My arms slipped round her. ‘I’ll be here, waiting for you. I promise. Come back early, if you want, and stay here with me until the dorms open. But go, give her a chance.’

She looked straight at me in the mirror, tearing up, knowing the card I was playing, no matter how furtively. ‘And you’ll give your father a chance, too?’

Sneaky, Jacqueline.

I grimaced, staring into her eyes in our reflection. ‘Yes. I will.’

She sighed, pouting. ‘Now that you’ve bullied me into leaving you, may I have my proper send-off?’

My brow arched and I moved my hands to the hem of that T-shirt, murmuring, ‘Hell, yes.’ I watched myself in the mirror – pulling the shirt up and over her head, cupping her lovely br**sts in my hands, thumbs teasing the ni**les. One hand slipped down to cover her abdomen, sliding into her panties, straight past the lace. Her mouth fell open as I stroked her, and her head fell back on my shoulder, but she didn’t shut her eyes. So beautiful. I loved watching her respond to my touch. I would never get enough of this.

She reached a hand behind her hips, fingers closing round me. I growled, pushing into her hand while I pressed her body closer with mine. I leaned to kiss her neck, closing my eyes and breathing her in. ‘Ready for bed, then?’

‘Bed, sofa, kitchen table, whatever you have in mind …’ she answered, and I groaned.

When I regained enough equilibrium to open my eyes, they’d darkened to the leaden grey-blue of a rainy day sky, contrasting with her deep, summer blue. My bathroom mirror had become the hottest interactive video ever. ‘All right, then,’ I said, sliding my fingers into her. ‘Let’s just start right here, baby.’

‘Mmm …’ she said, her eyes drifting closed.

She lay in the circle of my arms, both of us exhausted. Bathroom sink, check. Desk chair, check. Sofa, double check. I visualized waking with her in this bed in a few hours, though, and decided she had one more send-off in store.

Still awake, her eyes were on mine. Hmm.

‘What’d you think of Harrison?’ she asked.

‘He seems like a good kid.’

‘He is.’ Her eyes followed her fingertips as they caressed beneath my jaw.

I dragged her closer and asked what this was about. ‘Are you leaving me for Harrison, Jacqueline?’

I expected her to roll her eyes and laugh, but instead, she gazed steadily at me. ‘If Harrison had been in that parking lot that night, instead of you, do you think he’d have wanted to help me?’

The parking lot. With Buck.

‘If someone had told him to watch out for me,’ she pressed, ‘do you think they would ever, ever blame him, if he’d not been able to stop what would have happened that night?’

My lungs constricted. ‘I know what you’re trying to say –’

She wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily, though she trembled in my arms. ‘No, Lucas. You’re hearing it, but you don’t know it. There’s no way your father actually expected that of you. There’s no way he even remembers saying that to you. He blames himself, and you blame yourself, but neither of you is to blame.’ Her eyes were full, but they wouldn’t let me go.

I held her like I was falling off the face of the earth, and I couldn’t breathe – no gravity, no oxygen. ‘I’ll never forget how she sounded that night. How can I not blame myself?’ My eyes glassed with tears while hers spilled over.

Her right hand was still on my face. Pressed between us, her left hand gripped mine, grounding me. Her tears flowed into the pillow as she made me see the boy I’d been. I’d never asked my father if he blamed me; I’d assumed that he did. But Jacqueline was right about him – he was stuck in perpetual grief, blaming himself when no one else did. And I had followed his example.

‘What have you told me, over and over? It wasn’t your fault,’ she said.

She said I needed to talk to someone who’d help me forgive myself. I only wanted to talk to her – but I couldn’t ask that of her. Cindy had suggested therapy a hundred times, swearing it helped her grieve the loss of her best friend, but I’d become adept at insisting I was fine.

I’m fine. I’m good.

But I wasn’t fine. I was anything but fine. That night had shattered me. I’d walled myself in to keep from breaking further, but no defence will protect you from every possible pain. I was still just as breakable as everyone else – the girl in my arms included. But I could hope. And I could love. And maybe, I could heal.

26

Landon

I hadn’t been afraid of anything in a long time.

I was scared shitless, but I wasn’t about to show it. This was nothing. Nothing.

‘You ready, Landon?’ Heller asked, and I nodded.

Everything I owned was piled in the back of his SUV. I didn’t have any luggage beyond a duffle and a backpack, so most of my clothes had been crammed into large black plastic bags like the trash they were. I’d scrounged up a few empty boxes from the Bait & Tackle for my books and sketchpads. They stank like fish. Which meant the interior of Heller’s truck and everything I owned would smell like fish by the time we got five miles from the f**king coast.

It was worth it. Good riddance. I never wanted to come back.

Holding his chipped Fishermen Do It Hook, Line and Sinker mug, Dad stood, feet braced apart, on the front porch – every piece of timber comprising the whole sagging and weather-beaten to all f**k. It was a miracle that anything made of wood could survive here, and yet this place had endured, somehow, for decades – defying wind, rain, tropical storms and the relentless salt water that permeated the whole town with its brackish scent day in and day out.

As a kid, when this place was my grandfather’s house, I’d loved the annual summer visits that my dad had loathed, but Mom insisted on. ‘He’s your father,’ she’d tell him. ‘He’s Landon’s grandfather. Family is important, Ray.’

Now Dad was staying, and I was leaving.

Within the dilapidated house on the beach, waves from the gulf were audible at all times of the day and night. When I was little, spending time here was like living in a tree house or a backyard tent for a week – lacking most of the comforts of home, but so poles apart from my real life that it seemed incredible and otherworldly. Roughing it, desert-island style.

After a day of exploring the shoreline and baking in the sun, I’d spread one of the towels Mom always bought before our vacations and left at Grandpa’s place. The soft bath sheets were long enough to accommodate my entire childhood frame and wide enough to stockpile and sort the shells I collected during long, hot days on a beach that was anything but the white coast I let my friends back home in Alexandria imagine.