Silence.
“Okay, fine,” I burst out. “You’re right, okay? I like talking. Just not about what most of this town wants to talk about.”
Silence.
“Could you just please saysomething?” I beg.
He clears his throat. “I think it’s best if I just take you home now.”
Why does it irritate the hell out of me that he won’t talk to me when I spend half my days wishing everyone else around me would do the same?But the longer the quiet lasts, the more I succumb to it. It gives me time to think.
As much I wanted to avoid my past, it showed up for the summer. I’m literally employed by one half of it, if I’m to take that drawing tucked away in my room to mean anything. I at least need to figure outwhoMiles and Reed are, even if I’m not ready to find out what they meant to me.
Ugh, I’m starting to sound like Dr. Spalding. Diagnosing my problems.
Problem number one: Reed Morgan. The neighbor I’ve supposedly kissed.Now that sounds crazy. A guy who’s obsessed with—what did he say?—pickles? And who thinks I’m the most interesting girl to have ever lived.He needs to get out more if interesting to him is a girl who has been entombed in a cabin since the last time he saw her.
Problem number two: Miles. I don’t know his last name yet because he won’t talk to me. He’s irritating and shows up at the worst possible times and he’s… nice to look at.
Last but not least… if the fist clenching and the averted gazes weren’t enough to sail a gigantic, red-flagged boat across my uncharted territory, their clipped tones proved they have some kind of beef with each other. Which only compounds my questions.
Dammit!This is why I need my phone back.Things would be so much easier if I could just look them up on my own rather than having to ask for answers from the complicated people in my life. I could care less whether Dr. Spalding thinks “rapid-moving stimuli” is detrimental to brain healing. At this point, Iamhealed. There are no cuts on my face, bruising on my skin, swelling on my head. I may not have told him about the insomnia I’ve been battling—it’d just be one more thing for him and my parents to worry about—but it’s fine. I’ve been given permission to ease back into all other facets of my life. A phone should be the least of their concerns.
It will be the first thing I demand when I get home, I decide, and as far as the rest of my plan goes—well, now I need a new one. Because surviving the summer while tangoing with the past is out the window.
I can get to know them. Be their friend without learning the details from before.It’ll be like we just met for the first time. I don’t think Miles will have a problem with it. I just need Reed to agree. Especially now that I’ll be working with him all summer.
The more I iron out the details, settle this convoluted situation, the more I relax. The voice in my head that I can’t quiet at night—the one that whispersWhat if you never rememberin a haunting tone—disappears. Miles keeps driving, taking two hours to circle the lake, and we fall into this serene, silent rhythm that drifts me to sleep.
I wake to my cheekbone jostling against the windowsill. There’s a fine line of drool like the trail of a slug on my arm. I jolt upright, wiping it against the side of my polo and hoping Miles didn’t notice. When I feel the truck come to a stop, I push open the car door. I’d rather not prolong this goodbye.
“Well, thanks for the ride. As promised, I won’t ask again,” I say.
I slide off the seat, stumbling to the ground, and straighten like a flagpole. I brush my hands against the front of my shorts and start to close the door but then stop it from shutting.
“Oh, and Miles? I would never have stalked you all summer and made you listen toanythingon the recorder. Just wanted to make that clear.”
I know it won’t change his mind about being around me. I’m not even sure I want him to, but I’d rather him know, in a roundabout way, that I appreciate his gesture.
A hint of a smile dances in his eyes as he says, “I would have never made you walk home.”
It isn’t until he’s long out of sight that I realize, I never told him where I live.
CHAPTER TEN
SUMMER, FIVE YEARS AGO
Three weeks after that first summer ended, I was back in school in the fifth grade. Baker taught me how to play tetherball at recess, and Cozy and I learned to jump rope to the Mary Mac rhyme. If it weren’t for them and the research report I got to do on frogs, I might have gone crazy thinking about Miles. Our family celebrated all the major holidays from fall to spring, and by the beginning of May, I was daydreaming constantly of long summer days on the shore of Bear Lake.
One afternoon in particular, a suitcase lay open on my floor, every bright-colored swimsuit I owned draped over the edge, when my mom knocked on my bedroom door.
“Theadora, can I come in?”
The moment she said my full name, I panicked.
Was it Dad? Was he hurt?
I cleared my throat and called out to her, and she pushed the door open.
