by Laura Miller
“Not even close. And even if that were real money, it wouldn’t be any good.”
“No?” I ask, pretending to be surprised.
Jake steps inside, forcing me to step back. And then he takes the pizza box and sets it down onto the little table in the hall.
“No,” he repeats.
He comes closer and puts his arms around me. I momentarily close my eyes and breathe in his crisp, exotic-smelling cologne. I could swear sometimes he’s just stepped off some jet from Bora Bora right before he comes to see me.
But this is the first time he’s ever touched me like this. And I like it.
I wrap my arms around his neck and press my body into his embrace. He holds me for a long while. And then he pulls away and looks into my eyes. And there’s a moment—like a question—that floats in the air between us.
Can I kiss you?
I don’t know if it’s him or me that asks it. Regardless, I answer, by keeping my stare in his.
He moves closer, his lips nearly touching mine. The way he does it makes me lose my breath. He’s so deliberate in his actions, yet also so careful, as he takes a strand of my hair and tucks it behind my ear. It’s as if I’m standing in front of two men.
Within a moment, his warm breaths hit my lips, and instinctively, my eyes fall shut.
My heart races. I almost can’t breathe. His lips touch mine. A shock resonates through my body.
The kiss is new, foreign, different, amazing. And too soon, it’s over, and he’s pressing his forehead to mine.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes out. “I just couldn’t wait a second longer to do that.”
I laugh softly. “I’m just wondering who got the tip.”
“I did.” I hear him smile. “I definitely got the tip.”
Then he pulls me into his arms again.
“I never expected to find you here, Savannah.”
I rest my head on his chest and speak softly: “You’re not what I expected to find here, either.”
And he’s not. He’s not at all what I expected. What I expected to find here was a boy I fell in love with when I was just a little girl. I expected a boy who would hold my hand while we watched the sky light up in a summer storm; I expected a boy who would lie next to me on Hogan’s slab and fall asleep to the sound of the creek water pushing through the concrete; and I expected a boy who I thought would always be mine.
But that boy is gone now. That boy grew up. And now, he’s a man in love with another woman.
But this man in front of me—he’s beautiful and loving and funny, and I can’t find anything wrong with him. This man just might be my future. In fact, I’d be lucky if he were. And I’m afraid that if I don’t let go of that boy from my past, that I might miss out on everything good that could be waiting for me—on this side of my crystal ball.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Savannah
(23 Years Old)
Day 6,657
“You’re better off trying to freeze hell.”
“What?” I ask, looking up.
“That wallpaper there has never seen daylight.”
“Well, there’s a first for everything.” I stand up and take a stack of papers to the desk. Salem comes over and takes another stack and sets it on the desk, too.
“Plus, apparently, there’s a safe under all this.” I gesture toward the corner still full of black and white news articles, long ago, folded into newspapers.
Salem takes off his hat and runs his fingers over his hair. “Is this how he hid it all these years?”
I laugh. “I guess so.”
“Well, what’s in it?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Safe stuff. The original deed, maybe, papers... Things like that.”
Immediately, he gives me a sideways look. “You’re not thinking about selling, are you?”
“No. No,” I assure him. “I just thought it might be good to actually know where the important stuff is. Thought that might be a good thing.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good thing,” he agrees, refitting his cap over his head. “I’ll help ya.”
He moves toward the stack of newspapers and bends down low next to me. I can feel his face so close to mine. And I think he notices it, too. We both stop and surrender to our breathing. For a solid three seconds, all I can hear is the rasping of our breaths and the beating of my heart as the air around us grows thick.
And then he moves. He lifts a stack of papers into his arms and carries them to my desk. And the moment is lost.
My heart is pounding in my chest, but I try not to think about it. I force myself to move, and I pick up an armful of papers. But at the same time, I steal a quick glance at him. If he was affected at all, he’s got a good poker face. It almost makes me think I was only just imagining things.
We get all the papers moved from the corner to my desk. And now my desk is full of newspapers, and our hands are covered in black ink. But now there’s also a safe—a black safe—in plain view, staring back at us.
I kneel down and pull on the little door.
It doesn’t budge.
“Do you have the key?”
I breathe out a defeated sigh. “No.”
Salem laughs loudly and then plops down into my desk chair. Meanwhile, I twist around and let my back fall against the wall.
“He never said where the key was,” I say. “I think I just always hoped it was open or something...or that I would have found the key by now.”
“Well, I guess I could try and open it back at the shop. I hear they’re mostly meant to be firesafe, not necessarily theftproof.”
I bite my bottom lip in thought. “Yeah,” I murmur, considering it. I slide down the wall, until I’m resting on my heels. “You don’t mind?”
He shakes his head. “No, I can try.”
“All right.” I glance at the little safe and then back at Salem. “Thank you.”
He smiles, and out of nowhere, a pesky thought crosses my mind.
“Why are people warning me about you?”
“What?” He looks a little taken aback.
I don’t say anything. I just wait for him to talk.
He sits back in the chair and lowers his head, so that I can’t see his face behind his red baseball cap.
“In high school,” he says, “when you didn’t write back...and after I called, and I texted...”
My heart drops in my chest.
“When I didn’t hear back from you,” he goes on, “I kind of lost it for a little while. And the last couple months of senior year, I just...” He shrugs his shoulders. “The season had just ended, and I didn’t have basketball to distract me anymore. And I started drinking. I stayed out too late. I skipped class.”
His eyes meet mine. They’re dark and thoughtful now.
“The thing they’re all talking about—the reason why they probably warned you to stay away from me—besides the fact that I suck at being a boyfriend because I spend all my time on Sheppard’s Hill...”
My eyes dart to him, and he stops, almost as if he knows he’s said too much.
“Anyway,” he goes on, without addressing the Sheppard’s Hill part, “today, they all have their stories and reasons for why I’m not all right, but it’s all because of one night.”
He pauses and refits his cap over his head. I don’t say anything. I wouldn’t know what to say anyway. I just wait for him to continue. And he does, eventually.
“One night, I got drunk, and I got in my truck, and I drove down Excelsior, and I ran right into the side of the Old Red Bridge.”
I suck in a gasp, and my hand covers my mouth. “Eben.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head, “I was fine. And no one was with me. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but by the grace of God, I was fine.”
He sits up straighter in the chair.
“My truck got a little beat up. The bridge got more beat up. And thankfully, for my ass, Sheriff Howard showed up. So no criminal record
. But that was the last straw for my parents. I was basically on house arrest with them until I finished high school. And then, as soon as they could, they shipped me off to college. And believe it or not, it took me four years, but I got it mostly together there.”
I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t look at him. My stare is concentrated on a tiny piece of the carpet. I don’t know what to say. I got so caught up in the story that I missed how it all began. But now, I remember.
“But that’s why,” he says. “That’s why they all think I’m a little bit of trouble.”
He’s quiet then.
“I’m really not, though,” he adds, in a rasping voice. “Trouble,” he clarifies.
My stare slowly lifts to his.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But if I would have just...”
“No,” he says, cutting me off. “You did what you thought you had to do. I was responsible for me.”
I silently stare into his eyes. I want to take back everything—everything I didn’t do back then. I want to write him. I want to call him. I want his eighteen-year-old self to know how hard it was to let him go. I want him to know how many nights I cried for him and how many days I walked through as if I were in a fog, missing him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he assures me, giving me a gentle smile.
My eyes drop to the floor. A handful of emotions are spiraling through my body, and since I can’t choose just one, I swear they vow to tear up every part of me.
“I’ll see if I can get this open.” He slowly stands and moves toward the safe. And then in one, smooth motion, he lifts it off the floor.
My eyes find his, and I just nod, unable to do much else.
“I’ll call you and let you know,” he says. Then, he disappears into the front of the little building.
Seconds later, I hear the bell above the door clanging. And soon, it’s just me, left sorting out a decision I made six years ago. If I would have known how it was all going to affect him, I would have done it all differently.
I thought I was saving him. And this whole time, I was killing him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Salem
(23 Years Old)
Day 6,659
“Damn,” I say, under my breath.
I’m in the back office of the lumberyard, and I’ve been staring at this safe for about ten minutes now, trying to figure out what’s the best way to go about this.
I’ve got a drill, and I’m hoping that just drilling through the lock will work. I’d rather not have to cut through its hinges.
I push out a puff of air and narrow my eyes at it. “Well. I guess, here goes nothin’.”
I lean over to pick up the drill, and my chain falls from the neck of my shirt and dangles in front of me. I go to tuck it back in, when my fingers hit the key, and I stop.
I stop, and I stare at that key.
Then I stare at the lock.
Could it be?
It’s a long shot, but maybe. Vannah did give it to me when she was hanging out at the paper. It’s worth a try, I guess.
I pull the chain over my head and put the key to the lock.
And I push.
It slides in.
I carefully turn it.
It turns.
And just like that, the safe clicks open.
“Well, that was easy.”
I laugh to myself and pull open the door. It doesn’t open easily, and its hinges scream as they come back to life after maybe decades of resting.
I wiggle the key out of the lock and go to close the little door again, when something falls out.
It’s a photo. I pick it up and go to put it back in the safe, but I stop when I notice the woman in the picture. I’ve seen her before. I think about it for a second. I’ve seen her before at Lester’s house. She was the girl in the frame.
I turn the photo over. There’s something written on the back. I read it. And then slowly, gradually—like a slow-burning oak—something deep inside me starts to stir.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Savannah
(23 Years Old)
“Tell me what you were like when you were little.”
I smile, and Jake pulls me closer. I can feel the fire rising up in me, starting at the place his fingertips graze the bare skin of my arm.
It’s Tuesday. We’re on my couch, barely watching an old episode of Friends.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Just, what were you like? Were you shy? Were you awkward? Did you ever get in trouble?”
I tilt my head back to think about it.
“I don’t think I was shy. I liked sports, volleyball mostly. I was awkward sometimes. If I wanted to do something, I usually did it. But I stayed out of trouble, mostly, I think.”
“Aah.” He nods his head.
“What about you. What were you like?”
“Well.” He looks off for a moment. “I don’t think most people would call me shy, but I was.”
His other hand comes to rest on my knee, and I watch as he mindlessly traces a white scar on my skin.
“And both my parents were lawyers, so everyone thought I was smart. And I did okay in school; I just had to work hard for it, I guess. Math and science were two things that didn’t come easy to me.”
I laugh. “But can you write a sentence?”
“I can,” he says, proudly.
“Well, that’s really all you need in my book.”
He laughs and plants a kiss on my forehead. I pause to take in the way his lips linger on my skin. And then he pulls away and looks into my eyes.
“I like you,” he says.
My gaze falls briefly before returning to his.
“I like you, too.”
His face lights up. And then he takes my hand, and I rest my head on his chest. And for several moments, we’re just still. But I can’t stop smiling because the truth is, I don’t know that much about him, but I do already like him. He’s easy to like. And I’m okay with like right now. I can do like.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Mm hmm,” he hums. “One brother. Older. Lives in Chester. Married to his high school sweetheart.”
“Aw,” I say.
“Yeah, they’re sickeningly happy.”
I laugh.
“What about you?” he asks.
“One sister. Whitney. She’s back in South Carolina and works at a public relations firm.”
“Aah, are you guys close?”
“Um, yeah. We’re closer than we used to be. She’s only two years older, but I was always too young for her and her friends.” I smile up at him. “But she eventually got over that.”
“That’s good to hear.”
He intertwines his fingers with mine.
“Did you play any sports?” I ask.
“Hockey.”
My eyes dart to his mouth. “But you have teeth.”
He chuckles. “I wore a face mask.”
“But what about this?” I say, delicately tracing with my fingertips a fine, white scar on his jawline.
“That would be the work of Henry Waterfeld.” He laughs. “We were playing roller hockey in the cul-de-sac. I just got a little too close to his high-stick.”
My eyes grow wide.
“It was nothing, really. The scar itself is much more exciting than its story.”
I watch him then, as he rubs his jaw with his thumb and forefinger. His eyes are somewhere far off, as if he’s thinking back, maybe. But there’s something about his thoughtful expression that makes me feel as if he has so many more stories to tell.
“I bet you made one very cute hockey player.”
His gaze falls, and he blushes. But when his eyes return to mine, he’s smiling.
“I wish I could have been a fly on your wall when you were growing up,” he says.
I narrow my eyes at him and push my lip
s to one side. “I probably would have squished you. I’m not a fan of bugs.”
“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “I never told you I used to be fast, did I?”
“Really?”
“Well, on skates, anyway.”
“Okay, you win. I don’t think I ever could have brought myself to squish a skates-wearing fly.”
He leans his head back and laughs. Meanwhile, I rest my cheek on the inside of his shoulder.
“Why did you move here?” I ask, after his laughter fades.
I feel his shoulder lift slightly.
“I have an aunt who works in St. Louis. I liked the area, but I’m not big on the city life. So, one day, I just drove. I drove down 44 and then turned off onto 100. And I stopped at the first place that felt like home. And that place was here.”
I look up at him.
“This feels like Popeye’s home?”
“Yeah,” he says, “this feels like Popeye’s home.”
I softly laugh. “Well, I’m happy you stopped here.”
He pulls me even closer and gently rests his head on mine.
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’re a really nice surprise.”
His fingers are now gently caressing my bare arm, leaving a tingly sensation in their wake. It feels good. It feels good to be in his arms. And it’s hard to explain, but everything he does feels as if it’s a promise—a promise of safety and protection and love. And I believe it. I know it’s early. And I know it’s crazy, but I believe in all those things in his arms.
“Savannah.”
“Hmm?”
I lift my eyes to his.
“I could get used to this,” he says, in a low rasp.
There’s a smile on his face. And it instantly makes my heart feel full. And I know... I know, with a certainty I’ve never had before, that it’s because I could get used to this, too. I could get used to days in my porch swing, getting to know him more and more with every new story from his past. I could get used to nights on the couch, with him always making sure I have enough of the blanket to keep me warm. I could get used to his passionate kisses, his touch, the way he says my name like no one’s ever said it—as if it’s a word from his favorite song.