we have to go to the police?” Katie asked, her lower lip trembling a little.
“Not tonight. But we probably will eventually. We’ll need to contact a lawyer, for starters. I can figure that out tomorrow.” I put my hand over hers where it rested on the railing. “We’re gonna be okay.”
“You’re sure?” She looked back at me, her face wet from tears and sea spray.
“Yeah,” I said, willing myself to believe it. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
17
Connor
Saturday night found me and Roxie back at McIntyre Beach.
There were only eight days until the council voted, and I felt like the beach was calling to me. To witness it, maybe. Probably sounds insane, but that’s how it felt. Places have power, and McIntyre Beach had power over me.
Sitting out on the sand, listening to the waves roll in, I felt my restlessness grow quiet. Felt the confusion, anger, and pain that had hurricaned through me subside to a gentle rain. Felt like I could sit with everything in my heart, for once, instead of running from it.
I hated the thought of the beach being developed. Of this patch of sand becoming private property, buried under steel and concrete, fenced off for all but the richest people who could claim nature for themselves.
And I hated the thought of going back to Tennessee, if we lost the vote. Two months of work in Adair for nothing. Just picturing myself back in my cabin, knowing we’d lost, made me want to weep.
I hadn’t come back just to lose this place again. I didn’t know how to cope with that sorrow, except to shut all my emotions off. And I was sick of doing that.
Moving to the Smokies had turned down the dimmer switch in my heart. Pulled the curtains closed. I’d let the darkness of the mountain nights, the endless green of the trees, envelop me. Keep me hidden. But it had stopped me from growing, too.
Coming back to Summersea, I felt exposed. Raw. But I also felt like I was moving forward, for the first time in so long.
How much of that was because of Julian? Was he holding me back or pulling me forward? I didn’t want to stay stuck in the past anymore, but I didn’t want to run from it either.
I loved him. Pure and simple. But loving him hurt. Going back to Tennessee and cutting ties—my heart screamed at the thought. But what was the alternative? Stay here and spend the rest of my life as his secret? Was that worth it, if it meant that he stayed in my life?
Eventually even the waves lost their ability to soothe me. I stood and brushed the sand from my legs as Roxie shook herself off. Then I spun in a slow circle, trying to imprint this moment in my memory, before picking up the end of her leash.
I couldn’t stay here anymore, but I wasn’t ready to go back to the Wisteria either. I itched to move, so I let my feet follow whatever path appealed to them on a nighttime ramble through the town. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when they took me back to Julian’s house.
Not the one he lived in now, but the one where he’d grown up. Where his mom and dad still lived, I assumed. I stood across the street, in the shadow of a tall fence overgrown with honeysuckle, and stared, as if by watching it, I could unearth some shard of memory that would make sense of everything, and give me a direction to go.
Roxie snuffled through the dirt and leaf litter underneath the bush, and I didn’t bother to rein her in. The house was dark, with no sign of movement. And we were far enough back that I didn’t think we’d be seen, even if someone were looking.
The house was forbidding, which was fitting, given who lived there. God, I’d hated his father, after I found out that he beat Julian. I used to fantasize about calling the police. Getting him thrown in jail. Setting Julian free.
But that wasn’t what Julian wanted.
Julian kept saying I’d taken his choice away by leaving, but he’d already made his earlier. To stay in his house, to keep silent about his dad. As long as nothing changed, Julian felt like he was in control. So he chose the pain he knew over the fear of things getting worse—and the possibility of them getting better.