I’m home, I try to remember.I’m home.
CHAPTER 12
Then
Heller heard back from Dartmouth in the middle of December. We were in the ice fishing hut a quarter-mile behind his house. He had outfitted it with an old TV, a cooler, and a futon covered in blankets. We put on an old nineties movie and set a box of chocolate-covered raisins between us. But his brain was elsewhere as he held his phone with a clenched grip, periodically lifting it up to the rafters to get a better signal.
He fiddled with his necklace, the one shaped like a lightning bolt that he kept hidden, tucked beneath his ribbed undershirt, pressed close against his chest. He never laid it on top, never pressed his thumb behind it, thrusting it into people’s faces. He let it hang, resting against his bare skin. A secret.
I ran my pointer finger along its edges, holding it to his flesh, so it would leave a faint mark.
“I wish there was a symbol for thunder,” I said, trying to ease his anxiety. “I’d get that one.”
He laughed and then got quiet. “I wish it were gold,” he said. “Like you.”
In that moment, I made a silent promise to myself that if we lasted until graduation, I would buy him one. A gold lightning bolt. Even if the threat of college, of the distance between us,broke us apart, at least he could carry some of me with him.
Suddenly, his body went still and he clasped my fingers tight, his eyes glued to his phone. He let out a whoosh of air and leaned his head back against the wall.
“I got in,” he whispered.
“Heller!” I bounced on the cushion and threw my arms around his neck, feeling his heart beat hard through my sweatshirt.
“I know,” he whispered. “Fuck.”
I squeezed him tight to me and planted a soft kiss on his collarbone.
He pulled back then and pressed his forehead to mine. “Stay close, okay? Roxwood Community or UVM or something?”
We had never talked about where I would go, what my plans were—how there was no way my parents could scrape together anything resembling tuition money. But the answer was easy.
“Yeah,” I said, and he relaxed, as if he had been worried, as if he had been waiting.
We stayed like that for a while as he sketched out our lives. He could study poli-sci and run for office right here in town. We’d come back to Roxwood and raise a little family deep within these woods. Make it a better place—something to be proud of.
I nodded along, while he traced my body with his forefinger, dipping into the valley of my stomach, the creases of my thighs. These werehisdreams. He didn’t wonder aloud whatIwould do. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to come back to Roxwood.
But at the time, I was eager to be part of his plan. Because I didn’t have one of my own. I only had Alpine Lake and a sketch of a future that, until Heller’s, was blank.
CHAPTER 13
Now
“Clothes off, we’re going skinny-dipping!” Imogen throws open the screen door to Bloodroot and is wearing only a beach towel, wrapped around her body. “Leaving in thirty seconds. Let’s go!”
I peek out at the dark night sky behind her, and a million reasons why I should say no pass through my brain.
It’s late.
My arms are sore.
Levin might catch us.
I fought with Ava.
Imo must sense my hesitation because she skips over to the counselor room and pulls down a towel, tossing it to me. “Come on,” she says. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“But—”
