson’s steady breathing.
“Mercy,” I whispered.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Dear Wyatt—
I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. I wish you could see Chapin right now. Winter was cruel to this place—crueler than it ever was to Pittsburgh. Here, the snow piles up until the drifts are taller than me and everything turns gray. Trees, birds, my complexion. All gray. The sky gets bleak. So when March rolled around and tiny little shoots of green started appearing everywhere, I’d never been so happy to see spring in my life.
I can’t believe nature survives and tries again, over and over. Mom planted bulbs before she left and yesterday, I ran my fingertips over the ground where they’re buried. I couldn’t believe it—you almost need a magnifying glass to see them—but a centimeter or two of thick little leaves are poking through the ground. One of these days we’ll have yellow flowers there and they’ll surprise us every morning for days. We’ll say, “Remember when everything was gray?”
I had a weird dream last night. We were all together at the beach house. You and Mom were flying a kite and Dad and I were building a sandcastle. Your kite kept taking a nosedive into the dunes, and the waves kept dissolving our castle. And none of us could figure out what we were doing wrong. Finally, we all got frustrated and walked away. You left your kite tangled up on the dunes, and the castle washed away. Instead of walking away together, we went in differ
ent directions, alone. And none of us looked back. It felt so real.
I talk to Mom every Friday. She’s sounding more like herself. For a while, she sounded hammered, slurring every word and bringing up people she insisted I knew. But that fog seems to be lifting. She says things that make sense. She talks about painting. She cracks jokes here and there. I’m going to Pittsburgh for spring break. I’ll see her then.
I love you.
Meg
THIRTY-EIGHT
Pittsburgh International Airport was empty at eight o’clock on a Wednesday night. I’d made plans to spend the last half of spring break with my aunt and uncle because Henry was busy moving cattle around for spring grazing and birthing cow babies. He was literally up to his elbows in it. And I needed to check on my mom. She’d submitted a visitor request form and I’d made the cut.
I waited alone at the carousel in baggage claim and texted my Uncle David to let him know where I was. Within minutes, I heard little shoes pounding the floor, coming my way. I smiled as my cousins, Audrey and Ana Kate, barreled toward me. David and Catherine laughed and tried to keep up. I laughed, too. It felt good to be welcomed.
On the drive to their house, I sat up front with Uncle David. We passed all the familiar places from my childhood—my old dance studio, my elementary school, Harris’s house, our favorite restaurant. Finally we turned down the drive of their house.
The old stone house built in the 1920s was always my idea of the perfect place. I have this memory of seeing it for the first time right after they bought it. I danced around inside the empty rooms for hours before their movers arrived. This had been our second home.
Wyatt built a tree house in a huge old tree in the backyard. He must’ve worked on it for a year. A little bit here and there each time we visited. He’d build a part and then rip it out if it wasn’t perfect. He even made a little table and chairs and hauled them up with a rope.
We’d spent hours and hours sitting in the tree house with our feet dangling off the edge, talking about important things. When the headlights raked across that tree, my throat tightened. The tree house was intact.
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