“You’re leaving?” he asks, knowing what a suitcase means.
“Tonight.”
He tilts his head back against the seat, his face a galaxy of memories—as if he can see every thought, every moment we’ve spent apart, every night I waited for him at my window but he never came.
The silence between us is like a needle pressed into an open wound. Sharp and precise. He is everything I’ve tried to forget, seated beside me.
“You deserve more than this town,” he says through an exhale, like he’s doing everything he can to keep himself steady. “I’m glad you’re finally getting out.” He blinks, and there is almost a smile in his eyes, like he once loved this about me—my dream of escaping this place.
“I always thought I’d be leaving something behind….” I stare at the place where the house once stood. “But now there’s nothing.”Not even a suitcase. No dry change of clothes. A hairbrush. Another pair of shoes. Even Mom’s Walkman is gone. It was all taken by the creek.
This is the destruction of my whole life.
I think of Archer, somewhere in town—oblivious to everything we’ve both just lost.
The rain begins to slow against the hood of the truck, the thunder echoing farther to the east.
“I need to get to the train station.”
Oak’s eyes narrow as he turns to face me. “We should wait here. The fire department, or someone, will probably come. Your house is… it’s gone. This storm might get worse.”
“No,” I say, feeling like I can breathe for the first time. “No one’s coming. No one cares about that house. They’ll hardly notice it’s gone. They’ll hardly notice when I’m gone.”
Oak stares out the window, and there is hurt hanging in his forest-green eyes—pain that has no name. “I’ll notice.”
FOURTEEN
Oak drives me up Swamp Wells Road.
The worst of the storm dissolves overhead, lightning shivering in the distance, only a soft rain continuing to scatter across the windshield.
Seated in Oak’s truck, smelling the familiar scent of tires and sunlight, I’m reminded of early-summer days when we drove with the windows rolled down, my hand floating through the warm air. It feels like a hundred lifetimes in the past. And for a single moment I pretend I am still that girl—naive and hopeful. I pretend we are two teenagers in love who will give this thing a shot out in the real world. I imagine his hand is reaching across the truck to grab mine. That we are leaving this town together.
Fleeing. Starting over.
I am a stupid girl.
He slows the truck, steering down Aspen Avenue, and the seconds are moving too fast. The truck rolls to a stop in front of the train station, and Oak puts it in park. His hands grip the steering wheel, like he’s afraid to let go. Like he can’t trust his own hands.
I draw in my bottom lip, not knowing how to sit beside him andnot touch him—sink into his arms and breathe in his scent. River and wind and wilds. Not knowing how to say goodbye.
My eyes settle on the paperback on the dash.Atonement, by Ian McEwan.
A love story, tragic, if I remember right.
He follows my eyes. “It’s about a man who loses the one he loves, all because of a lie. A rumor.”
“Some rumors are true,” I answer in reflex.
He shakes his head and says, voice so low it’s nearly lost to the rain, “I don’t give a shit about the truth.”
Another long silence. Watching the rain against the windshield.
“I wish it were different… I wish I…” I want to say,I wish I weren’t a Goode.But I can’t apologize for what I am. We did this to each other. We broke each other’s hearts. And wishing for a different past is useless.
He nods, breathing shallow, and his shoulders settle like he knows this is really the end. “I hope you get everything you want.”
This hurts worse than anything. Worse than the time we spent apart.
