I looked west to the ocean. The paper in my hand was getting wrinkled, the ink stained with my tears, the writing smudged. It wasn’t a letter from Xander. He hadn’t written me either, like he promised.Not once. Empty mailboxes for years. And each time there was no letter, some little piece of me that had been soft and warm grew hard and cold.
I wasn’t supposed to go in Grant’s room—no one was. It was sealed off like an exhibit in a museum. But I snuck in there sometimes. Jack did too, probably more than me. He didn’t even bother to sneak, though. When our parents or Belinda—the housekeeper—caught him, he yelled and cursed. He told them to fuck off. That they were insane. That he hated them.
He didn’t yell that at Belinda, just our parents.
I didn’t yell. I never yelled. Never made a fuss or talked back. I’d just sneak in and cry on Grant’s pillow, which hadn’t been used in three years and would never be used again.
“He was up in Providence, crossing the train tracks with his headphones on,” my father had told Jack and me on that Fourth of July three years ago. After the park. After I sat on the rock with Xander. Dad had gathered us in the sitting room, his tone the same as though he were giving a presentation. “Grant’s music was too loud and he didn’t hear the train coming. It was a tragic, tragic accident.”
I had thought my heart was going to explode. Surely Dad was lying, to say something that horrible. I’d looked to Mom. She sat by the gas fireplace, which was on even though it was summer. One manicured hand covered her eyes. In the other was a glass of ice cubes soaking in amber liquid. She almost always had one of those now.
“Mommy?” I whispered.
She’d said nothing. Not a sound. I wanted to scream and cry but that wasn’t what “polite young ladies” did. I’d been trained better than that.
Jack had made enough noise for all of us.
He crumpled to the floor as if someone had shot him. He wailed and screamed and cried. He clawed at the carpet, his eyes wild, until my dad nodded at Belinda and Colin to take him to bed. The next day, they told us Grant’s room was off-limits. A shrine where no onewas allowed to go. All of his stuff, every photo with him in it—even the memory of him—was locked behind a closed door.
We weren’t even allowed to say his name.
Grant had lots of books. Whenever I snuck in, I’d peruse his bookshelves and take something to read. I always expected an alarm to go off, like what would happen if you touched an artifact in a museum.
The other day, I’d taken a book calledA Prayer for Owen Meany.It was well-worn and dog-eared, with lots of Grant’s notes in the margins. He had wanted to be a writer. Dad had wanted him to go to business school and take over the family textile business. They’d had lots of battles about that—a war where both sides lost.
Owen Meanywasn’t easy to read at first; it looked like it was going to be a religious book. There was nothing religious or spiritual in the House of Wallace—my parents knelt at the altar of money, status, and prestige. But I kept going and I was glad I did. The book was more about faith and fate, and I was a big believer in fate. Like Xander and me. Like how his mother and my brother left on the same day.
That had to mean something, didn’t it?
Even though Xander had never written me—not one letter—and even though he never met me at our rock, I still hoped. A lot. I had a lot of feelings about him, and they seemed to grow bigger and more complicated as the years went by. So, the other night, I wrote them down. I wrote like howOwen Meanystarts but changed it to fit Xander.
I’m doomed to remember a boy with mismatched eyes—not because of his eyes, or because he was the smartest person I ever knew, but because he is the reason I believe in true love. I’m a hopeless romantic because of Xander Ford.
It was mushy and girly but so was I. A romantic at heart. I loved love stories. My books had to have one or forget it. And I meant whatI wrote. I think I fell in love with Xander when I was ten years old and didn’t know it. I knew it now. But he obviously didn’t feel the same. He’d broken his promise.
He forgot me.
The sky was growing dark. The fireworks would be starting soon, and he wasn’t here. He hadn’t written, and now I knew love stories were just pretty lies. The only thing to do was to forget Xander too. It hurt too much, and I was already hurting. My father was strict as ever. My mother was a ghost. Jack was a stranger now. I was the only one trying to make it all better. To obey all the rules and be what they wanted me to be. To make them proud. Because if I did that, maybe they’d finally be happy.
But I couldn’t do that and hold on to Xander too.
To the right of our rock was the trash can where Xander had once cleaned up the food I’d dropped after I hugged him…but no. I had to push away all those memories and feelings. Push away the sense that we’d known each other forever and had just been apart for a little while. I had to shove it all into a secret room in my heart and lock the door.
Except I wouldn’t sneak into this room. I would keep it locked until Xander Ford was less than a memory. That’s what my parents were doing with Grant. I didn’t think it would work—how can you erase a whole person? But it was worth a try.
I tore the paper into shreds and put the pieces in the trash can, careful to let not even one word escape, and then I walked away.
Part I
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
—Albert Einstein
Chapter 1
Xander, Age Seventeen
Present Day
