is so damn full that you can’t even see or hear what matters . . . how much I adore you.”
“That is not all that matters.” My voice came higher and harder than any time I could remember since I was a child.
“What else matters, Kara? What your father thinks? What Deirdre thinks? What the residents of Palmetto Pointe think? What else matters?”
“Honoring a promise matters. I can’t just go chasing after the next good feeling, the next best thing. This is real life, with real invitations mailed, real rings and real family.”
“Where is the strong girl who stood up to my drunk father on a summer morning, the woman who came to find me in Savannah? The woman who always knows what she wants? The right thing? Is the right thing always pleasing everybody else, not being who you are? Fulfilling somebody else’s idea of Kara Larson and who she should be instead of who you believe you are?”
“What gives you the right to say that?” A furious wind rose behind my words. “I am the Kara Larson I want to be. The Kara Larson I . . . am.”
“Okay. If that is true . . . I’ll leave. Now.” He paused. “But I don’t believe it’s true. I see the hints of you in there: the girl who loves fiercely and not logically.”
“Believe what you want,” I said.
He turned away from me then, and I felt as though my body rose above me. I understood that as much as I hurt now, the pain would be worse later: wondering if I should have embraced him, loved him—it would be worse later than even now.
Strength, I needed strength. I faced the water to find it—but felt only a hollow emptiness that my promises could not fill. I turned to Jack, but his back was to me.
“Jack,” I said, or thought I said as he walked across the bridge, away from me.
He spoke, but he didn’t turn. “I’m looking for the reasons you came back into my life. I’m looking up, down, to the left, to the right, and I can find only one.” He moved back around now, returned to me, touched the side of my face and kissed me. “The reason is because I love you. If there is one thing I will not do, it is force you to feel something that isn’t there for me—to talk you into something you don’t want.”
Then he walked away, and I was alone again.
I don’t know how long I stayed in the dark, but I believed that if I stayed long enough I could leave what had just happened inside the ink-blot night. But I couldn’t, so I rose, went home, packed my suitcase.
Half an hour later, I stood on my brother’s front porch, stared out to the water. Daddy didn’t like Brian living here, a shack on Silver Creek surrounded by stores and bars. But it was Brian’s one act of official rebellion—if it could even be called that.
I knocked on the door, and it opened as I lifted my hand a second time. Brian threw his arms around me. “Hey, Sis, whatcha doing here?”
I shrugged. “Running away. I was hoping I could stay here for a couple days.”
Brian drew his hand through his long blond curls, pointed down to my suitcase. “Haven’t run very far, huh?”
“I guess not, but it counts.” I grinned and shrugged. “The first and last time I ran away, I went home that same night. Still got grounded because I was late for dinner—the unforgivable sin.”
“That would be my sister. If you’re gonna run away, at least do it in a safe and reasonable manner.” He grinned and backed up, knowing that my pinch to the side of his arm was imminent.
Instead, I picked up my suitcase. “Can I come in or not?”
He swept his hand across the warped heart-of-pine floors. “Of course. I guess I’ll cancel my hot date tonight.”
I followed him to the back of the house, where he took my suitcase and threw it on a bed in a cramped room. I stood in the doorway. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“You can stay as long as you want. But you gotta tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not sure, Brian. I just had this desperate need to get away. Far away. But, like you said, this is as far as I made it.”
“Why didn’t you go to Deirdre’s?” He leaned against the door-jamb.
I rolled my eyes. “You have to ask?”
“Or Charlotte’s, or