drives us almost an hour out of the way, to Beaver Bridge aka the Little Golden Gate Bridge.
The five-hundred and fifty-four-foot long bridge was built in 1947 and is the only remaining suspension bridge in the state that can still be driven across. It really does look like a San Francisco miniature, but miniature it is. There's only one lane that Calix doesn't seem to mind taking up, parking right in the middle of the bridge before climbing out. This early in the morning, in the off-season, we'll probably be okay.
Table Rock Lake glimmers brilliantly in the early morning sunshine as Calix climbs over the railing and takes a seat on the edge of the bridge, legs dangling over the side. At least if he fell, he wouldn't have far to go. It'd be easy to jump down and then swim to shore.
I decide to join him, sitting there in an old Falling in Reverse band shirt, streaked with paint, and paired with last year's Crescent Prep skirt. It, too, is spattered with paint in every color.
“You look different,” Calix says with a long sigh, fingers curled around the wood planks of the bridge as he glances my direction. A flock of white cattle egrets alights on the lake, and I frown. They're technically an invasive species, a pest, but then, so is humanity, so who am I to judge? I'm sure the egrets do far less damage to the environment here than we do.
“How so?” I ask, my pulse thundering in my head, so loud that the bird calls perfuming the air around us seem to blend into white noise. After everything I've discovered during this time loop, I thought I'd figured Calix out.
He never liked me. He wasn't lying to his friends; he was lying to me.
But … why would he have come to Diamond Point at seven-thirty in the morning if not to see me?
“Never mind,” Calix says, turning back to the water and frowning with that gorgeous mouth of his. Does he even realize how pretty that mouth is? And how much prettier it'd be if he smiled? I yawn, and Calix flicks his dark eyes my way before turning back to the lake. “What are you doing up so late? Worrying about all the awful things I've decided to do to you, now that you fucked up my car.”
“Not really. I actually haven't thought about you since I hit your car … yesterday.” I try the word out on my tongue and decide that I like it. I miss having todays and tomorrows and yesterdays and next weeks. “I spent the day with my dyke moms that you hate so much.”
“I don't hate them,” Calix says with a sigh and a slight scowl, turning back to the lake. A fish jumps near the bridge, and I let out a small sound of surprise, putting a hand to my chest as my heart thunders. I've been awake too long. I could probably stay up later, if I overdosed on caffeine or something. Hell, Crescent Prep kids are really good at getting cocaine. If I wanted some, I bet Calix would know where to find it.
“You don't? You shit talk them enough,” I say with a snort. Last night, the moms were content to leave their phones off for the whole of Devils' Day. After all, their kids were home and safe, so what could they possibly need them for? They haven't seen the video yet, but I'm assuming Calix has. “Anyway, I just took my phone out of airplane mode for the first time since last night. I saw Luke's text about Pearl, and then you showed up. What do you want, Calix?”
He cringes slightly, and then curls his fingers in his dark hair, closing his eyes briefly against the shimmer of sunshine off the lake. I doubt that he's slept, so he's nursing a morning hangover paired with exhaustion. He looks like hell. And yet, I'm not sure if I've ever found him more handsome than I do in this moment.
Stripped of his pomp and circumstance, there's that tired face I recognize from the gas station parking lot that fateful morning, the one that pissed me off so damn much. It's not fair for him to do that, to shed both his masks. When he looks like that, I start to question everything.
“There's a video,” he says absently, looking back out at the lake. Eventually someone might come along and hit the Aston Martin in