CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I drive past Cole’s house on my way to
Sienna’s, and it’s almost impossible not to stop in the middle of
the road and go say hello. I just want to see that dimpled smile
for a minute, feel the way I relax around him. It’s more than
twenty-four hours since our date, but I swear I can still feel his
lips brushing against mine.
But instead of giving in to my impulse, I go right
past the iron gates and turn down the slope of Sienna’s long, black
driveway. I roll to a stop near her garage door. Her house isn’t
quite as large as Cole’s, but it’s just as pretty. The architecture
is more modern, all squares and harsh angles, but it’s coupled with
small sections of clapboard accents and oversized windows. Sometime
in the last two years, it’s been repainted from a bold red to a
warm blue.
I sit in my car in the driveway, gripping the wheel
so hard my knuckles turn white. It only takes a second for the car
to cool.
Two years since I’ve been in that house. The last
time was the night I killed Steven.
I stand in the middle of the living room,
gripping an empty beer. It’s loud in here—half the school came out
to party. Sienna has cranked up the hip-hop music so that she and
Nikki can dance on the couch, much to the pleasure of the guys
around them. Sienna has on a flirty miniskirt, the strap of a
bright yellow thong poking out the top. I roll my eyes but can’t
keep from smiling when she catches my eye and grins.
I turn away, heading to the kitchen for a fresh
beer, purposely bumping shoulders with Kristi as I walk by. “Happy
birthday!” she shouts over the music. I grin and mouth thanks,
rocking my hips to the beat as I walk. I can’t help myself—I feel
on top of the world. It’s all for me.
The clock on the wall reads ten forty as I pull
another beer from the ice-filled sink. I try to look out the
windows as I twist the top, but the crowd obliterates the view.
It’s pitch-black out there anyway.
Sienna used my sixteenth birthday as an excuse
to throw her biggest party yet. Streamers twist their way across
the ceiling, crisscrossing to create an almost circus-tent-like
feel. School started two weeks ago, and we all want to pretend it
hasn’t, that the summer will just keep going.
Steven walks into the room with Cole, his best
friend. His back is to me for a moment as the two of them talk. A
girl walks up and catches Cole’s attention. She smiles and punches
his arm. He laughs, and then Steven turns away, walking toward me.
He’s wearing board shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt, his skin
glowing with the tan he’d gotten over the long summer. He’s the
kind of guy who everyone notices. One of his friends reaches out,
and they bump knuckles. He’s spent three years on the football
team. That’s all it takes to be well-known at Cedar Cove
High.
Steven’s eyes light up when he spots me, making
me feel warm all over. The last couple of months, things have been
shifting between the two of us. It’s like he’s finally noticing me
when I’ve been here all along. I can’t stop myself from the intense
hope that he might be harboring the same feelings I have for
him.
“Hey,” he says, stopping right in front of me.
Inches away. He leans in to be heard over the music, his breath
warm on my ear. “Having fun?”
I nod and take a swig of my beer. I can’t think
of anything witty to say, so I take another drink, and then
another, and soon I’ve emptied the bottle. I drop it down on the
counter with a hollow thunk. Even after all these years, how is it
that he makes me so nervous?
Steven leans even closer as he reaches to grab a
beer from the bucket behind me, and my body temperature shoots up a
few more degrees. “Do you want to go up to the deck?”
I’m not sure if he spoke the words or breathed
them, right into my ear. He produces two beers and hands me one,
nodding his head toward the staircase. Condensation trails down the
amber glass as I take it from his hand.
I follow him through the house, leaving the
thumping base beat behind, along with the forty or so classmates
that fill the bottom floor. As we ascend the steps, I can’t stop
staring at the spot where his navy-andred board shorts meet his
lower thighs. Steven leads me through a den with dark leather
furniture and teak bookshelves, then onto the balcony that
overlooks the ocean.
As the door slides open, desire shoots through
me, like nothing I’ve ever felt.
But it isn’t just for Steven.
It’s for the ocean, too. It’s in plain sight
now, swelling and flowing under the dark. All I can see is the
white froth against a black backdrop. A breeze, balmy for
September, whips across the deck and then dies.
Tingling waves trail up and down my limbs. It’s
as if the ocean is right there on the deck with me, whispering in
my ear, calling my name. I watch the waves, entranced. Swimming is
the only thing I want.
No, it’s swimming and Steven, both all at
once.
I stop in the door as Steven plunks down on a
wooden Adirondack chair, popping the top on his beer and taking a
slow drink. When he sets the bottle on the armrest, condensation
trickles down, pooling on the red cedar boards. I stare at his
fingers where they grip the bottle. My gaze lingers on his arm,
then moves up to his thick biceps. He’s spent three years on the
football team. And it shows.
The scene in front of me, him waiting with a
warm smile, patting the chair beside him, is everything I’ve ever
wanted, but for some reason it’s not enough.
“Let’s go swimming,” I say.
He furrows his brow for a moment and glances out
at the ocean. “Really?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“But this party is for you.”
“We won’t be gone long. Twenty minutes. Just say
yes.” I grin then, feeling a strange wave of excitement pulse
through me. “It’s my birthday, which means you’re not allowed to
say no.”
He smiles and walks to me. And as I stand there,
time slows down. He leans in closer, presses his lips against mine.
And then, before I know it, he pulls away. It happens so fast I can
barely react. “Well, then, birthday girl. Lead the way.”
As we walk down the steps, walk through the
party, I float. Steven kissed me.
Steven. Kissed me.
Steven. Kissed. Me.
We leave through the sliding door, the sounds of
the party muting as he shuts it behind us. He takes my hand, and we
walk over the dunes, tripping a little bit in the dark. I nearly go
down, my feet twisted in the grass, but Steven’s hand on my arm
saves me. And we laugh, and he finds me in the darkness and kisses
me again.
And now today, I am stuck sitting in Sienna’s
driveway, replaying the same thing over and over, staring at my
white knuckles. But I can’t sit here all day. I let go of my death
grip on the wheel and wiggle my fingers a little bit to get the
blood pumping again. Then I shove the door open. It gives its usual
screech as I slam it and walk to the front stoop before I can
change my mind.
Sienna swings the door open before I can even
knock, which only makes me hope that she hasn’t watched me sitting
in front of her house for the last five minutes.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey!” I’m surprised by how bright and airy her
voice is. As though this is normal for us. “You’re just in time—I
can’t decide between peanut butter and chocolate chip.” She holds
up a recipe card in each hand, waving them both around. They’re
bent up, smudged with flour and butter all over. A weird,
melancholy wave courses through me as I look at the cute little
daisy on each corner. I recognize them. The stain on the
peanut-butter recipe is from the dirty mixing spoon I
absentmindedly set on it three summers ago. It had been the fourth
cookie recipe we’d tried, and by that point, it was all we could do
to get off the couch and fetch the next dozen cookies out of the
oven. We ended up watching a marathon of bad reality
television, completely blissed out on sugar.
I’m overcome with the desire to reclaim everything,
pretend the last two years never happened, if only for the
afternoon. I want to be the girl in the kitchen, gossiping and
making cookies and eating more dough than makes it into the
oven.
“Both,” I say.
Sienna frowns. “I only have enough eggs for one
batch, unless you want to go to the store with me.”
“No, I mean both together. Peanut butter chocolate
chip.”
“Oh.” She brightens. “Why didn’t I think of
that?”
I shrug. It feels weird to talk about cookie
recipes when we have such weightier issues to deal with. There’s
not just an elephant in the room; there’s a whole herd of
them.
I kick my shoes off—I haven’t forgotten her mom’s
no-shoes rule—and follow her through the great room and into the
kitchen. It’s made to look like one of those kitchens out of a
quaint farmhouse, all beautiful yellowed-buttermilk cabinets and an
immense sink that resembles an antique washbasin. But, unlike a
true farmhouse kitchen, this one is the size of a normal
house.
Maple Falls Road really is an entirely different
universe than the rest of Cedar Cove.
“Where’s your mom?”
“Bridge, I think. Or Squash. Something lame.”
I laugh, and the sound makes Sienna look at me
abruptly. Her eye shadow is brighter than normal. Pink, set off by
dark, kohllined eyelashes. Her surprised expression makes me
realize I haven’t laughed in a long time.
“Melt the butter, will you? I’m going to go grab
something.”
I nod and set to work. It only takes me seconds to
remember where everything is stored. Spoons, bowls, measuring cups.
It all comes back to me. A desperate urge to get it all back—to be
friends with Sienna—overwhelms me.
I was happy in this house. I was happy as her
friend.
By the time I’m whipping the warm butter in a bowl,
Sienna strolls out, a tiny little bag with pink-ribbon handles
dangling from her fingertips.
“What is that?” I ask, trying not to show the weird
little panic that bubbles to the surface.
She sets it on the counter in front of me. “Your
birthday present.”
I blink, staring at the cute little bag, then turn
back to the bowl, whipping the butter faster and faster, even
though it’s ready. “My birthday was two weeks ago.”
Sienna shoves the bag toward me. One of her usually
perfect French-manicured nails is chipped. “This is from your
sixteenth. I never got to give it to you.”
“Oh.” My mouth goes dry. I force my hand to stop
whipping the butter, but my grip on the spoon tightens. “You kept
this for two years?”
She nods.
“Why?”
She just shrugs and pushes the bag toward me again,
until it’s right up against the bowl. Heart in my throat, I smile
at her and grab the forgotten present. Delicate—albeit a little
squished—white tissue pokes out of the shiny white-and-blue
polka-dot bag. I dig my hand into it—the bag is so small my fist
barely fits—and pull out the tissue.
As I unfold it, my heart twists. Inside is a
bracelet, handmade out of glass seed beads. Little silver seashells
and sea stars dangle from it. It’s held together by a tiny
polished-silver clasp. It must have taken Sienna hours to make,
alternating the tiny beads in blue, green, teal.... It’s
meticulous. Perfect.
I look up at Sienna, take in the bright, expectant
look in her pretty blue eyes. Sparkling like this, they look just
like Steven’s.
This isn’t just a lost birthday gift, returned to
its rightful owner. This is an offer. To pick up where we left off.
And even though I know it’s probably the wrong decision—the last
thing I should do—I smile at Sienna and murmur a thank-you. Then I
slip it on to my wrist and let her fasten it.