Outside, the rain fell faster, louder.
“I think she had something to do with it,” Caleb whispered, his eyes flicking around the room like someone besides us might hear him. “With Justine. I think Zara did something to her.”
My knee hit the coffee table as a lightning bolt tore through the sky and shook the ground. The force sent Caleb’s mug crashing to the floor. “Sorry,” I said, scrambling to pick up the ceramic pieces. “I’m sorry.”
Simon stood to help me, but I gathered as much as my hands could hold and hurried into the kitchen. I stopped at the kitchen table, no longer feeling the broken pieces in my hands as my heart pounded and Caleb’s words spiraled in my head.
As soon as he’d said it, I realized it was something I’d begun to suspect myself—that in addition to the men who had died that summer, Zara was somehow responsible for Justine’s death. But hearing Caleb say it out loud made it real, and I didn’t know how that was possible.
I stared at the small mirror hanging over the kitchen table, cupping the broken ceramic pieces as tea dripped through my fingers. I didn’t know if Simon and Caleb continued talking after I left the living room. I didn’t know if I kept breathing, or if my heart kept beating. All I knew was that at some point, Simon was behind me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My fingers relaxed, and the ceramic pieces fell from my hands. They clattered against the table and tile floor, shattering into even smaller bits. I looked down at the mess and reached forward to gather them. “I can fix it,” I said, my voice cracking.
But I couldn’t see them—there were too many, and my eyes were too watery. Soon, the tears pooling in my eyes spilled onto my cheeks, and I sank to the floor and cried.
Simon didn’t try to comfort me; he just sat near me and let me cry. Eventually, when my eyes were dry and my body exhausted, I slid back and joined him against the wall. I hugged my knees to my chest and leaned my head on his shoulder. I listened for the question I knew had to be coming and watched the second hand move around the kitchen clock; when it made five rounds and Simon still hadn’t asked if I was okay, I turned my head.
His shoulder tensed under my cheek. I lifted my chin, until my mouth was only inches from his neck. I held my breath when his chest rose and fell faster.
We were friends. Really good friends. And maybe I should’ve been concerned about how that might change if I did what I now had the overwhelming urge to do. Maybe now wasn’t the best time or place for it. Maybe he would think my emotional collapse had sent me over the edge—because I, scared-of-her-own-shadow Vanessa Sands, simply didn’t do things like this.
But in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—I did it anyway.
I closed my eyes and pressed my lips to his neck.
He trembled. I pulled back and waited for him to ask what I was doing, or to move away. When he did neither, I kissed the same spot, then the soft hollow under his jaw.
He turned his head and pressed his face in my hair.
I kissed his neck again, feeling his pulse quicken each time my mouth grazed his Adam’s apple. I kissed him faster, stronger. I kept my eyes closed and focused on his breathing, the warmth of his skin, the way my heart raced like I was being chased through the woods even though I wasn’t scared at all.
After several minutes, he pulled me into his lap. It was my turn to tremble when he touched my face, and his fingers brushed my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.
“Vanessa …”
I opened my eyes. His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath warm against my mouth. He looked like he wanted to say something else, maybe to ask finally if I was okay, if I was sure I wanted to be doing what we were doing.
I answered by pressing my lips to his.
The jolt shot from the top of my head to my toes. His hands traveled from my face to my back, grabbing at my hair along the way. I put my arms around his neck and pulled my body closer, until I could feel his heart beating against my chest.
Eventually, that wasn’t close enough.
“Is Caleb …?”
“Probably sleeping,” Simon whispered. “Probably for days.”
I held my eyes to his, then took his hands and stood. Catching our reflection in the mirror hanging over the kitchen table, I hesitated. It wasn’t that I didn’t look like me that threw me off—it was that I looked like someone I didn’t know I could be. My skin was flushed, my eyes were bright. My hair hung down my back in loose waves. I even seemed to stand up taller, straighter. I didn’t look like a nervous little girl; I looked confident. Excited. Alive. And standing behind me, watching me like he almost didn’t know what I’d do next, Simon saw it, too.
I led him out of the kitchen and upstairs. I knew every corner of the Carmichael house almost as well as I knew the lake house, but it felt different—still warm and comfortable, but also like I’d never been there before. When we were in Simon’s room with the door closed, I was happy to see the familiar periodic table of elements and world map hanging on the walls, but also felt like I was seeing them for the first time.
It was the same when I turned to him. He was still Simon, the same boy I used to race down the Slip ’n Slide. The one who always lagged behind with me when Justine and Caleb ran ahead on hiking trails, who made sure whatever movies we watched didn’t exceed my quota of blood, guts, and gore. He was still the one looking out for me and making sure I was okay. Even standing before me now, he was watching, waiting, not wanting to do anything that would make me uncomfortable.
But now, for the first time, he didn’t look entirely calm. He didn’t look like he believed that there was nothing to be scared of, and that he could assure me of the same.
“Are you okay?” I asked, stepping closer.
“Vanessa …”
Even my name sounded different.
“I just … I don’t know … Are you …?” He closed his eyes, like he was trying to piece together his fragmented thoughts.
I stepped as close as I could without our bodies touching. “Is this okay?” I kissed his cheek.
He nodded, his eyes still closed.
“And this?” I kissed his other cheek.
He nodded again.
“And this?” My lips pressed against his chin, his jaw.
He closed his eyes tighter and nodded again.
“And—”
My mouth hadn’t yet touched his when he took me by the waist and pulled me to him. He kissed me like his heart might stop if he didn’t, and he kept his arms around me as I moved back, toward the other side of the room. I turned when we reached the bed so that he lay down first, then crawled on top of him. His hands were stronger, more sure, as they traveled down my back and pulled me closer. My skin felt like it burned through my clothes as our bodies pressed together.
“It’s okay,” I whispered as his hands slid, then paused, under the back of my T-shirt. When he still didn’t seem sure, I pulled it over my head and tossed it to the floor, then helped him take off his sweatshirt.
His lingering uncertainty seemed to disappear when I lay back down. He kissed me harder and grabbed every part of me he could reach—my face, my hair, my shoulders, my waist, my hips. It felt so good, so natural, as if for seventeen years my body had just been hanging on in anticipation of this very moment. When he slipped his fingers between my bare skin and the button of my jeans, I nodded without hesitating and kept kissing him.
He paused only once more, when lightning struck the ground nearby and his desk lamp went out.
“I can get candles….” He lifted my face away from his until our eyes met.
The dark. It was night, a storm raged outside, and the only light in the room came in fleeting flashes though the window. This was normally when I would’ve grabbed a flashlight and hidden under the blankets until the power came back on. But it didn’t bother me now.
“It’s fine. But thank you.” I went to kiss him again, but he pressed his head back, into the pillow. “What? What’s wrong?”
&nb
sp; He lifted a loose strand of hair away from my face and behind my shoulder. “Nothing …,” he said, looking at me thoughtfully. “It’s just that, right now … in this light … your eyes look almost silver.”
CHAPTER 15
I SHOT UP in bed the next morning, my heart hammering and my head spiraling. I closed my eyes and braced for the usual image of me standing by the ocean’s edge, or the more recent one of Justine reaching for me with bruised arms. They were always the first things I saw each morning, since they were all I saw each time I managed to sleep.
“Hey.”
I opened my eyes.
“You okay?”
I registered the globe in the corner of the room, the periodic table of elements hanging on the opposite wall … and Simon, pressing his lips to my bare shoulder. “What time is it?”
“Nine,” he said gently. “And I could stay here all day, but we should probably clean the kitchen before Caleb wakes up.”
I nodded as he slid out of bed, and I tried to process what had happened. Surprisingly, I wasn’t thrown by the fact that we’d leapt across the formerly solid, unwavering line between friends and more-than-friends, or that I had no idea where that left us now. I wasn’t paralyzed with shock or regret that I’d done something so forward, so unlike me, with anyone, let alone the one person I didn’t want to lose.
What made me focus silently on the lake through the window instead of making small talk was that it was nine o’clock. It was nine o’clock, and I wasn’t blinking away visual remnants of last night’s nightmares. Which meant that for the first time in a long time, I’d slept eight uninterrupted hours.
“I think we’re too late.”
My head snapped toward Simon. “Too late?”
He stood next to the closed bedroom door, tilted his head, and listened. I heard it then, too: dishes clanking downstairs.
I jumped out of bed and threw my clothes on, wondering what Caleb would think of our entering the kitchen together. I figured it’d be a shock, since the idea of Simon and me together like that definitely wouldn’t have occurred to anyone, but I hoped it wouldn’t be hurtful, too. What if seeing us together triggered fresh, painful memories of Justine? What if he felt betrayed and ran off again? What if—
“Eggs?”
I froze in the kitchen doorway. If Caleb was shocked, hurt, or betrayed, he didn’t show it. He sat at the table, which was now clear of the broken ceramic pieces Simon and I had left there the night before, eating breakfast and reading.
“They’re on the stove,” Caleb said without looking up from his book. “OJ’s in the fridge.”
Taking a glass of juice from Simon, I sat across from Caleb. He’d washed the brown dye out of his hair and, after eating and sleeping, already appeared stronger, healthier.
“It’s pretty early,” Simon said. “You must still be tired. Don’t you want to get some more sleep?”
“Nope,” Caleb said, closing the book.
I slid The Complete History of Winter Harbor toward me when Caleb pushed it aside. Flipping through, I searched for passages about strange Winter Harbor weather patterns, unexplained deaths, and smiling victims.
“So after we call the cops, I think we should confront her directly.”
Simon sat next to me. “We can’t call the cops yet. We only have suspicions, not proof. And how can we confront her? What are we going to say? ‘Hey, Zara, I know what you did this summer’?”
“Pretty much,” Caleb said. “Vanessa can hang back and pretend to be a tourist with a digital camcorder so we can record the guilt on her face.”
“Cal,” Simon said patiently, “I understand you’re angry, but we have to give this a little more thought. If we’re too rash, we could scare her off before we get any answers. Plus, you said you can’t be near her without her messing with your head. What makes you think you’ll even be able to talk to her?”
They continued to debate the issue as I scanned the history books. Oliver certainly knew a lot about Winter Harbor—his research went back centuries—but there was no mention of bodies washing mysteriously onshore. I also looked for passages about the Marchands, but found only one small paragraph about the founding of Betty’s Chowder House.
“Why don’t I talk to Paige?” I said several minutes later. My face grew warm when they turned to me. Despite the current topic, I couldn’t help but wonder if Simon thought of last night when he looked at me now, and whether Caleb could sense what had happened.
“Aren’t those two really tight?” Caleb asked.
“That’s exactly why I want to talk to her,” I said. “And don’t worry—I wouldn’t say anything about yesterday, or about Justine. Paige is pretty open, so I don’t think I’d have to push too hard to find out if Zara’s been acting stranger than normal lately.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“Hang on,” Simon said, shooting Caleb a look. “I don’t—we don’t—want to do anything that could pull her attention to you.”
I didn’t really want her focused on me either, but for some reason, I thought I could handle it better today than I could’ve even twenty-four hours before. “I’ll be fine. I’ll do it this morning, when they’re both at work. Zara can’t do anything in a public place, surrounded by tons of people.”
“Okay,” Simon said after a pause. “But we’re going with you. We’re staying together until this is resolved.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“I’m going to charge my iPod.” Caleb stood from the table and shot Simon a look. “You should bring yours, too.”
After Caleb left the room, Simon and I silently cleared the table. I wondered if he was mad at me for wanting to talk to Paige—or, worse, if he regretted what had happened last night. I tried to summon the same nerve that had enabled me to do everything I’d done only hours before. I would simply ask what was going on. I’d ask if he regretted it, and when he said that he did, I would promise that I was totally fine with just being friends. It could be like nothing happened, if that was what he wanted.
After starting the dishwasher, I looked at him. He leaned against the counter, watching me. I grabbed the counter to keep from running to him and held on tight until he reached out one hand.
“Vanessa,” he said, pulling me to him, “last night was …”
“I know,” I said, relieved. “I mean, I’m glad you think so, too.”
He put his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “I think, though … that maybe we shouldn’t let it happen again. At least not now.”
I froze, then pulled back.
“It’s not that I don’t want it to,” he said quickly, his face flashing concern. “Believe me. It’s just that it might be too much, too soon for Caleb. I’d hate for him to feel worse than he already does.”
Thinking there had to be another reason, that this was just an excuse to hide his regret, I tried to come up with an argument. But I couldn’t. Because he was right—it wasn’t fair. Regardless of what I wanted, Caleb had been through enough, and we would only remind him of what he’d lost.
“I should go,” I said finally. “I’ll come back after I shower.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but I was out the door before he could.
I hurried across the Carmichaels’ backyard, and then ours, barely noticing the early-morning lake activity or feeling my stomach turn. Maybe the timing wasn’t right … but that didn’t mean that what we’d done was a mistake. It didn’t mean it shouldn’t have happened. Simon and I shouldn’t feel guilty, or regretful, or—
I stopped short. I’d just crossed the deck and entered our house, and it was too quiet. I didn’t remember turning off the TV and radio … but maybe that was just because I’d been too excited to meet Simon at the library the day before. Deciding that was it, I headed for the kitchen.
“Sleep well?”
I froze in the doorway. “Mom?”
She sat at the kitche
n table, her laptop open in front of her. A cup of coffee sat next to her BlackBerry and car keys. She stared at the computer screen and pretended to read without looking at me. “I heard there was quite a storm last night. I know how you hate storms, so I’m sure you didn’t sleep a wink.”
“What are you doing here?”
She took the coffee from the table, sat back, and looked at me.
“I told you I was fine. I hope you didn’t cancel any important meetings to drive up here and take me back to Boston, because I’m not going.”
Her perfectly glossed lips turned up. “You did tell me you were fine. You also told me you were sleeping well. So you can imagine how surprised I was to get here before dawn this morning and find your father’s car not in our driveway, but in the driveway next door.”
“We got back late,” I said, my face burning. “They invited me over for dinner, and since it was already raining, it was just easier to park there than here.”
“They?” Mom’s face relaxed. “Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael are back from Vermont?”
I looked down.
“Vanessa?”
“No … but it’s not what you think.” Even though it was probably exactly what she thought. “We just fell asleep watching movies.”
“Forgive me, Vanessa—I didn’t sleep last night and only had one cup of coffee this morning. I want to make sure I’m getting this right.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You’re telling me that after weeks of making me worry about your being here all by yourself, and not calling me back or answering your phone all day yesterday, that you’re completely fine? That you were fine enough last night to watch movies with Simon Carmichael, even if his brother is responsible—”
“Don’t say it.” I stepped into the kitchen. “Caleb isn’t responsible for what happened to Justine. He loved her more than anyone. He wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her.”
“Vanessa, please. Too much time alone in the wilderness has obviously taken a toll. If he and your sister had any kind of relationship, it was a meaningless mutual crush. It meant nothing. If you think whatever you have going on with Simon is any different, I’m sorry to say you’re a very confused little girl.”
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