Cameron stood up very straight. The noise and bustle of the station seemed to fade into the background as one clear, perfect thought took hold. In less than two years, he would be a legal adult.
And he was Ashley’s blood relative. He would be her guardian. No one would take her away from him, ever. Ever.
For the first time in weeks, a peculiar calm spread through him. Ashley was going to stay where she belonged.
The train hissed and groaned its way into the station, and Cameron’s nerves thrummed with anticipation. He was amazed at how many people seemed to be on the train and how long it took them to get off. This was worse than on an airplane, when everybody in front of you took forever to get their stuff out of the overhead compartment. There was a family of six from Mexico, looking bewildered but cautiously pleased, emerging from a silver passenger car and blinking at the light. A man alone in a suit that looked clean and pressed even though he had probably spent hours sitting on board stepped down, his perfectly shined shoes gleaming. There was a woman in a tie-dyed dress carrying a birdcage, and a pair of backpackers who were maybe college-age. For the first time since the accident, Cameron could picture himself like that someday, striking out toward a future.
Last April, he hadn’t thought much about the future at all. He’d drifted from day to day, goofing off with people he called friends. Now he knew what a true friend was—someone who cared enough about you to make you want to be a better person, and these days he actually cared about that. Being better. Doing his best in school, because it mattered. He grudgingly conceded that school was important. He wanted to go to college, see the world, be with someone special, look after his sisters.
The moment he spotted Becky squeezing through the train-car door with an overstuffed duffel bag, the churning eased. He could tell by the way she was scanning the platform that she hadn’t spotted him yet. He was about to run toward her, but he hesitated a moment. She looked…different. Way different. Something had happened to her over the summer, something indefinable but very real. He felt a little intimidated by the tall girl walking toward the exit like a supermodel, her hair a silky flutter behind her. Then she spotted him and smiled, her teeth a dazzling flash of white in her tanned face. That was the Becky he knew, shining through.
He hurried toward her, weaving in and out of the milling crowd. Now what? He wondered if he should grab her and give her a hug, maybe even kiss her. Instead, he just stood there like an idiot.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.” She was blushing beneath the tan. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“That’s okay. Can I give you a hand with that?” He grabbed her duffel bag and headed for the exit. Stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He kept sneaking glances at her and noticed her doing the same. There was more blushing on both sides. His ears were so hot, he was sure the flames were visible.
He noticed that her hair was almost white-blond from the sun. Neither of them seemed to know what to say, where to put their hands or their feet or their thoughts or their yearning.
“My car’s over here,” he said, leading the way. My car. Not my mom’s car, but mine. It finally felt like a good fit. He opened the hatchback and put her bags in. And at some point, for some reason, he stopped thinking about what to do or what to say next. He turned to face her and put his hands on her shoulders. She felt just right. Perfect.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, and leaned down and kissed her, simple as that. She tasted sweet and her lips were warm, and he felt a wave of happiness as pure and clean as anything he’d felt since the accident.
She pulled back and looked up at him with shining eyes. “I’ve missed you, too.”
He took both her hands in his. “I didn’t kiss you goodbye,” he said. “I thought about that all summer. I should have done that. I wish I had.”
“You kissed me hello. That’s better, anyway.”
A fresh wind through his bedroom window awakened Cameron. He knew it would rain soon. He had a powerful sense of the weather, feeling the damp in the atmosphere and the wind like