He passes me a crimson bean, then a white one with black speckles. “Strawberry jam and French vanilla.”
I chew discerningly. “Um … strawberry shortcake?”
He nods, grinning, then ties the bag off, looking toward the stream of vacationers cruising the sidewalk, sunburned and windblown, toting rumpled towels and kites with tangled strings, heading home from a day at the beach. “So,” he says, still watching the crowd. “In case you don’t realize … I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you back there. In my room.”
I blink. “I know.”
“I just—I thought you were going to … I don’t know. Want nothing to do with me, I guess.”
“Last week sucked.”
He smiles. “But we’re cool now?”
I kiss him, sugar-sweet. “We’re cool.”
He takes my hand, his eyes sweeping my face, and asks, gently, “How’s your mom?”
“Still in rehab.”
“What about your dad?”
“I think he’s okay. I’ve talked to him a few times since my mom left. He’s happy I’m swimming.”
He draws me closer, kisses my hair. “He must be really proud of you.”
I snort. “I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, come on. Think about how much you’ve changed.” He jostles me with his shoulder, then teases, “I hardly remember the angsty girl who froze me out on my first day of work.”
“Careful, or it might happen again.”
“Nah. You like me too much now.”
I run my fingertips over his knuckles, bones and muscle and tendons, mesmerized by his suntanned, work-scarred skin and the way he fits so perfectly within it. “Because you bought me a kitten.”
He laughs. “Whatever it takes.”
“What you said about my dad? I want him to be proud of me. My mom, too. When school starts, I’m going to get my grades up. I’m going to rejoin my swim team. I’m going to try to get into a decent college. I want a future.”
“You have one, Cal.”
I want a future with you, I think, wrapping my arms around him.
We stay that way for a long time, until the air cools and clouds roll in off the water. It’s not long before tourists dressed for dinner wander onto the sidewalk.
“I should go,” I say, pulling reluctantly from Tucker’s warmth. “I need to get back before Lucy leaves for her book club. Want to come over and keep me company later?”
He flashes a delicious grin. “What time?”
48
When I get back to Stewart House, I find my aunt in the kitchen, where the air smells of oregano and spicy pepperoni. She bends to pull a pizza from the oven. “Was that Tuck’s car I heard? I hope he caught us some salmon.”
“Yeah, I don’t think the fish were biting.” I pull out the seafood cookbook I bought her. “But look—a consolation prize.”
Her face lights up. She abandons the pizza on the stove to take her new book from me, then leans on the counter, leafing through its thick pages.
“Aunt Lucy, do you mind if Tucker comes over later, while you’re out?”
“Not at all,” she says, looking over a crab cake recipe. “Lucky duck, finding romance in Bell Cove. I wonder if I’ll ever meet a nice man around here.”
“Tucker’s dad is single.”
“Does he look like Tucker?”
“He did twenty years ago.”
“What’s the deal with his mom?”
I slide pizza slices onto plates, then drag her to the table. I give her the abbreviated version of Tucker’s story, finishing with, “Nobody knows for sure, but it’s pretty commonly believed that Annabel died. That she fell from the cliff out back.”
Lucy’s pizza sits on her plate, mostly untouched. “Our cliff?”
I nod. “Some people think one of the Stewarts might’ve been involved.”
She plucks a piece of pepperoni and nibbles on it. “I can’t believe Tucker’s worked here all this time and never said a word.”
“He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“He talks to you.”
“A little. I talk to him, too. Sometimes about Chloe.”
She beams, like this is the best news she’s gotten all month. “If Tucker’s the person you feel most comfortable with, then it’s him you should confide in.” She stands, dropping her napkin onto her plate. “Will you tidy up? I’ve got to get ready to go.”
“No problem. Try not to get too crazy with the ladies.”
“Try to keep Tucker in the parlor,” she counters with a wink.
* * *
Lucy leaves just before seven. I clean the kitchen before taking a quick shower. I dress in jeans and a floral top, then spend forever in the bathroom, dusting my face with makeup, blowing my hair smooth. By the time I’m done, my skin’s pink with the heat of the dryer. I stash it and my brush in the cabinet below the sink, then wander out the front door to cool off.
Twilight’s fallen, and the sky is shrouded in clouds, leaving the porch darker than usual—except for a soft glow radiating from the south end.
Chloe’s standing where we first reunited.
It’s been a week since I saw her in the poppy meadow, since she remembered our fight, since her light dimmed.
A week since my last headache.
Her expression is taut with effort, as if it pains her to be more girl than ghost. Seeing her this way, drained, crushes me.
“It’s been a long time,” she says.
Has it? For her, have seven days dragged by like seven years?
You haven’t been forgotten.
You will never be forgotten.
She stares at me, intently and immodestly, and something passes between us. An energy or an understanding. A pledge. She drifts closer. My skin prickles with the chill she stirs. “That night in the poppy meadow,” she says. “Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
“I didn’t want to leave—you understand, don’t you?”
I nod. “It’s hard, maintaining this link.”
“Hard for you?”
I wait a breath; I have to be honest about how our connection affects me, but God, I dread pinning her with guilt. “It makes me feel bad, Chloe. After the poppies, I could barely move. If Tucker hadn’t come—”
“Tucker.” She says his name like it tastes sour. “He’s why I haven’t seen you.”
“No. You haven’t seen me because the last time we were together, I lost myself.”
Worse: I’m going to lose her all over again.
I chafe my hands over the goose bumps on my arms.
She must understand, because she says, “Let’s walk.”
“Not in the woods.”
“No. Just the yard.”
She moves down the steps, around to the back of the house. Unease makes my hands tingle, but I follow. I follow even though I’m not wearing shoes. Even though Tucker’s on his way. Even though I have no idea where we’re going. She leads me to the end of the yard, to the cliff that drops into the sea. The wind whips wild, whistling in my ears, stirring the ocean into a frenzy.
She stops a few feet from the edge. Her yellow dress looks muddied against the gloomy sky. The set of her shoulders tells me this is it—tonight, everything changes.
She turns; her woeful expression hurts my heart. “Callie,” she says, rough with emotion. “I don’t want to be like this. You can help.”
I look at the darkening sky, battling tears. “Do you understand what will happen if I do?”
“No—I can’t begin to imagine. But I don’t think I’ll get to see you anymore.”
“You won’t. You have to leave me behind.”
“Will you be okay?”
I smile, pretending to be as brave as she is. “Eventually.”
She nods. Her eyes are stretched wide, her mouth a hard line. She looks terrified, but she’s not crying. She didn’t cry in life, either—she persisted.
Thunder rumbles in the distance, a warning.
She prompts, “There was a boy…”
I take a shaky breath. “His name is Isaac. He moved into the house next to ours at the end of last spring.”
She watches me, rapt, like this is a story she’s never heard—never lived.
“I liked him right away,” I tell her. “And you did, too.”
Recognition flares in her eyes. “He was into bikes.”
I nod. “Sometimes you guys went out on rides together. He was helping you train.”
The charcoal sky opens up, sending raindrops to spatter the dirt beneath our feet.
“By the time school let out,” I go on, “it felt serious between Isaac and me, but I kept that from you. You were enamored and it was sweet, and I felt awful, being with him behind your back. But I’d already kept too many secrets, told too many half-truths. I didn’t know how to go backward, how to fix what I’d screwed up.”
Rain soaks my hair, my shirt. The ground is turning quickly to mud.
“He came to Lucy’s—”
“With doughnuts,” Chloe interjects.
I don’t know if it’s the weather or the night or the rescued bits of story, but all at once, she’s hard to see.
I’m seconds from putting a stop to this—from begging her to stay.
Selfish, my conscience whispers.
“That’s right,” I say. “You ate the two with chocolate glaze, and I was annoyed.”
She smiles, a classic Chloe smile—good-natured, unapologetic.
“Later that day, you went for a run. Lucy was out, too, so Isaac and I sat on the porch. I think you saw us kiss.”
“I did,” she says. She turns away, inching closer to the cliff. I pick my way across small, sharp rocks to stand at her side. She’s quiet, washed out, fading away.
I’m a monster for hurting her all over again.
I lean out to look over the jagged edge. Waves surge, slamming the rugged rocks with unbelievable force. The water is blue-black, except for where it breaks.
There, it’s white, frothy, deadly.
“Do you want to hear more?” I ask.
“I want to hear everything.”
I take a breath and speak over the beating rain. “Isaac spent the afternoon working on the bikes in Lucy’s shed. When he finished, you guys went for a ride. He was always talking about what a badass you were, and he felt as awful as I did, keeping secrets from you. At least, that’s what he said. I’ve wondered if there was more to it. I’ve wondered if he saw you as more than my little sister.”
“I tried to get him to,” Chloe says.
I know this—I’ve known since the night she came into my room with news of his arrival—but hearing it now, set against her new awareness that I intentionally stood in her way, ignites a fire of shame. I tamp it down, brushing rain from my eyes, and press on. “When you came back, Lucy and I were making dinner. I was washing lettuce at the sink, and I saw you through the window. You were with him, standing where we are now.”
A crack of lightning illuminates the sky. Chloe stares at the water—not the waves below, but farther out, at the nearly invisible horizon. She’s right next to me, but her voice sounds far away when she says, “I told him I liked him.”
“And then he kissed you.”
“No,” she says, resolute. “I kissed him.”
I let go of a breath.…
It wasn’t Isaac.
It wasn’t Isaac.
“Chloe, why would you do that?”
Another clap of thunder rocks the coast. She looks at me, her eyes black pools. “Because you knew I liked him, and you went after him anyway. I wanted you to hurt because I was hurting.”
I stole a boy from my starry-eyed little sister.
I reach for her, a gesture of apology. My hand passes through empty air.
I recoil as pain smashes into me.
Rain, wind, thunder, waves … Chloe, barely.
“Did he kiss you back?”
“No,” she whispers, sounding so defeated I feel her mortification like it’s my own. “He pulled away. And then he told me he thought I was cool, but like a friend. Like a little sister. He said he liked you—that you guys were together. I’d never been so embarrassed. So mad. So hurt. But then you came outside and said all those horrible things. You screamed—”
“That I’d never forgive you. That I hated you. Chloe, I know.”
I relive those moments every night before I fall asleep. Every morning when I wake up. Sometimes randomly, unexpectedly, when I’m swimming or painting or cleaning or listening to Buddy purr. The last words I spoke to my sister were thoughtless lies fueled by bitter jealousy.
Her face is gaunt, and her shoulders are bowed, like an unseen force is bearing down on her. She’s a glimmer. She says, “Did you mean it?”
I feel faint, outside myself. I betrayed her, and this is the consequence.
“Never. I saw what I saw, and I reacted without thinking. If I could take it back, I would.”
Another bolt of lightning strikes the sky, followed closely by a rumble of thunder that shakes my spine. My joints ache and my head hurts so badly it’s hard to remain upright.
“What did you say to Isaac after I ran into the house?” Chloe asks.
“I accused him of cheating. I called him a liar. I told him he had to leave.”
“But it wasn’t his fault.”
“It didn’t matter—I didn’t let him explain. I just wanted him to go. As soon as he did, I went to Aunt Lucy. I told her what I thought I saw. She assumed Isaac was to blame, just like I did. And then we realized that you’d left the house and taken your wet suit.”
“I biked to the beach,” she says, vehement now, like the rest of the story is fizzing up and out of her, desperate to escape. “I was humiliated and so mad. I thought swimming would help. But I shouldn’t have gone alone.”
“I wish you hadn’t.”
“I thought I could do it—escape the current. Swim diagonally toward shore, like I’ve always heard. But it was too strong. So fast, I was out of breath. So fast, my muscles failed. I was so scared.”
“So was I. Aunt Lucy and I tried to find you, but we were too late, and I’m sorry. For all of it, but mostly for not being with you.”
“I forgive you—of course I do. Isaac, too. If he feels bad, he shouldn’t. He was never anything but decent.” She flickers, a dying candle, then says, “Promise you’ll do awesome things, Callie. Be good to Mom and Dad, and kick ass in the pool. Compete in a triathlon, just once, for me.” She smiles, faint but mischievous. “Make sure Tucker’s nice to you. Also, you should probably kiss him, like, all the time.”
I’m half laughing, half crying, trying to imagine Bell Cove without her. “I will.”
She raises a hazy hand and blows me a kiss. “Love you, Cal.”
“Love you, too, Chloe.”
I hold her gaze until she’s almost transparent, blinking like an ebbing star.
No more questions. No more loneliness. No more wandering.
With a burst of frigid air and a flash of light that threatens to sever my sanity, she disappears into the darkness.
No more Chloe.
Below, the ocean rages.
A beam of light slices the yard.
Headlights.
Tucker.
49
The slam of his car door echoes across the yard.
“Callie!”
He’s streaking across the lawn. I watch him, dazed, toeing the edge of the cliff, trembling in the space that took my sister, my breaths fast and irregular. My head is throbbing, but when he stops a few feet away, I zero in with sharp focus. His T-shirt’s spattered with rain, and his flaxen hair is windblown.
He throws out a frantic hand, but his voice is soothing when he says, “Cal, come here.”
I hesitate, glancing at the water. I’m very high and very close to the edge. I sway, then catch myself.
“Jesus, Callie! Give me your hand!”
My senses are confused by the thrashing rain, my smarting feet, my clinging clothes, the waves, the thunder, the lightning, my grief. But when I turn, I see Tucker. His cheeks are rosy, and he looks perilously close to tears. He extends his hand again. “Please, Cal,” he says, laden with desperation.
I’m shivering, soaked through. My lucidity frays as my head pounds with nauseating intensity. “Chloe,” I say. “It’s over.”
His expression softens with understanding. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. But you have to move back.”
I squint at him; he’s the sun, and I’m a satellite reclaiming my orbit.
I’m stepping toward safety, toward him, reaching for his hand, when my foot slips in the saturated earth. Air leaves my lungs in a whoosh as I slam into the ground.
It’s a blur—a backward slide, wind on my feet, my legs suspended in emptiness. I grapple, my fingers skidding through mud, grabbing for a root or a rock or a divot in the earth, something to halt my fall.
Tucker lunges, diving onto his stomach.
As the last of my hope evaporates, he grabs my hand.
My humerus jerks out of its socket; it feels as if my arm’s being ripped from my body. I swallow a shriek as my eyes meet his, fraught, filled with terror. Heat radiates through my shoulder, my neck, my arm as Tucker adjusts his grip.
He groans, struggling to manage my oscillating weight. “Give me your other hand!”
I bite hard into my lip and swing my free hand up. He grasps it but can’t hang on. My palm is wet. His palm is wet.
I look down—a mistake.
My feet dangle in a chasm.
Pebbles tumble into blackness.
Waves surge and crest.
I’m going to fall.
“Callie, don’t look down—look at me! Swing your hand up again!”
It costs me, but somehow, we connect. He pulls, slow and labored, creeping toward safety. Gravel scrapes my torso and tears stream down my face as I kick, trying to lend momentum.
Finally, finally, I’m on solid ground.
Drenched and filthy, we scramble to our feet. I’m sobbing, shaking with superfluous adrenaline. My arm hangs limply at my side. The pain is excruciating, but I don’t care because Tucker’s shuddering so violently it’s a wonder he’s standing and, oh God, I want him to be okay—I need him to be okay.
How the Light Gets In Page 24