by Taylor Hale
“Sure. I’m going to go back in, though, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too. Be careful.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Before she can express more concern for my well-being, I hang up. Dark clouds sail overhead and shield the moon and stars.
All my childhood friends are so different now. If I never moved away, I wonder who I would have become. Maybe Faye and her friends would have thought I was cool, and maybe I never would have been called a buzzkill. Or maybe I would be the one getting my stomach pumped inside.
I reach into my purse and touch the sea glass Miles gave me. Their cool, round shapes calm the impending storm in my head, and for a moment, I feel okay again. The summer isn’t even half over. There’s still time for me to reconnect with my old life—and if Keely stops drinking so much, maybe things will get easier.
When I get back inside, Sun and Roger are gone, the waiting room filled with the faces of strangers anticipating good or bad news. Sitting alone in a corner, I spend the rest of the night parachuting between reality, nightmares about drowning, and dreams of kissing West.
10
My foot creaks against the floorboard as I sneak through the hall of Keely’s house. The night startled me awake again, but this time, the dream has dissolved behind the fog of my mind; it exists only in fragments.
Running. The lighthouse. A man.
I shudder away from the images, from the terror that still lingers. The house is dark and the air conditioner rumbles through the walls, its icy breath raising the hairs on my arms. Roger’s snoring softly sounds. Keely’s bedroom door is closed, but she’s sound asleep in there, still recovering from when she got her stomach pumped last week. Since then, she’s been beyond grounded, and we haven’t hung out with anyone. No Miles, Shawn, Dean, or Faye.
No West.
And honestly, I’ve liked spending the week with just Keely, but being cooped up in the house is making me claustrophobic. I didn’t think it would be so hard to sleep away from my own bed. That’s why I’m up in the middle of the night, only a few hours before Roger has to get up for work. No one will notice me at this hour.
Maybe a shower will wash this anxiety away.
In the bathroom at the end of the hall, I lock myself in and turn on the light. The room is small and narrow, with blue-and-gray accent towels and a soft carpet shower mat, and the sound of the fan comforts me. A deep breath, and my shaky hands turn the knob of the shower until streams of water pound the bathtub.
Waves crash all around me. The ocean rushes into my lungs.
I snap the elastic and force myself to stay in the present.
Billows of steam swallow me as I step inside, and hot water pelts my back. The seashelled tiles of the stall kaleidoscope when I zone in on them for too long, so I blink myself out of a trance and lather pear-scented shampoo into my hair.
An opaque window is built into the wall of the shower. It distorts the dark world behind it and only allows the vague shape of a tree to be seen. I’ve been dreaming a lot about windows, about someone watching me through them.
Something knocks on the glass. Startled, I get soapy water all over my face. I take a deep breath. It’s nothing. I’m imagining things. I’m safe.
Just as I’m thinking it was a bird, a light-colored shape appears behind the window, only touching the sill.
A hand.
Screaming, I scramble out of the tub and fall into the shower curtain. It tears off the hooks and gets caught between my legs. Moments later, someone knocks at the door.
“Liv?” It’s Keely. “Liv! Are you okay?”
I look back at the window, and of course, nothing is there.
“Roger, I swear, there was someone outside.”
We’ve been in front of the computer in the living room for half an hour. Roger’s face is illuminated by the black-and-white images on the screen, while Sun and Keely stand back and watch, their expressions grim.
“Olivia, we’ve gone through every second of footage.” Roger opens the camera to the driveway. Nothing but blackness and the trees swaying in the wind. “There’s no one out there. No one’s been out there since I got home from work.”
“But . . .” I hug myself and shiver. My cold, wet hair has dampened the shoulders of my T-shirt. “I swear I saw someone. They tried to grab the windowsill.”
“The camera caught no one, and I didn’t see any prints when I went outside.” Roger sighs and spins on the desk chair. Reading glasses slide to the tip of his long nose. “Look, Olivia. Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you been taking your medication?”
Embarrassment and anger stab me. His eyes say you imagined it, and I consider getting mad—but I have no way to prove what I saw was real.
“Yes, I have been,” I say. “I know what I saw. What if the person slipped by the cameras?”
“It’s unlikely. This security system is state of the art.”
“But there’s no camera that points exactly to the shower window.”
“That’s true, but . . .”
“Liv,” Keely says, “you have been having those nightmares—”
“I know the difference between reality and nightmares,” I snap, even though I’m not a hundred percent sure that’s true. For the past week, my brain has felt swollen, tight against my skull. But this felt different—it felt real. It had to be real.
Right?
“Nightmares?” Roger clasps his hands together. “Are you okay, Olivia?”
“I’m fine!” They all flinch. When they look at me like I’m a wounded animal, I mumble, “I’m sorry, everyone. Maybe I did imagine it. I’ll just go to bed.”
“Liv, wait!” Keely says, but I brush her off and go to my room, closing the door behind me and shutting the blinds so not even a sliver of moonlight can get in.
What I saw was real. I’m not crazy.
But the proof was right there, on Roger’s security tapes. There’s no way I’m sleeping anytime soon, so I take out my phone. It’s after 3:00 a.m. now, and twenty minutes ago, West texted me. I open it right away. He’s never messaged me this late before.
Hey, you up?
Hey, yeah unfortunately
What’s wrong?
It’s nothing. I just can’t sleep. Anxious. :(
Same. I’m bored. We should hang out soon.
I’d like that a lot
:) Well I’m going for a drive, talk to you later.
Take me?
I could come pick you up right now.
Not a single part of me wants to go outside even for a second, but it’d be worth it to see West. Maybe he could even help me make sense of everything that just happened, because I’m lost. I’m desperate. When we were kids, West always knew what to do. One time, while playing down at the beach, I broke my favorite toy boat and it wouldn’t sail anymore. I panicked and tried to shove the little wooden mast back into the hull, but it was destroyed. Then West came over, and he told me he could fix it—so we went back to the Hendricks estate, and he made me wait outside of his room until he came out with my boat, good as new. We went back to the shore, and it sailed better than it ever did before.
But my mind is not a toy. West can’t piece me back together with hot glue, but I still want to see him.
Okay, Olivia, slow down.
Sneaking out would mean betraying Sun and Roger, and they’ve been so good to me. At the same time, the darkness in this room is deafening, and the thought of being in here alone terrifies me. Wondering whether what I saw was real or not will drive me in circles.
So when sleep settles over the house again, I creep down the hallway and sneak out the side door.
The Corvette waits for me at the corner of the street. Running to it, I slide into the passenger side. The smell of leather, motor oil, and West’s earthy cologne overwhelms my senses.
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br /> “You look cute,” he says.
My cheeks flush. “I’m basically in pajamas.” Sweats and a T-shirt, but still. I wanted to look decent for West but wasn’t about to do my hair and makeup at three in the morning, so I’m barefaced and still damp from my shower. But I like the way he looks at me. It almost makes me forget what happened at the house—almost.
“Doesn’t matter,” West says. “I like you in pajamas.”
“Thanks.”
West tells me that his car is a tangible piece of history, a fragment of the 1960s. It’s pretty cool. The seats are low, and the long, curved nose of the electric-blue vehicle stretches before us, illuminated by the moonlight. West drives down Keely’s street, and soon we cross through downtown, by the park with the fountain, past his apartment. Only our shared silence fills the air, but it isn’t uncomfortable. Intervals of street lights brighten his face as we get near the outskirts of town. Within five minutes, we exit through a narrow road lined by the forest. The strong scent of evergreen leaks into the car. The farther from town we get, the hazier my memory of what happened in the shower becomes.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re so anxious about?” West eventually asks.
“Well, I’m fine right now.” In fact, the calm rumble of the car lulls me. If I fell asleep here, I bet I wouldn’t dream of anything bad at all.
“But before you weren’t,” West says.
“No, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it. You go first?”
“Okay.” His hand is draped over the steering wheel, the other on the stick as he drives. “It’s just life. My job. I’m worried about money, and my dad’s getting cheap when it comes to helping me out.”
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah. Your turn.”
“I’ve been having a hard time sleeping lately. Really bad dreams. And even when I’m awake, sometimes I . . .”
“Sometimes you what?”
Keely doesn’t even know the full extent. That these nightmares happen so often, they make me feel like I’m not human, and I’m scared of what she’ll think if she knew. But as we drive down the empty road, I feel safe. Unjudged. Like West will accept me.
“Do you ever feel like something’s there, even though there maybe isn’t?” I ask.
“I’m not following.”
I huff, frustrated with myself. “Forget it. You’re going to think I’m out of my mind. It’s impossible to explain.”
“Olive, I’m right here listening. Try me.”
“It’s just—sometimes I have these really vivid dreams that someone is chasing me or watching me or wants to hurt me, and when I wake up it can be hard to remember what’s real and what isn’t. Does that make sense?”
West is quiet for a moment, his eyes on the road. “Can’t trust everything you think. You went through something rough when you were a kid. Being back here is probably triggering some bad shit.”
Like seeing things in windows that aren’t really there. “I was diagnosed with PTSD,” I say, “but it’s never affected me like this before. I’ve been having night terrors since my fall, but now that I’m here, it’s like they’ve magnified times a thousand. I’m getting better at being near water, yet somehow I don’t feel like I’m recovering at all.”
“Maybe you should start there, focus on one thing. You said you came back here to get over your fear of the water, right? Maybe if you work on that, you’ll get over this other thing too.”
“Maybe . . .”
“What do you think? Ready to take a dip yet?”
“You mean actually get in the water?”
“Yeah. If you get in and get out unscathed—which you will if you’re with me—then you might see that it’s all in your head, and that the water can’t hurt you. And hey, if you do freak out, I won’t tell anyone.”
My lips are dry. “If I’m with you?”
“Did I say that?”
I can’t help but grin. I’m not ready to get in the water, not even with West. But something old resurfaces in me; the part of me that wanted to take risks, to challenge myself.
We’re far from town now. The area is so dead at this hour, and we’ve only passed two other vehicles. The entire state of Maine is ninety percent forest, so no matter how far we go, more trees surround us.
Running my hands along the worn leather of the seat, I say, “I really like your car.”
“Thanks.” He gives me a quick smirk, like I’ve inflated his ego. Even West isn’t impervious to compliments, I guess.
“I bet it goes really fast.”
“It does.”
“You should show me.”
“You want to see how fast it goes?”
I nod. Slowly.
West presses down on the gas pedal. The engine growls, and the car whips forward. Adrenaline strikes. It’s a good adrenaline, though; not like the crippling fear in my everyday life. It’s tingly and euphoric, a roller coaster ride. I’m not the type to chase cheap thrills; I learned that lesson five years ago. But being with West makes me want to live again, like I did when I was a kid. When I’m with him, I never fell off that cliff.
“Faster,” I whisper.
Our eyes meet again, and he accelerates more. When I don’t protest, he goes faster, and faster, until all I feel is the car shaking and my heart beating. The frame wobbles like it’s going to explode into pieces—and then silence. Smooth, perfect sailing, like we’ve broken through a barrier. West’s knuckles turn white as he grips the wheel. The rumble of the engine is sleek and silky and stable. The thumping of my pulse is supersonic and alive. The world outside is nothing but a blur of black, blue, and green, and it’s exhilarating. I want to soar as far away as we can, beyond those clouds, into the stars above, straight to the moon.
“Oh my God!” I shout.
“You okay?”
“I’m good!”
“Okay, okay, I’ve got to slow it down—I don’t want to get in shit.” Steadily, the speed drops until we stabilize. West’s pupils are saucers. “You always were a thrill junkie, but I didn’t think you were like that anymore.”
“Trust me, I’m not. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Me neither. But I’ve always liked this side of you.”
We drive around for a long time and listen to the classic rock station on the old-school dial radio, talking about everything and nothing. I tell him that Keely and I binged Ryan Gosling movies the other day. He tells me Drive is his favorite. We talk about being kids and how much we both miss the time when things were simple. Eventually, West starts yawning. He directs the car toward Caldwell Beach. Even though I don’t want this night to end, I’m feeling heavy, too, and it’s nearly 5:00 a.m. Roger gets up for work at six, and he already lost sleep when I woke him up over nothing.
West idles the car at the corner of Keely’s street as rain drums the roof, metallic and poppy. My breath stops when he reaches across the seat and grazes my cheek with his callused finger, evoking a shiver.
“You’re going back to New York at the end of the summer, aren’t you?”
I press my cheek to his warm hand. “I don’t want to think about that.”
He brushes my hair behind my ear, then takes his hand away and leaves a trail of fire beneath his fingers. He just touched me. But now he silently focuses on the street behind the windows. The air in the car is humid, and my hair sticks to my sweaty skin.
“What’s wrong?” I squeak out, still in disbelief.
“Nothing.”
Whatever just happened with us wasn’t nothing. Him touching me wasn’t nothing. Why did he stop?
“West.”
Finally, he looks at me, and it’s a defibrillator to my chest. Because his eyes are hooded and his lips are slightly parted, an expression I’m sure I mirror. Desire.
But he turns away.
“My brother tried to kiss you.”
Oh. The heat of his touch remains, but the moment has fizzled out and died like a campfire drenched in water.
“I didn’t want him to kiss me,” I whisper. I wanted you to.
My heart clenches. I could tell him, right here, right now, how I’ve always felt about him. But the fear of rejection is too strong. Part of me does feel bad that this might hurt Miles, but a bigger part would do anything to be with West.
“Miles and I are just friends,” I say, throat tight. “I made that clear to him.”
“But he likes you.” A pause, and West scans my face; memorizes it. “Do you think it’s fucked up I don’t care?”
“Maybe, but . . . you two aren’t even close.”
“No, we aren’t.” He laughs a little. “Hell, most of the time I can’t stand the kid.”
“But not all of the time.”
“He’s my little brother.”
“Of course . . . I couldn’t ask you to hurt someone you love, West.”
Still, the hope that somehow, someway, this conversation will turn back to where it was when he touched me tinges me with frustration, because I never asked Miles to kiss me. All of my childish dreams about West are coming to life, so close they’re at my fingertips, yet still too far away. It doesn’t feel fair. Maybe that’s selfish—they’re family, and I’m just a girl who used to live here.
“That’s the thing.” West wipes his palms on his faded black jeans. “It doesn’t bother me, because he doesn’t own you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Like you said, we aren’t close,” he says, quietly this time.
The relief is enough to overflow the guilt. Nothing can stop the trembling in my arm as I reach for him, for his hand. Our fingers interlock. Intoxicated, I watch him bring the back of my hand to his lips, and with a tectonic shift, he kisses my skin.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says and drops my hand. I tuck it over my lap. Even after the kiss—which I’m still processing—West’s hesitancy is written all over his face, and outside, sunrise has started to peek over the horizon.