These are all of the pressing questions I hoped to convey with a single look when Grayson opened the door, but I don’t seem to be conveying any of it, because he just kind of stares back at me like he doesn’t even know why I’m here. Like this isn’t the big deal that I think it is, and I shouldn’t be as stressed out as I am.
“Oh!” he says with an air of relief. “You found my phone. Thank you! I’ve been looking for it everywhere!”
That’s the part of this he’s choosing to respond to? His lost phone?
“It was at the Cove,” I reply tightly. “Our Cove. Mine and Harper’s.”
Grayson narrows his eyes at me, like he’s trying to keep up. “Cove?” he repeats. “What cove?”
I’m starting to lose patience. If he thinks this little game is going to deter me from the real issue here, he’s sorely mistaken.
“The little alcove near the beach club. I’ve been going there for years.”
He slaps his leg and then winces slightly, like the action caused him physical pain. “Really?” he exclaims. “I just stumbled upon it yesterday while I was walking the beach. I thought I was like Columbus, discovering some new world. Although, technically he didn’t really discover it, since the Native Americans were already here and all of that. So I guess that makes us the same. Me and Columbus.”
What the fuck is he talking about?
“Well,” he says, easing the phone out of my grasp, “thanks for returning it.”
He starts to close the door, but I stop it with my hand. “The text messages,” I remind him sternly. “What are they doing on your phone? Why is Harper texting you at eleven at night.”
Once again Grayson looks baffled, like he can’t figure out why I’m taking this tone with him. “Because we’re friends,” he says, as though it’s obvious.
“No, you’re not.”
“Uh, yes, we are. We’ve been friends since we were kids. Did you forget she also hung out with me and Ian all those years?”
“Is she texting with Ian too, then?” I challenge.
Grayson shrugs. “How should I know? We’re not that good of friends.”
“Why did she say she was ‘freaking out’ in one of her messages last night?”
He blinks rapidly, like he’s trying to keep up. Then he lets out a heavy sigh. “Okay, I didn’t want to tell you about it. But the truth is she’s upset about the breakup and needed someone to talk to. We’ve been meeting up and just chatting. About relationships and life and all that girly shit. I thought if I told you, it would just upset you and make it harder for you to move on, so I didn’t.”
Grayson presses his lips together and moves them around, like a woman blotting lipstick. I immediately narrow my eyes in suspicion.
That’s his tell.
That’s what he does when he’s lying. I’ve known him for years, and I’ve seen him do it a hundred times. Just never to me.
But what does it mean?
Is he lying to me?
Or are his lips just chapped?
I admit, within this new context, the text messages themselves are fairly benign. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he and Harper are just friends who meet up to talk.
I just never thought Grayson and Harper had anything to talk about.
What could they possibly have in common?
“So that’s all this is?” I confirm, staring him down. “You two have been talking.”
“Yeah,” Grayson says in the most convincingly nonchalant tone I’ve ever heard. “Of course that’s all it is.”
He gestures into the empty house. “Do you wanna come in and hang out? We can play some video games or something.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of this strange conversation. It didn’t exactly go the way I thought it would. In fact, it went nothing like I thought it would.
“No,” I say absentmindedly. “I actually have to work at the club in a few.”
Grayson nods. “Okay. I’ll see you later, then?”
“Sure,” I say, and he gives me a wide smile before closing the door.
A week later I’ve almost managed to convince myself that Grayson was telling the truth and that I’ve simply turned into the kind of crazy, paranoid person I’ve always despised.
Of course nothing’s going on with Grayson and Harper. It was a ridiculous conclusion to jump to in the first place.
Harper is my ex and Grayson is my best friend, and there’s a code. A code that Grayson knows all too well. After all, he has a sister, and the same rules pretty much apply.
The guy might be known to hook up with just about anything that walks, but he wouldn’t do that. Not with Harper. Not to me.
Julie and I are just finishing a two-hour bike tour of the island on what has to be the hottest day of the entire summer, maybe even the entire decade. When we get back to the rental shop downtown, Julie hops off her bike and wheels it up to the rack outside the shop. She unclasps her helmet and pulls it off her head, shaking out her short brown hair and rubbing sweat from the back of her neck.
“That was so much fun!” she squeals.
I squeeze the brakes and come to a stop beside her. I use the front of my shirt to wipe a layer of perspiration from my face, which must be beet red by now despite the fact that it’s already after five o’clock. I can’t believe Julie talked me into renting bikes. This has to be the most touristy thing you can do on the Locks. Every time I used to see a family pass by on the street riding those matching blue bicycles, I swore I would never do that in a million years.
Actually, I swore I would never do a lot of things on this island. But over the course of the summer, Julie has convinced me to do almost all of them.
“Wasn’t that fun?” she asks, skipping over to me.
“Superfun,” I say, trying to sound convincing. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy myself. Surprisingly, I did. It’s just that my mind has been preoccupied over the past week and I’m trying not to let it show.
Julie laughs. “You know you’re a terrible liar?”
I chuckle as I walk my bike up to the rack and slide it into the slot next to Julie’s. I take a look around Ocean Avenue, watching the tourists come and go from shops and restaurants.
Julie stands on her tiptoes to tap my forehead. “What’s going on up here?”
But I don’t respond. Because my attention has been snagged by something else. Harper has just walked out of Coconut’s Market and has paused on the curb to glance down at something on her phone. She’s alone, which is unusual. She’s almost always accompanied by a friend or a hopeful young tourist looking to score. Harper doesn’t like being alone, which is ironic, given the fact that half the times she’s put a pin in our relationship it has been because she said she wanted to be alone. And then the very next day I’d see her attached at the hip to Bree or Riley.
“Are you okay?” Julie says after I’ve been silent for I don’t even know how long.
I blink and look down at her, mentally berating myself for being so distracted. Julie is amazing. She’s cute and fun and laid-back, and she invited me to hang out with her today. And yet I can’t help but be somewhere else.
“Sorry,” I say hastily. “What did you want to do next? Go to the beach?”
Julie doesn’t answer. Instead she follows my gaze across the street. “Is that her?”
I turn back and notice that Harper is still there. She’s still totally absorbed in her phone, except now she’s smiling and biting her lip.
My body tenses. I know that look. Sometimes she would bite her lip before she would kiss me, or when she was about to tell me something dirty. Or right before she’d slide her shirt over her head and we’d—
“Is that Harper?” Julie asks again.
I shake myself out of my funk. “Yeah,” I mumble.
Julie touches my arm. “Do you want to get out of here?”
I glance back at Harper once more. She’s stuffing her phone into her purse and striding purposefully down the street.
“Actually, I just have to do one thing,” I say to Julie. “Can I meet you at the beach?”
Julie may be the bubbliest girl I’ve ever met, but I don’t miss the flash of disappointment on her face. A flash she quickly covers up. “Oh. Okay. No problem. You do what you gotta do. I’ll see you down there.”
“It’ll only take a second,” I assure her.
Julie smiles, but there’s something lacking in it. The sparkle is significantly less sparkly. “No problem.”
I tell myself that I’m only doing this to put my mind at rest, so I can hang out with Julie without all these distracting thoughts spinning around in my head.
I just need to know.
“Thanks.” I give her arm a squeeze, and then I take off after Harper, maintaining a safe distance behind so she won’t know that I’m following her, like the stalker that I’ve apparently become.
CHAPTER 36
IAN
Whitney knocks on my door while I’m sitting in my room reading the last few chapters of Sense and Sensibility. She drapes herself over the foot of the bed with a dramatic sigh. “I’m bored. Let’s go do something.”
“I am not Mr. Willoughby,” I say defensively.
She props herself up on her elbows and squints at me. “Huh?”
“Last month, by the pool, you told me you were learning to stay away from Willoughbys like me.”
She laughs. “Last month you also wrote an entire song about how obnoxious I was.”
I twist my lips and go back to reading. “Touché.”
Whitney groans. “Seriously. Let’s go do something. You’ve been holed up in this house for the past week.”
I shrug. “I like it here.”
“And I like it out there.” She points to the window.
I shrug and flip the page. I can’t bring myself to tell her the real reason I’ve barely left the house. After what happened last week in the woods, I’ve come to realize that the entire island is chock-full of land mines and I don’t want to risk stepping on another one.
I thought as long as I didn’t go back to my grandparents’ house, I’d be safe. Little did I know, my father’s ghost isn’t just confined to the house. He can travel everywhere, which means nothing is safe.
Except this bedroom. And this house.
But even here my mind is my enemy. For the past week, despite my efforts, my thoughts keep drifting back to that bridge that Whitney and I stumbled upon in the woods. Cherry Tree Bridge.
It’s kind of chilling to know that it’s still there. Still standing. A landmark of my past that never changes, even as grenades fall around me, tearing the rest of my world apart.
It wasn’t Whitney’s fault. She didn’t know. She couldn’t possibly have realized that when my eyes fell upon that bridge, all I could see was him.
My father.
Casting a fishing line over the edge.
Lifting me up so I could stand on the second-highest rail and watch my lure float in the water so far below.
Helping me reel in my first catch.
A thousand perfect moments captured in a single location.
Moments that will never happen again.
Whitney starts to crawl toward me, her body slinky and catlike. She’s doing that seductive thing that she does so damn well. She starts to kiss my stomach, pushing up my shirt to brush her beautiful lips against my bare skin.
A tingle shoots up my spine.
“What about Grayson?” I ask as she slowly moves her way up to my chest.
“Gone,” she murmurs against me.
I tip my head back and let out a soft moan. God, those lips are magic. By the time she reaches my mouth, I’m completely turned on. She straddles me and kisses me hard. I wrap my hands around her hips. Whitney grinds slowly against me, driving me absolutely crazy.
Then my cell phone rings, shattering the moment and bringing me back down to earth. I reach for it to silence it but inadvertently catch sight of the screen.
It’s my mom.
If the mood wasn’t completely spoiled a second ago, it certainly is now.
I jab my finger against the ignore button and toss the phone onto the carpet. Whitney winces at my brusqueness and quickly moves off me. “Who was that? Ex-girlfriend?”
“No one. Never mind.”
But she’s not having it. She leaps off the bed and reaches for the phone. In a panic I dive for it, accidentally shoving her onto her side as I scoop up the phone.
“Ow,” she moans as she hits the carpet. “What the hell, Ian?”
“Sorry,” I mumble, feeling anxious and guilty and completely out of control.
Whitney pushes herself to her feet. “Who was calling you? Are you hooking up with someone else?” She has her hands on her hips now, and I can tell she’s about to make a much bigger deal about this than it is.
“What? No. I’m just hooking up with you.”
But this response only seems to make everything worse. She scowls down at me. I push my fingertips into my eyelids, trying to regain my composure. I don’t have the emotional energy to deal with this right now. “It was a wrong number,” I say, hoping the iciness in my tone will put an end to this once and for all.
Of course, it doesn’t.
Because it’s Whitney we’re talking about. Things aren’t over until she’s done.
She narrows her eyes at me. “No one reacts that way to a wrong number.”
“Just drop it, Whit,” I mutter through clenched teeth.
“Fine,” she agrees, surprising me. I wasn’t expecting her to give in so easily. Which is probably why I’m so unprepared for what she does next.
In one swift motion I feel the phone being ripped from my hand. By the time I blink again, Whitney is already on the other side of the room, scrolling through my call log.
“Whit,” I warn. “Stop. Give it back.”
“No,” she says. “I want to know who was calling you.”
“It’s not what you think,” I start to say, but it’s too late. She’s already found it. Not just the last call. But all of them. Two months’ worth of ignored calls coming from the same number.
Her mouth drops open. “Ian,” she says, but her voice has lost all the accusation it had only a moment ago. Now it just sounds sad and disheartened. Like I’ve let her down.
I almost wish the call had been from another girl. Because anything would have been better than that look.
I lower my gaze to the ground. It’s the only safe place left.
“Ian,” she begins again. “What is going on? Why haven’t you answered any of your mother’s calls?”
“Because I don’t want to talk to her, okay?” I can feel myself getting riled up again. I can feel the control of my temper slipping. I need to get out of here. I need fresh air.
I open my bedroom door and walk out into the hallway. I keep going until I’m outside. Until the scorching August air is in my lungs. But it does little to calm me. Especially when Whitney appears beside me a few seconds later.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. She knows she deserves an explanation.
“She’s . . . ,” I try, sputtering for the right words before realizing they don’t exist. “She’s driving me crazy. All she wants to do is talk about my dad and reminisce about my dad and look at photos of my dad. It’s exhausting. I don’t want to do any of those things!”
“Why not?” she asks gently.
“Because it won’t do any good!” I shout, startling her. I take a deep breath, trying to shake out my clenched fists.
This is what comes from talking about it. This is why some things are better left unsaid. When I open my mouth again, it takes all my strength to keep my voice steady. “Looking at photos or watching home videos won’t bring my dad back.”
Whitney is suddenly in front of me, trying to meet my averted gaz
e. “You have to do something,” she says.
“I am,” I insist, forcing a smile. “I’m hanging out with you.”
She bites her lip. “That’s not what I mean. If you don’t talk to someone about it—”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, not you, too. Look, I don’t need another therapist. I already have one. And I definitely don’t need another nagging mother. So why don’t you stop trying to be both and just be my girlfriend, okay?”
I don’t realize what I’ve said until the word is already out of my mouth. Until it’s zooming between us like a helium balloon that someone has let the air out of.
I’ve just broken our unspoken rule. I’ve defined the relationship. And I’m not even sure if it’s a definition I agree with. It just tumbled out. Along with every other wrong thing that I’ve stupidly said this summer.
I cast my eyes away from her, afraid of seeing her reaction.
“Girlfriend?” she repeats tonelessly.
I take a deep breath and lift my head, braving a glance at her. To my utter disbelief she’s smiling. Actually, she’s trying to hide a smile and is failing miserably. I feel my stomach clench.
Is this what she wants?
Is this what she’s been waiting for all summer?
Suddenly I’m having trouble breathing. The giant backyard of the Cartwrights’ mansion is feeling claustrophobic. I can’t be someone’s boyfriend. I can’t be someone’s anyone. I can barely take responsibility for my own emotions, let alone someone else’s.
This whole thing is starting to feel like a Jenga tower. For the past two months we’ve been so cautious. Easing the pieces out, stacking them ever so carefully on the top. Too afraid to say the words, make the promises, commit to something. Too afraid the whole thing will come crashing down around us. But like any game of Jenga, sooner or later there’s not enough pieces left to support the construction. The weight is too much. The foundation is too weak.
Eventually every tower falls.
“Is that what I am?” she asks, more smile breaking through. More air pushed right out of my lungs.
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