by my side.”
I hesitate, then nod, averting my eyes. “I’ve really got to get to class … ”
But Blake takes my arm as I begin walking away. “Anne?”
I glance at him. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
Eighteen
“This is where it happened.”
A sea breeze wafts through our hair as Blake and I stand at the shore, distant thunder churning in a slate-gray sky and waves nipping at our bare feet. We’ve walked silently on the sand for about three-quarters of a mile, but now that we’ve approached a rocky outcrop of the beach, Blake has stopped abruptly.
“Right here,” he repeats in barely a whisper, peering out into the ocean and swallowing hard.
I reach for his hand and our fingers enfold. “Is this the first time you’ve been back since … ”
He nods, and I squeeze his hand harder.
“It was so senseless,” he says, his deep blue eyes sad and angry at the same time.
A smattering of other people dot the shore, and we’ve passed a couple of swimmers, but I feel oddly secluded, as if the weight of the tragedy is closing in on us like a fog. As jolting as this day has been, this particular moment seems disembodied … gauzy and disconnected, with everything around us dissolving except for doleful stirrings from the sea. God … a poor girl died in that sea just a few short months ago, stupid rumors notwithstanding, and seeing Blake’s expression now, I don’t doubt that’s exactly what happened. I’ve stood a dozen times or more on the roadside where Mom and Dad took their last breaths, and I’m all too familiar with the disbelieving look in Blake’s eyes, the quickened breaths emanating from somebody whose body otherwise seems petrified, encased in grief.
Yes, I know the look. The way that Blake is staring into the ocean is the way I’ve stared at the asphalt where the drunk driver ran the stop sign and T-boned my parents’ car. I’ve felt like if I stared hard enough, or long enough, I could make sense of the fact that my parents could be perfectly healthy one minute, dead the next, just as Cara was. It can’t be that easy for life to be snuffed away, can it? Shouldn’t the process of death be more mindful, more deliberate?
But destiny can’t deliberate, and as much as I wish otherwise, destiny didn’t give me the opportunity to intervene the night my parents were killed. It must be even harder for Blake. He tried to intervene, yet failed. He and Jamie. They had a chance to rescue Cara, the briefest window to change the course of history, to save a life. No wonder they’re so wounded, so captive to the pain that binds and repels them simultaneously.
The waves are skittering up to the silver-speckled rocks. When high tide hits an hour from now, the water will pummel the rocks, smashing against them and leaving frothy spittle behind. Most of the rocks are jagged and uneven, but one is smooth and flat enough to sit on. I gently pull Blake toward it.
“Let’s talk a minute … okay?”
He nods and follows me to the rock. We sit in silence a few moments, still staring at the sea. A couple of raindrops skim our noses, the kind of raindrops that could be either a fleeting annoyance or the opening salvo of a pelting storm. I shiver even though the air is warm and muggy.
I inhale deeply, then say, “I know it’s hard for you to be here, Blake, but I heard a few things today that kinda spooked me.”
Another raindrop flecks my upper arm.
“That’s why we’re here, baby. I told you: you can ask me anything.”
I nod and stare at my hands. “I don’t want to upset you, but … can you tell me what happened that night?”
My hands clench as I wonder anxiously whether I should disclose what I already know, or at least what I think I know. Is it some kind of betrayal that I’ve googled the accident, that I’ve collected bits and pieces of information here and there? Or is that a no-brainer, something anyone else in my position would do? I don’t know; I just don’t ever want Blake to think I’m sketchy. The way people are reacting to me these days, I barely trust myself to utter a word about anything. But even as I’m deliberating, I can tell he’s collecting his thoughts. I stay quiet and wait for his response.
He takes a deep breath and rubs the back of