by Meg Collett
But she didn’t have time and she was panicking and the fire above her was too hot and too bright. She searched for a handhold, and without testing it, she threw her weight into it.
Miraculously, the holds didn’t crumble. Her fingers dug into the rock, her knuckles going white and her nails breaking off.
She reached again.
“Violet!” Arie shouted. “Don’t move! Help’s coming!”
The sirens and flashing lights were closer. Brighter. Louder.
Fear kept her moving, but panic made her sloppy. A heady desperation obliterated her rational thoughts. She moved until she was over halfway to the trees, her fingertips raw and bloody and her legs shaking from the effort.
The wall swayed again, and around her the mortar between the stones cracked and fell apart. Toward the back of the house, near her parents’ bedroom, she caught sight of the wall she was climbing across crumble into chunks of nothing and fall to the ground. Any second now, her section of the wall would topple.
She blindly groped for another hold. Her toe snagged on one and she heaved her weight onto it without a handhold. Her fingers scraped against the wall, searching, searching, searching.
But she found nothing.
She was slipping and falling backward with nothing to hold on to. Her fingers clawed at the wall, and right as she was about to free-fall backward, she found a tiny divot, enough for one finger.
She had to jump. She wouldn’t make it another foot. The wall around her felt loose. The house was trembling.
Her eyes locked on the tree closest to her. A limb stretched out farther than the others. It wasn’t very big, but it would have to do. She had to get off this wall.
Jump, my little spider. Jump.
She crouched as much as she could, anything to get extra momentum. Her eyes stayed locked on the limb. Right as she was about to jump, the wall gave in. She had nothing to spring off of, nothing to use to push herself forward. Her jump faltered, and she free-fell through open air.
“Violet!”
Her arms pinwheeled, her feet kicking as though the air might catch her. Down and down she tumbled. She reached for the limb, her eyes only seeing its pale bark.
Her fingers caught it. It bowed beneath her weight and she fought to keep more than just a few fingers clinging to it.
A crack filled the air.
The branch broke, and she was falling again.
The ground came fast, too fast, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as she’d thought it would.
“Violet.”
Her name was a shaky breath right next to her ear.
She was in a heap on the ground, tangled around something that took her a moment to realize was Arie. He sat up next to her, his hands going across her face and her body, searching for injuries. He was asking her something, but her ears were ringing and blood was pounding through her head too quickly for her to make sense of anything.
He was waving at something behind her, motioning someone over. He had her hands cradled against his chest and her body tucked against his. He was shouting, and then suddenly there were people all around them, picking her up and pulling her from him and rushing her away.
A man in a big coat and a fireman’s hat held her. The sky flashed red and blue, and her head bounced as they ran. Her eyes rolled back toward the house.
It folded in on itself. The gargoyles broke free and tumbled into the darkness, flying away, she imagined. The house leaned and leaned and leaned itself right over the bluff. A whoosh of air filled the space where it had been. A sigh, she thought, one of relief too. Down, down, down it fell, too far below for her to hear the answering splash as the ocean finally took away her family home.
The fireman handed her off to someone else, blocking her view. She struggled to see, the panic too tight in her chest to allow her to say anything, but then Arie was standing above her, talking to someone who was holding her hands and wrapping them in tight bandages.
A mask came down over her face and cool air filled her nose. She coughed at it, her body convulsing from the effort. Arie wrapped his arms around her and held her together.
Her body moved again. She was on a stretcher. They were lifting her into the back of an ambulance, its flashing lights washing over her body. As she rose into the air, she saw the police cars and fire trucks and the people rushing around.
Her eyes swept back to her house. More of the house was left than she’d expected. Beams stuck up from the ground, reminding her of broken fingers, and a few cellar walls remained. One entire side of the house, including part of the roof, had survived. Other than that, she saw nothing but lingering smoke and shadows.
The ambulance closed in around her, and Arie was at her side as the paramedics touched her and strapped things to her. Her eyes bounced between all of them, her ragged breathing finally slowing enough to distinguish something other than the blood pumping in her ears.
Her vision was too blurry for her to make out anything until Arie leaned in closer, somehow knowing she needed to see something, anything.
She tried to reach for him but her hands were caught, the paramedic working on the burns. Her head rolled toward Arie. His hand pushed back her hair from her forehead, and he planted a kiss on her skin.
He rested his head against hers, and his tears washed through the soot on her cheeks, tracking a clean, clear path down her skin.
She closed her eyes, wrapping the darkness around her like a warm blanket. Her mother’s voice was in her ear again. Three times to seal it in fate.
My little spider. My little spider. My little spider.
20
Canaan Island was meant for summers.
There was a specialness to it during that season. People came over the bridge and drove down Main Street and saw the brightly colored shops with their doors open to the outside air. People walked the streets, waving to each other and jaywalking back and forth whenever their interests tugged them toward another store. Different music played from each building and merged on the street to form another sort of music altogether. One just for Canaan.
Canaan Island was also meant for the lost. For the people who needed to be healed by the blue waters and white sand, the drawling accents, Maggie’s lemon drop cookies, and the local radio station playing whatever DJ Tooty wanted. It was for those needing a lighthouse to steer them away from danger. The ones who needed the summer sun to find their own light in the darkness were welcomed here.
Because everyone had a darkness. Everyone struggled.
Canaan Island was meant for anyone looking for a home.
And Violet was the first to attest to that. She’d had a house once, and it had meant the world to her. But it had never been a home. She’d found a home on Canaan.
In the past six months, day by day and week by week, she’d built that home. It was a tiny cottage-type rental out on the bluffs, and the flowers she’d planted were just starting to bloom. Every single one of them was red. Red for daring. Red for living.
She’d cut a few to take with her to the hospital, where she’d just arrived.
Leaving her bike out front, she entered through the front doors. The automatic sliding doors swooshed open and the antiseptic smell washed over her. For a moment, a spike of fear hit her. She saw the back of her mother’s car and her father slouched against the passenger door and her mother’s face in the rearview mirror. But it was just a memory.
Violet checked the directory for the right floor. Once she knew where she was going, she aimed for the bank of elevators, and the prim lady behind the visitors’ desk cut her a long, hard stare as she walked by. Violet’s cheeks flushed, but she kept her chin up.
An elevator whisked open as soon as she called for one. She stepped inside and hit the button for the fourth floor. The doors slid shut, and her reflection in the chrome doors stared back at her. She pushed her glasses up on her nose.
She wore plum linen shorts and a white t-shirt. She looked slender, and her legs stretched on for days, and
not in the Cindy Crawford kind of way, but the teenage boy way. Her silver hair was cut in a short bob that brushed her shoulders, her bangs held back with a bobby pin. Her glasses made her look nerdy and ready for one of Tooty’s video games they’d played a few times when they all hung out at Maggie’s apartment.
The doors whisked open and she stepped out. A large sign hung from the ceiling: Labor and Delivery. Violet’s shoes squeaked against the shiny linoleum as she walked toward the sound of a raucous voice spilling out from the waiting area.
“. . . and then I was like, ‘Dude, did your water just break in my mother-trucking new Mustang, because I swear to God, if that’s a pool of birthing fluid beneath your ass, I’m gonna freak.’ And it totally was. I mean, like, picture a tsunami. I was shaking so hard she had to drive.”
Violet smiled as she stepped into the waiting area. Stevie was holding court in the middle of the room, waving her arms, her red hair bouncing down her back.
“You made a pregnant woman giving birth drive to the hospital?” Tooty asked, sitting next to Maggie. His red Converse sneaker bounced up and down, and the cup of coffee he held threatened to slosh over the rim.
“Well, yeah? I was having an anxiety attack!”
Violet recognized most of the people in the room—Stevie, Cade, Tooty, Maggie, Kyra’s grandparents, and her aunt and uncle from California. A few of Hale’s employees were there, including a man named Chevy and his son. Everyone looked up at Violet as she stepped into the room.
“Oh! Good,” Stevie said. “Violet, tell these people Kyra is a complete drama queen when she thinks she’s having contractions.”
Violet smiled, feeling a blush blooming across the back of her neck as everyone turned their attention to her. “I brought you cookies. I thought you might need the sugar.”
She offered Stevie the pale pink box of lemon drop cookies she’d picked up from the bakery before biking over. Stevie pounced on the box like a grizzly on a school of sleepy salmon. Over her shoulder, Cade waved hello and mouthed, “Thank you.” Violet inclined her head to him.
“How’s she doing?” she asked the group.
Cade sighed. “Hale came out about ten minutes ago. He puked in that trash can behind you, so don’t get too close. I think the poor guy’s fainted twice. The nurses are making him sit in a chair.” Cade smiled at the news. He would hoard the information and use it as blackmail for years after his brother’s little girl was born. “But Kyra is doing well. She’s dilated to ten centimeters. They’re about to start pushing.”
“Wow,” Violet said. “You’re going to be an uncle soon.”
“And,” Stevie chimed in, talking around a cookie, “you’re going to be a babysitter soon. So, you know, family basically.”
“I imagine I’m as good with kids as you are.”
“Hey.” Stevie pointed a cookie at her as if it were a smoking gun. “We took that class with Kyra when she was freaking out about how to change a diaper. I’m damn good with those plastic baby things.”
“They weren’t alive, Stevie,” Violet said, remembering the six-week class they’d just finished. They all had the diplomas to show for it. Stevie had hers framed in her dining room.
“I’m not prejudice like some people. I—” Stevie didn’t finish, her eyes flicking over Violet’s shoulder and going a bit wide.
“You’ve got two options, Stevie. Sugar-free Oreos or fat-free Chips Ahoy. Pick your poison—” Arie fumbled to a stop when Violet turned around and met his eyes.
“Uh-oh,” Stevie whispered, her eyes bouncing between Violet and Arie. “This is awkward.” Then, almost too quietly to hear, she whispered, “The Oreos.”
Without looking, Arie tossed the packs at Stevie. She fumbled the package and cursed as she scrambled to retrieve it from under a waiting room seat.
“Hey,” Arie said, his eyes still trained on Violet.
Her stomach dropped. She hadn’t seen Arie since he’d left for college. They’d texted a few times, but even those little messages had dwindled to a stop when it became clear words weren’t enough. Hale and Cade spoke of him sometimes, but she’d trained her ears to ignore their casual conversations. “Hello.”
“Can we talk?” Arie leaned toward her.
“Sure,” Violet said, choking a bit on the word.
“Let’s go somewhere” —Arie shot a glance at Stevie— “private.”
He put his hand on Violet’s lower back and guided her away from the waiting room. His touch was fire and ice, and Violet’s mind was tumbling so quickly she almost missed Stevie hissing after him, “No baby-making! You can’t steal Kyra’s thunder!”
“How have you been?” Arie asked when they were a safe distance away, next to the vending machines in a private little alcove.
“Good.” Violet was pleased her voice didn’t shake as much as she’d expected. “I’m helping Maggie at the bakery full-time this season. How have you been?”
“Good. Good,” Arie said in a rush, as if it pained him to make small talk. “I finished my spring exams. Fingers crossed I don’t fail anything.”
“You won’t.”
His lips twitched. His hair was a little longer than she remembered and his beard was gone, leaving only his smooth, brown skin. He wore a backward hat and a plaid shirt, and the nostalgia flared hot in Violet’s heart. She remembered how those shirts felt beneath her hands, and she ached to touch them again.
“I heard they broke ground on the golf course.”
Violet’s eyes slid away from his face, but she didn’t bother hiding the hurt from her expression. Not with Arie. “They did. I try not to look when I visit the lighthouse.”
Now, Arie truly did smile. “Cade told me you moved the light in your attic to the top of the lighthouse.”
“It was only right.”
“I bet the birds loved you climbing around in there.”
“I may have been pooped on a couple times.”
He nodded and then kept nodding like he was one of those bobble-head dolls some of the tourist stores sold in town. Violet had never seen Arie at a loss for words or a joke. Finally, in the silence, he found something to say.
“I wanted to come see you. I got in my truck a million times, but after the fire, you just . . . were so ready to move on. I didn’t want to hold you back.”
On impulse, she took his hand. “You weren’t holding me back. I just needed time to figure out the life I could have outside that house. I had to learn how to stop hiding from everything. I’m still learning.”
He was staring down at their joined hands. With a slowness that suggested he was waiting for her to stop him, he ran his thumb over her knuckles. “You know, Stevie called me once a week. She called them her Violet Updates. She told me everything you were doing. Every funny thing you’d said. All your dark, weird humor. She told me all of it.”
Violet choked on a laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” Arie said. She’d had no idea Stevie was doing that. “Like clockwork, she called. She told me she wanted me to know what was going on. Kyra was normally on the call too. Your friends love you, Violet.”
“I know.” Her effortless smile shaped the words. “They’re good friends.”
But Arie was shaking his head, and he was staring at her in a way that suggested he wouldn’t ever look away again. In a rush, the words unraveled off his tongue. “I know about your new house. The red flowers. The job at Maggie’s. I know you went on that date with the tourist who thought you were a model. I know you told him you liked someone else. I know you go over to Stevie’s every Friday night and she kicks Cade out for girls’ night. I know the three of you are trying to get Maggie to go on a date with Tooty. Stevie has told me every detail about you these last six months, but I feel as though I’ve missed everything. You’ve grown into this completely different person and I’ve missed my shot with you. You’re out of my league, Violet.”
The earnestness in his words sounded similar to the Arie who had shown up on her
doorstep last fall, demanding to pay her back. He was the one who’d laughed at her list but tackled it anyway. This was the Arie who appreciated her humor and who sometimes couldn’t tell when she was joking.
They’d both changed so much that Violet would have thought it impossible to recognize the man she’d kissed on Halloween night and led to her bed. But he was still here, standing in front of her.
She wasn’t the only one who’d needed the time to heal. He’d needed it too. She’d seen it the night they first made love, his fingers trembling when he touched her. But like her, he’d taken the steps to create the life he deserved, no hiding, no excuses. They weren’t there yet, but they were close. And that, more than anything else, mattered the most.
Placing her hands on his shoulders, she rose to her tiptoes and pulled her lips up to meet his, and he met her halfway, because he was still her Arie.
Kissing him was as it had been: familiar yet wildly different, like she was stepping onto a planet that defied gravity and flipped her stomach. But she held on, and when his hands settled on her waist and lifted her nearly off her feet, she pressed into him and simply held on.
They kissed like old lovers. Arie drew back, and Violet felt a slap of regret. She’d been so busy feeling his tongue stroking hers that she hadn’t bothered to memorize the moment and catalog it away. It might never happen again.
But then, Arie asked, “Can we get something to eat after this? I have so much to tell you. And I miss you, Violet.”
She nodded and pulled his face down for another kiss.
“Hey,” someone barked from behind them.
Violet jumped back, a blush working up her neck as she thought they’d been caught, but Arie kept his arm looped around her waist. “What, Stevie?” he asked dryly.
Violet turned around in time to see a smirking Stevie hold up her hands. “It’s time to meet Anna Lila Cooper. Unless y’all are too busy making a baby of your own in the snack room.”
Arie’s expression was one of long suffering as he started toward Stevie. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a lot to deal with sometimes?”
