His heart was not his own.
This is why love cannot be trusted in our family.
Three days pass, and I begin to think Oak won’t come back.
I wouldn’t blame him.
Once he got home, once he had time to think about what had happened at the quarry, he probably decided I’m not worth the risk. I’m too messy, dangerous, bewildering…bewitching.
A girl you can never take home to meet the family.
A girl you don’t want to be seen with, for fear of being followed, chased, or warned that you shouldn’t be so close to her. A girl youalways have to defend, a girl who over time you begin to wonder if you should trust. Or if all the rumors are true.
I’m not worth spending one more day with.
But on the fourth day, an hour before sunset, I hear the sound of a truck rumbling up the driveway. At first I’m certain it can’t be him, but when I pull open the curtain on my bedroom window, I see his gray truck slow to a stop near the front porch.
I pull on a sweatshirt, step into sandals, and yank open the front door before Archer can ask where I’m going… or who is waiting for me in the truck.
I reach the passenger side before Oak even has time to open his door. I climb up onto the bench seat, and he looks at me. “Sorry I didn’t call, but I, uh—I don’t have your number. I didn’t have a way to let you know that I was coming.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
He smiles, as if he likes this answer.
“Any hints about where we’re going?” I try, eyeing him, hoping for a clue.
“My house,” he answers, starting the engine.
“We’re going toyourhouse?”
“I hope that’s okay?”
I can’t help but smile. “Yeah, I mean… of course.” I’ve tried countless times to imagine where he might live, imagine his bedroom, his life in Favorville, but I’ve never been able to conjure it in my mind. Now I’ll be seeing it for myself.
Windows rolled down, spring wind coiling through my hair, we drive west up Swamp Wells Road. I like this night already, feeling the air slice through my open fingers. Even Oak seems more relaxed thanusual, an elbow resting in the open window, one hand on the steering wheel, his eyes clear and shimmering in the evening light.
The county line runs north to south through a forest of elm trees, and we cross into the outskirts of Favorville. The air smells different, like lilacs and ferns and spring mud, but we drive only a short distance before we turn onto a paved driveway that winds up a hill.
He lives just over the county line, not far at all—an easy enough walk under midnight stars.
But I’m not expecting the house that comes into view, perched atop the grass-lined hill at the end of the driveway. It stands two stories high, sunlit and towering, with a gray stone arch over the door, a modern slanted metal roof, concrete walls, and wood slats—it looks like it’s straight out of an architectural magazine. I feel my eyes gaping through the truck window, tracing every angle, every surface—I can’t believe a place like this even exists in Favorville.
Just to the right of the house sits a separate garage with four massive glass doors, a place to hold a fleet of cars, far nicer than the truck Oak is driving.
He parks on the far side of the circle driveway, and when I step out, I stare up at the row of windows on the second floor, wondering which one belongs to Oak—which one faces into a bedroom where he grew up, his clothes neatly organized in an oversized closet, a bed with fresh white sheets tucked perfectly at the corners. Maybe he has photographs pinned to his wall, memories with childhood friends, tokens from traveling carnivals, movie ticket stubs—the road map of a normal life.
A home like this creates a boy who has a plan, colleges lined up, a career path, a future that’s been predestined. But he’s never mentioned any of these things.
My mouth hangs open, and I want to ask him a hundred things, want to know every detail, but he walks to the front of the truck and nods at me. “This way.”
I follow him around the side of the house, across a neatly mowed lawn, to where a river is winding through the elm trees below—the low evening sun gleaming against the water. “Is this Rabbit Cross River?” I ask.
“Same as the one behind your house.” His eyes flick softly to me.
The same water that pours past my house makes its way across two counties, eventually snaking behind his—although the ground behind my home is a low-lying swamp, while the land behind his is grassy and treed, with a view out over the valley.
I peer back up at his home, wanting to go inside—curious about the clues that wait within its walls about who Oak really is—but instead he leads me down to the river’s edge, where a small rowboat lies belly-up on the sandy bank, green with a painted white stripe down the side.
