Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You)

by Rachel Carter

“I, uh. I can’t get to it when you have the dress on,” he says softly.

  “Right. Okay.” I reach up and start to unbutton. I get halfway to my chest when my fingers start shaking. “How about now?”

  He carefully pulls the fabric away from my back and reaches down. I feel his fingers brush my skin and I close my eyes. We are both silent, and all I can hear is Wes’s breathing. “I got it.” He slowly peels the folder away from my skin. I wince as the tape comes undone.

  Wes pulls the folder out and sets it on the table, sitting down again and keeping his eyes averted as I quickly button my dress back up.

  There’s an awkward silence as I sit down next to him. Finally he opens the folder, flipping through the pages. I watch as he skims one of the backup plans.

  “Obviously, I need to make changes,” I say. “I’m here too late, and some of LJ’s ideas won’t work. But it’s possible, Wes. Imagine a world without the Project.”

  He lifts his head. “You really think you could do this?”

  “I know I can. I have to.”

  He sets the folder down on the table and rests his fingers against it. “I’ve spent most of my life caught up in the Project. I know how powerful they are, but for the past six months I’ve been free from them. No one has come looking for me. I know you’re valuable to them, but I still think we could get away from them, if we wanted to.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before they’d hunt us down. This is the only way to guarantee our freedom.”

  “I don’t know, Lydia.” He stares down at the file. “This is a lot of information all at once. LJ never said a word about eliminating the Project when I found the resistance.”

  “Then why did you think I came here?”

  “I thought you were running away.”

  “What?” I feel my chest get tight. “From you?”

  “From everything.” He stares down at the scarred wood of the table.

  “But you still came.”

  “Even if you were trying to run away, I had to follow you. I needed to make things right between us.”

  “Wes.” I lean forward until there’s only a foot separating us. I want to close the gap, but something holds me back. “I know I’ve been angry, but I would never run from you.” I pause. “I think that maybe we haven’t been trusting each other enough.”

  His head snaps up. “I trust you. I didn’t blame you for wanting to get away from me, from all of it.”

  “Then maybe you didn’t trust that you’d be enough for me.”

  “You were leaving me, Lydia.” He speaks softly. “The reasons may have been different, but you came here thinking you would never see me again.”

  He’s right. I wanted to protect him, to keep him safe, and I made that choice without him. Isn’t that the same thing he did to me?

  “I’m not angry you came here,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about all this, a lot more than you have. I’m not expecting anything.” He looks out the window at the fading sun. “It’s almost time to go to the Bentleys. But . . .” He hesitates, glancing across the room. I follow his eyes to the small bed that is tucked into the corner.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Everyone thinks we’re married. And they assume you’re coming back to live here. With me.”

  The bed looks smaller than a twin, and there’s hardly enough room for someone to lie down on the untreated wood floor.

  We’ll be sleeping here. Together. Alone.

  My mouth opens, but I can’t say what I’m really thinking. “There’s not even a bathroom in here,” I blurt out.

  He laughs, and I stare at him. I’ve heard him laugh before, but not like that. Not easy and bright and free.

  He stands up and reaches out, his hand skimming against mine. “Come on, the Bentleys will be waiting for us.”

  Chapter 20

  “Wes seems happy.” I follow Mary’s gaze to where he and Dr. Bentley are talking together in the middle of the backyard. Wes is nodding at something Dr. Bentley is saying, his face soft in a way I’ve rarely seen. He catches me staring and lifts his chin in acknowledgment. I smile.

  “He looks relaxed. He likes it here, I think.”

  “You know he’s been working as a fisherman with Mick’s father. He’s the one who’s renting him the house by the beach.”

  “I know. He wrote to tell me.” But that’s not true, of course. He filled me in on the way here, after he led me to the ancient truck that was parked behind his house.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked him.

  “I bought it.” He held the passenger-side door open for me. As we drove to the Bentleys, he told me he was working as a fisherman, and that he even had his own boat now. He described getting up at dawn, casting his nets into the churning ocean, or sometimes not getting up at all, but spending the day in bed reading novels and then taking long walks around Montauk.

  “I’ve never had so many choices before,” he said. “The Project decided where I would go, what I would do. I didn’t remember what freedom felt like. And now I don’t think I can ever go back.”

  “When I stop the Project, you won’t have to.”

  He looked over at me. “If we ran away, I wouldn’t have to either.”

  Now Mary dumps some chicken pie on a plate and hands it to me. “Go take that to your beau,” she says. “Though I suppose I have to start calling him your husband now, huh?”

  My husband. I am only eighteen. Wes is nineteen. We’re too young to be married, but the word still makes me feel oddly warm.

  “Thanks.” I take the plate and a fork from her and walk over to Wes.

  Dr. Bentley eyes the food as I approach. “Please tell me that’s for me.”

  “I was instructed to bring it to my husband.”

  Wes tilts his head and our eyes meet. We both quickly look away, and I shove the plate in his direction. “Here.”

  Dr. Bentley winks at me, then excuses himself. “I’m famished, and I better eat while I can; I know Harriet will enlist me to get the fireworks ready soon. You’ll help, won’t you, Wes?”

  “Sure, Jacob.”

  Wes takes the plate from my hands as Dr. Bentley walks over to join Mary at the table they’ve set up near the back of the house. “You call him Jacob?”

  He nods, and eats a bite of the pie, chewing absently.

  “This is so weird.”

  He raises his brows. We are standing alone in the wide, green lawn. It is just starting to get dark out, and fireflies spark in bursts of green light at the edge of the woods that circle the house. “What do you mean?”

  “I was only here for about a week, a year ago. The Bentleys and I grew close, but you’ve been here for six whole months. You’ve created an entire life.”

  He lowers the plate and stares down at me. “It was because of you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wes!” The high-pitched shout is piercing, even from across the lawn. I turn to see a small boy running through the grass toward us. It’s Peter, I realize when he gets closer. My grandfather as a little boy. “You’re here.” He leans over, panting from the run.

  Wes drops one hand and ruffles Peter’s neatly cut dark hair. “I said I would be, didn’t I? Where’s your mom?”

  Peter points toward the house, but he has noticed me, and his head tilts back to examine my deep-red hair, my green eyes. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Lydia. I was here last year. Maybe you remember me?”

  He shakes his head and looks at Wes’s legs, suddenly shy.

  Wes kneels down until he’s at Peter’s eye level. “Remember how I told you I was waiting for a pretty girl to come find me? That was Lydia.”

  “This lady’s your wife?” He looks up at me and squints his eyes, the same color as mine. They are my grandfather’s eyes, and I clench my fingers together to keep from reaching for him. “I remember you. You looked like Aunt Mary and played airplanes with me. But then you disappeared.”

  �
�I had things to do.”

  “My daddy disappeared too. Did you know him?”

  I exchange a glance with Wes. “I did. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know where he went? Did you disappear to the same place?”

  I shake my head. Wes reaches over to touch him on the shoulder and Peter leans into him, an unconscious gesture he doesn’t even seem aware of.

  “I’m sure your father is happy though, wherever he is.”

  Peter gives me an assessing look. He must be eight now. He’s grown a few inches since I last saw him, but he still barely comes up to my chest. He’s only a child, but he’s still my grandfather, and the last time I saw him he was trapped in a cold cell under Central Park.

  This is why I need to stop the Project. So this little boy will never have to experience the same fate.

  Wes sees my strained expression and straightens. He grabs both of Peter’s shoulders and turns his body toward the house. “Why don’t you go find your mother? I’m sure she’d like to say hi to Lydia too.”

  “All right. I’ll be back soon, I promise. Don’t go anywhere, okay?” Peter runs across the lawn again. From the back he looks like a miniature version of Wes, with his white shirt and dark pants.

  Perhaps the reason my grandfather tried so hard to find out what happened to Dean was because he never had a father figure to step into that role. Could Wes already be starting to fill a void that was always there?

  Peter’s mother, Elizabeth, steps out of the door at the back of the house, and I almost gasp at the sight of her. She is like a walking ghost, pale and vacant, her eyes dead in a way that reminds me of the newly broken recruits.

  “Oh, God. She’s not handling it well.”

  “No.” Wes’s voice is grim. “Peter is mostly taking care of himself. He’s over here all the time, with his grandparents and Mary, but it’s not enough.”

  “That’s why you’ve been spending so much time with him.”

  He nods. “I know what it’s like to feel abandoned. And he’s your grandfather, after all.”

  It is getting darker by the minute, and stars are starting to appear, small dots of light that mirror the fireflies blinking in the corners of the lawn. I reach over and touch Wes’s arm. Already, the movement feels easier. “Thank you, for looking out for my family.”

  “You don’t have to thank me for that.” He smiles down at me. “I’ve never had a family before. For the first time in my life, I think I’m finally starting to understand what it means.”

  Lucas wraps his arms around me, his head close to mine. “It’s swell to see you again, Lydia,” he says in his honey-soaked southern drawl. “We’ve missed you.”

  I press my open palms to his back. “I missed you, too.”

  He pulls away, but keeps his hands on my shoulders as his gaze travels from my feet to my head. “As pretty as always, I see.”

  At that point, Wes has had enough, and he grabs my arm, moving me into his side and forcing Lucas to let go. “Wanna take your hands off my girl, Clarke?”

  Lucas laughs, revealing his slightly crooked bottom teeth. “At ease, Private Smith,” he says, using Wes’s fake name from the last time we were here. “I was just sayin’ hello.”

  “You can say it from a distance.”

  “You know my heart is elsewhere these days.” He tips his head to the right, where Mary is bending down to talk to Peter. She smiles, and even in the dim light of the lawn I see her eyes soften as she straightens Peter’s shirt collar.

  “How’s it going?” Wes asks quietly.

  Lucas shrugs. “Mostly she seems like herself, but any time I bring up Georgia or Dean, she gets real quiet. Which is a strange thing to see, coming from Mary. I don’t know what to say anymore. I feel like a fathead around her.”

  “She’ll come around.”

  Lucas runs his hand over his buzzed blond hair. He is in his olive-colored army uniform, the starched khaki stretching across his broad chest when he raises his arm. “I’m getting discharged in a month. It’s time for me to start making plans. I want her to be a part of that, but . . .” He looks over at me. “Think you could work your magic, Lydia?”

  “I can try.”

  Mary stands up fully and turns to face the house. When she sees us standing there, her smile widens and she bounces across the lawn. Behind her, I watch Peter run to where his mother is sitting silently in a wooden folding chair. Mrs. Bentley is standing over her, holding a plate and trying to get her to eat. But Elizabeth just stares straight ahead, oblivious to even Peter, who grabs her sleeve when he gets close enough.

  “Lucas!” Mary wraps her hand around his arm and tugs. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here? I would have come said hello.”

  “I’ve been standin’ right here for ten minutes. What do I need to do, grab a bullhorn?”

  “Har har har.” She looks over at me and Wes. “Is your fella this funny, Lyd?”

  I smile. “He’s not one for jokes.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Mary lets go of Lucas to poke Wes in the shoulder. “He’s been moping around for months, waiting on you to get back from Boston. I think he cried himself to sleep every night.”

  Lucas laughs, but Wes just shakes his head. “You see what I’ve had to put up with while you were gone?”

  “So how about it, Lydia, are you gonna settle down here now?” Lucas asks.

  “I don’t know what our plans are yet,” I answer vaguely.

  “Oh stay!” Mary hops up and down once. “The paper in East Hampton just fired one of their reporters. Ma was telling me about it earlier. You’d be perfect for it, Lydia! You can get a spiffy little car to drive around in; I’ll help you pick it out and everything. It should be blue. No!” She points her finger at me. “Red. A convertible, and we can go get sundaes when it’s warm and Pricilla Harold—her daddy owns the ice-cream shop and she thinks she’s the cat’s meow—will just die of jealousy. What do you think, Wes; shouldn’t Lydia take the job? Make her take it. Don’t let her go back to Boston, not yet.”

  Wes hesitates a second before he says, “That sounds good to me.”

  Lucas’s blue eyes are bright as he stares down at her, though his shoulders tense slightly. If Mary is so excited about Wes and me staying in Montauk, what happens when Lucas tries to take her back to Georgia?

  If I succeed in destroying the TM, it means Wes and I will stay here forever. I would always miss my family in 2012, but I wouldn’t be alone here. I’d have the Bentleys. I’d have Wes. I don’t want to lose Mary again.

  But that’s assuming I succeed. I still have to figure out a way to sneak into the Facility, to get to the documents, to get rid of Faust, and to destroy the TM. I can feel the anxiety building and I rub my hands together. I shouldn’t even be here right now. I should be planning and plotting, making sure I will not fail.

  Wes must feel me tense; his hand settles on my lower back. “It’s okay,” he whispers into my hair, and I start to relax. I might not make it out of the Facility again alive. I can spare one night to spend time with the Bentleys, with Mary and my grandfather as a little boy.

  “Oh, look, Peter found the sparklers.” Mary points to the side of the lawn.

  As soon as her face is turned away, Lucas raises his eyebrows at me and jerks his head toward her.

  I look up at Wes. “Weren’t you guys going to help Dr. Bentley set up the fireworks?”

  “Right.” Wes steps away from me and clasps Lucas on the shoulder. “Let’s go do manly stuff, Sergeant.”

  “Get off me, Private.” Lucas pushes his arm away, and they both laugh.

  I watch them walk across the lawn, shoving each other back and forth. It’s clear they’ve spent a lot of time together, and I remember how hostile they were when Lucas showed interest in me. But now they are friends. Wes, the boy who was so closed off, who pushed away even Tag, has made a friend.

  “Boys are such goofs.” Mary shakes her head, smiling after them. Her eyes linger on Lucas’s back.

&
nbsp; “He’s worried about you.” I move closer to her. “He thinks you might not want to marry him.”

  “That’s not true.” Her smile fades, and I almost regret bringing the subject up, wishing I could hold on to the giddy Mary from just a moment ago. “Lucas has been such a rock through this whole thing, but . . .”

  I follow her gaze to Elizabeth, still sitting near the house in her stiff-backed chair. She hasn’t moved at all, not even to speak, since she got here.

  “Everything is so different now,” Mary whispers. “Sometimes I think we’ll never recover from this.”

  I reach over and touch her hand. “You will. It just takes time.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  “Lucas reminds me of Dean. That’s why I panic about our future sometimes.”

  Wes and Lucas are in the center of the lawn, holding long, cardboard tubes of Roman candles and skyrockets while Dr. Bentley points at the ground. Lucas doesn’t look anything like Dean—he is light where Dean is dark, from hair color to personality. But I see what she means. Both of them are loyal, always trying to do the right thing. They were best friends, and the only reason Mary even met Lucas was because Dean brought him around so often.

  “But they’re not the same person,” I say. “And Dean wouldn’t want you to put your life on hold because of him. He wasn’t like that.”

  “I know he wasn’t. That’s what makes it harder. But how can I leave now? We’ve barely pieced ourselves back together.”

  My eyes wander over to Wes again. “There’s something I’ve realized recently. You have to choose to be happy, and sometimes that means letting go of the past.” I turn to face her. “If you want to go to Georgia, you should.”

  “That’s the problem! I honestly don’t want to go to Georgia! I want to stay here with you and Suze and my family. But I don’t want to lose Lucas either.” She buries her face in her hands, then spreads her fingers, peeking at me through the open spaces. “Do you think Lucas would stay here?”

  “You won’t know unless you ask him.”

  Before she can respond, Peter runs up carrying lit sparklers, smoke and light trailing in his wake. “Here!” he shouts, shoving them at us. Mary and I bend down and carefully take them from his outstretched hands. “Wave them in the air. You can make pictures.”