Page 2

“Okay,” Tea said, more of a reassurance for her mother than herself. Because right now, with all her belongings stuffed into her back seat and no life plan to count on, Tea certainly did not feel okay.

After she hung up, Tea did one last scan of the apartment. When she first made the move, it didn’t take long to conclude that Chicago would not be forever. Two years of study, then she would head back home to New Jersey. To her mom. To the little life they created after everything fell apart. The idea of leaving Mom alone out there left tight knots in her stomach.

She stopped in the kitchen, pressing her hands into the cool counter, and took a deep breath. One day at a time, she reminded herself. We take this one day at a time.

Her roommates had collected all of their things weeks earlier, informing Tea that they would be giving up the lease in July. Tea expected as much; they were nice, but their interactions were always cordial, business-like. She’d been the third last-minute roommate they found on Craigslist, someone to pay for the tiny room with the sliding door next to the kitchen. She didn’t care. She was there to get her degree and get out. Her room was merely a place for her to fit a cheap twin bed so she could sleep. It wasn’t the kind of space she planned on inviting a guy into. With everything she and Mom had been through over the last eight years, inviting men into her bedroom was a very rare occurrence.

Her phone pinged on the counter.

Nan

Let us know when you’re on the road!

Panic trickled up her neck. She rubbed the back of it as she closed out of her texts and opened up Google Maps, typing in the address for Wild Pines Resort. She expected traffic getting out of the city, but her itinerary was still the same. Eight hours and forty-seven minutes of traffic-free roads. No rush hour or construction or any other holdup that typically occurred during a drive up to the lake. Everyone was at home, still hunkered down, maybe out enjoying some of the warm June sunshine at a respectable social distance of six feet.

She curled her hands into fists as she stared at her destination on the tiny screen.

Silver Falls, Minnesota.

It used to be her favorite place in the whole world. She could still taste her palpable excitement when she thought about climbing into a fully packed SUV on the last day of school. Kayaks and paddleboards strapped to the hood as the three of them endured the twenty plus–hour road trip up to Minnesota.

But when three suddenly became two, summers at the lake no longer had that same air of shiny hope. They lingered as haunted memories, reminders of everything good she’d had and quickly lost. When Gareth Richards died, Tea and her mom never went back.

Instead of spending summers paddleboarding in the lake or eating Nan’s spinach artichoke dip, Mom downsized their house in Morristown to a smaller apartment in New Brunswick. Tea attended Rutgers close by, and the two spent their summers in between semesters traveling into Manhattan. They saw every Broadway show, ate greasy slices of pizza, and enjoyed lazy afternoons reading under the shade of the great American elms in Central Park. Those summers in the city were vastly different from any other summer Tea could remember, and she was thankful for it. Thankful to create new memories and not have to face her old ones.

Until this summer. Until she had nowhere else to go.

Mom was the one who suggested it at first. A summer in Silver Falls wouldn’t be so bad, she’d explained. Timidly, like she was approaching a bear in hibernation and contemplating poking it awake. Think about it. Open air, lots of space, Nan’s casseroles, fishing with Pop. Sailing. You used to love sailing.

I only loved it because of who I was with, Tea had snipped back. She knew she was being cruel with the way she was digging it in. But maybe being cruel would make Mom change her mind. Make her concede, and finally tell her she could go back home to Jersey.

But she never did, and now she was looking at a nine-hour road trip—with nothing but her three bulging suitcases and a snake plant to keep her alert.

The time on her phone said 10:13. Thankfully an early graduation ceremony meant an early start on the road, and a chance to catch her first Minnesota sunset in over eight years.

The last time she saw the sun set over the lake, she was with all of her friends—the ones she hadn’t spoken to since everything happened with her father. Riley. Quentin. Deanna. Austin.

Archer.

She picked up her phone and tapped out a message, not letting the onslaught of familiar nerves convince her to recalibrate the destination on her phone and drive back east.

Tea

Leaving now! Hoping to get there by sunset. :)

She shrugged off her graduation gown, shoved it in her tote bag, and walked out the front door. As she hopped into her 2005 Chevy Classic and turned the ignition, giving the dashboard a love tap when the old thing revved to life, she did her best not to think about the last time she saw Archer Vincent.

Chapter 2

Archer

The screech and slam of the screen door at the front of his cabin woke Archer from his drool-covered desk. He bolted upright, a pencil clattering on his desk from where it was stuck to his forehead.

“Ouch,” he mumbled. He rubbed his eyes as he looked toward the door, surprised to find someone standing inside his cabin. Panicked, he snatched the cloth mask on his desk and fastened it to his face, tucking the elastics behind his ears.

“No need for that, it’s me,” said a familiar gravelly voice.

Archer relaxed his shoulders but kept the mask on. “You can never be too careful. Apparently the Bramble twins were running around town yesterday without them on.”