make out some hills on the other side of the lake and picnic tables scattered here and there, and everything was quiet as we stepped across the pine needles.
“It’s nice here,” I said. “I like this place.”
“I know,” she said, taking my hand.
As we walked down onto the sand, I suddenly stopped.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be at cheerleading?”
“I quit,” she said, looking down with a smile. “I figured if you could do it, then so could I.”
“Great,” I said. “Now we can both be losers.”
She laughed. “That’s right. And why not?”
“Why not,” I agreed. It made me feel kind of strange. I had never caused anyone to do anything in my entire life—unless you wanted to count Barry punching his fist through the wall—or at least never gotten anyone to change something about themselves. It wasn’t the only reason why I loved Amber, but at that moment, it was the most important one.
We kept walking across the beach toward the far end. I was getting all kinds of sand in my sneakers, but I didn’t care—it just felt good to be holding Amber’s hand again. Even though we more or less walked side by side, I let her sort of lead the way. She seemed to know where we were going, and I didn’t have a clue. There was something familiar about this place, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Pretty soon we reached the end of the sand and entered a path that disappeared into the woods. Now I was really confused.
“Where are we going?” I blurted out.
She glanced over and gave me a look. “Funny,” she said.
I tried not to wince. I had to be more careful about stuff like that. I never got in trouble for things I didn’t say, only the things I did.
I kept catching glimpses of the water through the trees to my right and realized the path we were on basically skirted the edge of the lake. Pretty soon we came out into a clearing right by the water. I could see the curve of the beach across the way. I started toward the far side, where the path continued.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
I turned to see her standing by a rock on the shore.
“Nowhere,” I said, coming back. “Just wanted to see if there was anyone else on the path.” I knew right away it was a stupid thing to say. But I was totally out of it. I’d never felt so happy and so nervous at the same time before.
“Yeah, like there’s any chance of that,” she said.
She sat down on the rock, and as I walked over to her, I suddenly realized where we were—this was the picture, the one I’d found in the card. I sat down next to her.
“Well, this is the place,” she intimated.
“It’s even better in real life,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked, glancing at me.
“Better than the picture. You know, the one you gave me for my birthday.”
“Oh,” she said, looking down. “That’s right. I almost forgot.”
I started to ask her what she’d meant, but suddenly I knew that would be a big mistake. Something had happened here before. Something important.
“It feels like so long ago,” she said. “You know, when we came here.”
“It does,” I said. “Like forever.”
She wrapped her arm through mine and looked up at me. I closed my eyes for a second and just inhaled. The scent of perfume and oranges wreathed about her, and as I breathed in deeply through my nose, it felt like I was pulling her toward me, like I was almost drawing in her essence. And when I opened my eyes, I saw that it had worked—she was actually leaning in. All of a sudden, I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to kiss her. Only I couldn’t. For some reason, I froze. I mean, I’d killed two people, and now here I was, too chicken to kiss a girl.
The moment passed. To her credit, she didn’t seem to hold it against me. I could see a glimmer of surprise in her eyes before she looked away, but it wasn’t an angry kind of surprise. If anything, it was the good kind. Like when you suddenly realize something about another person, but it really makes you discover something about yourself. Kind of like how I’d felt a week ago when Amber dropped me off and I realized I was in love with her.
For