He looks briefly serious. “Yeah, it’s good. No one writes like him anymore.”
I hold the book out, and he takes it gently, his fingers sliding over mine, before stuffing it back into his pocket.
“You only read used paperbacks?”
“More portable,” he answers with a grin. “And they’re cheap.”
I feel my eyebrows tug together—he lives in a beautiful house atop a sun-kissed hill; I doubt he needs to save a few dollars on books, especially if his dad collects them. But there’s obviously more to the story. More about him that I don’t understand.
His hands clench the oars, eyes averted, before he asks, “Where will you go when you leave Cutwater?” It feels like he’s trying to change the subject.
The river swirls past us, little ribbons of moonlight catching onthe surface. “The ocean.” I’ve only ever said this aloud to Archer. “There’s a small town—my dad told me about it—just a fishing community, not much more. But there’s a little cake shop near a marina, and it sounds so quiet and perfect, a place where no one has heard of my family. Maybe I can rent a room somewhere, a place overlooking the sea.” I imagine it so clearly, it’s like I’m already there. A place that waits for me.
I only need to board a train and not look back.
“The truth is, I don’t really care where I go…,” I add. “As long as it’s far away from Cutwater.”
“And the ocean is far enough?”
I lift a shoulder, a stirring warmth expanding in my chest at the thought of leaving—just talking about it fills me with a hope so large, I feel lightheaded. “If I could afford it, I’d cross the Pacific. I’d buy a small boat, learn to sail, then I’d never be stuck anywhere for long.”
“I could teach you to sail,” Oak says.
“You know how to sail?”
“A little. My dad taught me.”
A tiny shiver slides along my skin. It feels silly, impossible: talking like this, like it’s something we could really do. The two of us on a sailboat, his practiced hands showing me how to steady the mainsail and navigate at night, while the wind grows stronger against our backs. Pushing us out into the deep, the endless ocean ahead of us, and nothing in our way.
I sink back against the boat, dipping my hand into the water, letting my fingers trail against the current. Because I know it’s a future that won’t really happen. Wherever I go, I will always be alone—because I can never trust a life spent with anyone else. Love is a cruel, deceiving trick.
“Where will you go after graduation?” I ask—now I am the one who wants to change the subject.
“My dad wants me to go to college….” His tone changes—almost imperceptibly—but I can hear the strain, the edge, as his arms pull heavily against the oars, the motion almost like a meditation, a thing he does to calm his racing thoughts. “But he doesn’t get to choose my life… not anymore.”
“Does your dad live here?” I think of the large, beautiful home looking out over Rabbit Cross River, wondering whether he has a father waiting somewhere inside—seated at a desk perhaps, inside a home office, a reading light switched on nearby. Or maybe he’s in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Pasta and garlic bread. Windows open to let in the evening breeze.
But Oak breaks apart this image in my mind.
“No,” he answers, digging the oars into the water, the moonlight darkening in his eyes—as if a storm has settled over him. “He’s been gone for a while. Doubt I’ll see him again.”
Gone.A word I know too well.
Gone. A word that can mean so many different things.
A parent you learn to hate because they left, a parent you imagine returning one day and all the things you would say—all the vile, hate-drenched words that would rush from your lips.
He lost his mom.
Andhis dad too.
A life shattered, much like mine. And while I know there is more that he’s not saying, a story beneath the rigid slant of his eyes, I don’tpress it. Because I know the pain that comes from talking about what’s been lost, and when his jaw forms a stiff, unbroken line, I know I’ve strayed too far into something that hurts.
He rows even harder, driving the boat against the current, his breathing heavy, his face losing all its softness. We reach the shore below his house, and he steers the rowboat up onto the dirt, then swings himself out quickly to drag it the rest of the way onto land.
My heart is beating low in my chest as I step onto the shore, knowing that something is wrong. That everything about him has changed.
He stands for a moment, looking back at the river, but I stare up at his solitary, empty house. “Are we going inside?” I ask softly.
