As soon as Senia pulls up in front of Annabelle’s parents’ beach house, I smell the beer and hear the laughter. My chest tightens. I focus my eyes on the water bottle in my hand, forcing myself to think of nothing else as I breathe deeply and slowly. Senia is quiet as she waits for me. She’s used to my coping mechanisms.
The edges of my vision blur and everything but the bottle disappears. I think about how water is the essential element for life to flourish. I think of how it soothes and carries us, cleanses and quenches us. I imagine the water washing away every worry, every doubt about tonight and carrying it away to a clear, tranquil sea. I close my eyes and take one final deep breath as my muscles go slack and I’m completely relaxed.
I nod once and reach for the door handle. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
“I don’t know how you do that, but it’s kind of creepy and inspiring all at once.”
Senia and I stroll up the walkway arm-in-arm past the lush summer garden toward the blue, two-story clapboard beach house. I spot a group of five guys standing on the porch with red Solo cups and cigarettes clutched in their hands. From his profile, I recognize the short Indian guy leaning against the porch railing. He was in the sophomore Comp Lit class I dropped out of last October. I turn my head slightly as Senia and I climb the steps to the front door, hoping none of them will recognize me.
Senia pulls open the squeaky screen door and I choke on the sweet smell of alcohol and perfume. We step further inside and the first thing I see is a gathering of a dozen or so people huddled around the sofa where a guy with a guitar is playing and singing a Jason Mraz song.
This memory is too strong to fight.
I walk through the tall door into my ninth and final foster home. As luck would have it, the woman I called Grandma Patty eight years ago was actually just a neighbor. I had no family to take me in after my mother died. I’m only fifteen, but I’m already more jaded and cynical than my forty-something caseworker. She flat out told me that this would be my last placement. If I screw this one up, I’ll be sent to a halfway house until I turn sixteen in four months. The moment I step into the living room, I know I’ll be seeing the inside of that halfway house soon.
Three guys sit around a coffee table, two of them on the sofa and one cross-legged on the floor with a guitar in his lap. The one with the guitar wears a gray beanie and his dark hair falls around his face in jagged wisps. He’s humming a tune I recognize as a Beatles song my mom used to play whenever she cleaned the house: “I Want You.”
The thud of my backpack hitting the floor gets his attention and he looks straight into my eyes. “Are you Claire?” he asks. His voice is smooth with just a touch of a rasp.
I nod and he immediately sets his guitar down on the floor in front of him. My body tenses as he walks toward me—as my “training” kicks in. The reason I’ve been in and out of foster homes for the past eight years since my mom OD’d is because of everything she taught me.
From as far back as I can remember, my mother taught me never to trust men or boys. She was so honest and candid with me about the things her uncle did to her from the time she was nine until she was fourteen. She told me all the things to look out for, all the promises these predators would make. The most important thing to remember, she told me, was to never let them think you were a victim because that was when they pounced.
I followed my mom’s advice for eight years and I hadn’t been so much as hugged the wrong way. I’d kept myself safe, but only by getting myself kicked out of every foster home at the slightest hint that someone might see me as prey. This guy in the beanie doesn’t look like a predator, but looks can be deceiving.
He grabs the handle of my backpack and nods toward the stairs. “I’m Chris. I’ll take you to your room.”
Senia shakes my arm and the living room comes back into focus. “Are you okay?”
I nod quickly and she gives me a tight smile. She knows what just happened, but she’s willing to shrug it off because she knows that’s exactly what I need tonight. No long talks about getting over the past or seeing a shrink. People have endured far worse than I have. There’s devastating famine and wars being waged across the globe. I have nothing to complain about—except the fact that I really don’t want to be here tonight.
I spend the entire night hiding my face every time someone I recognize enters the room or explaining how I dropped out because I couldn’t pay my student loans. No one here knows the truth. The one smart thing I did last year was drop out before word could spread around campus.
At twenty minutes past midnight, Joanie Tipton finally enters the living room and casts a lazy smile in my direction, and now it’s time to leave. Joanie is the only person here, besides Senia, who knows why I dropped out. I had to beg Joanie, on my knees, not to tell anybody. It was the second most humiliating moment of my life.
I grab Senia’s arm and whisper into her ear, “Don’t look now. Mr. Jones just arrived. I have to get out of here.”
Mr. Jones is the nickname Senia gave Joanie after she got a chin implant the summer before our sophomore year and we decided she now looks like a transvestite version of Bridget Jones. She even has Renee Zellweger’s scrunched eyes. It would be funnier if she didn’t hold my secret in her French-manicured hands.
“I’ll take you home,” she whispers back and I shake my head adamantly.
“No! I’m just going to sleep. You don’t need to come home for that. I’ll walk.”
Her eyebrows furrow and she nods. “Breaking all the rules tonight, huh?” She’s referring to the fact that I never walk the streets alone at night. “I know you’re sleeping in so I guess I’ll see you when I get back on Monday. Love you.”
I kiss the top of her head as I rise from the sofa and scoot past her. I glare at Joanie from across the room as I leave, though she isn’t looking at me. She’s already engaged in a flirtation with a guy who’s at least ten years older than us. God, I wish I had a secret on her.
I duck out of the house and pretend to adjust my bangs as I pass a couple making out next to a car in the driveway. The last thing I need is to be recognized as I’m leaving. As soon as I’m out of the couple’s line of sight, I pick up my pace. Our apartment is only two and a half blocks away. The only reason Senia drove here is because of her monstrous heels.
I rush out into the crosswalk, eager to get away from the party—and the memories. I don’t see the headlights until it’s too late.
Chapter Three
Relentless Destiny
THE TIRES SQUEAL, SKIDDING ACROSS the asphalt as the truck plunges toward me. I’m frozen as I wait for the impact. I close my eyes and the first and only thought that crosses my mind is that this was inevitable. I’m finally being punished for my sins.
The squealing stops and my nose fills with the stench of burnt rubber. I open my eyes as I feel the heat of the engine against my arm. The grille of the truck is inches away from me and a cloud of smoke surrounds the front of the truck. I hear a car door opening, but I can’t see anyone approaching through the smoke until he’s right in front of me, Jack Dawson.
“Are you all right?” he asks. I’m shaking with adrenaline, but I don’t have a scratch on me. I nod and he grabs my arms. “You look like you’re in shock. I should take you to the hospital.”
“No!” I shout as I shrug my arms out of his grasp. “I’m fine. I just want to go home.”
“I’ll take you.”
“You almost killed me!”
He lets out a sheepish chuckle and it infuriates me. “Which is why you should let me take you home, so you don’t step in front of any more moving vehicles.”
“You think it’s funny that you almost murdered me?”
“It would have been manslaughter. And, hey, I saved you from that ‘roid junkie this morning. I guess this balances that out. Now everything is right with the universe.” I curl my lip in disgust and he smiles as he nods toward the cabin of the truck. “Come on. I’ve already tried to manslaughter you once tonight. I promise I won’t try again for at least another twelve hours. You’re safe for now.”
I roll my eyes as I walk toward the passenger door. He skips after me and opens the door for me to climb in. I step into the truck, using the handgrip to pull myself up, and bounce down into the seat. It smells like the coconut-scented sunblock I’ve had to purchase by the case since moving to Wrightsville Beach. He shuts the door and I flinch, still jumpy from nearly being mowed down by this monster.
He slides into the driver’s seat, but his hands make no move for the ignition. “Why were you running across the street in the middle of the night without looking both ways?”
“I was just walking home from a party. Can we go now?”
“A party? Are you drunk?”
“I don’t drink.”
He cocks an eyebrow as he studies me, as if his gaze is the equivalent of a Breathalyzer test.
“Hey, I’m not going to sue you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried.”
Ugh. This guy is annoyingly cocky.
“Let me take you to lunch today to make up for almost killing you.”
I turn to look through the rear window of the truck. Where are all the cars? Not that this street is exactly buzzing past midnight, but I’m beginning to think I’m never going to get home if someone doesn’t come along and force him out of this intersection.
“I’m sleeping in today.”
He tilts his head inquisitively. “What do you mean by sleeping in?”
“I mean curtains drawn, eye mask on, electronic devices switched off. Dead to the world sleeping in,” I say as I pull the house keys out of my purse and set the purse on the floor next to my feet.
“Sounds serious.”
“Sleep is serious.”
“What are you some kind of health nut?”
“I like getting my rest after a night of partying.”
“You just said you weren’t drinking.”
“Are you going to keep asking me questions or are you going to take me home? ‘Cause I can walk.”
He smiles as he turns the key in the ignition and pulls the truck forward. “Cora was right about you,” he says, then reaches across the console and shakes my knee.
I slap his hand away, accidentally jabbing him with the keys in my hand. “Hey, there’s this thing called personal space. And how do you know Cora?”
“I don’t believe in personal space. Separateness is an illusion. We are all connected.” He turns to me and flashes me a cunning smile as he pulls into my apartment complex. “Welcome home.”
There is only one way he would know where I live and also know Cora.
“You’re the new tenant?”
He continues to grin as he guides his truck into the parking space next to Senia’s empty space and kills the engine. A million sarcastic remarks about living underneath the person who nearly murdered me whiz through my brain, but I keep them to myself. If there’s one thing I hate it’s getting on bad terms with a neighbor. I never had neighbors growing up in the middle of nowhere with my mom. When I stayed with Senia for a few months after dropping out, I couldn’t believe how friendly her family was with their neighbors. They have parties almost every weekend together. Cora has practically become a surrogate grandmother to me. The least I can do is show her new tenant some courtesy.
“Well, then, welcome home to you, too,” I say, determined not to let our neighborly relationship get any more awkward.
He glances down at the steering wheel, unimpressed with my attempt at easing the tension. “Don’t you want to know what Cora said about you?”
I open the car door and slide out of the truck, letting out a small grunt as I land on the pavement. “Nope. I think I’ll let Cora tell me herself. Goodnight….”