He shrugs off my apology and focuses on my shin. His hand still rests on my leg and I wonder if he notices, because I notice. The warmth of his palm seeps through my skin and into my blood.
“I’ve mostly been a dick to you and I’m sure that hasn’t helped,” he says. “Being thrown into this mess has to be hard. No one here is the type to bend easily. Not even for you. Considering the circumstances, you’ve done good.”
Pride tingles through me with his compliment and I smile. Oz’s mouth edges up and it’s the most endearing gesture he’s given me yet. Oz is the epitome of sexy wickedness, but this is the first smile that doesn’t make me empathize with a mouse the cat’s been toying with. It’s one that makes me feel included.
“Hey, Oz,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember the conversation we had that night on the porch?”
“You mean the one where you sucked at running away?”
I scowl, he chuckles and I pick up my other foot and shove his shoulder with my toe.
“Yeah, that night,” I answer.
“What about it?” he asks.
“Do you remember how I said I didn’t know if I liked you?”
“Yeah?”
I glance down because shyness overwhelms me. “I like you.”
“Hey, Emily.”
I force my gaze to his and when I do, he performs another heart-stopping brush of his fingers across my leg and the world fades away except for the two of us. “I like you, too.”
A strong wind bends the trees. My hair blows across my face and Oz scans the sky. “We need to go. I’ll get everything together. You stay here and then I’ll carry you to the bike.”
Without waiting for a response, Oz grabs the medical kit and heads back into the cabin.
He likes me. Oz likes me.
As a friend. Just how I like him because I totally meant it as a friend and not as anything else because anything else would be stupid because he’s trouble and I’m leaving soon and he lives hundreds of miles away and I have a plan and a life and he has a plan and a life and we don’t belong in each other’s plan or life and I sort of want to squee because Oz likes me.
I lift my head as the happy feeling fades. The tree. Olivia said I needed to look for a tree. Placing more pressure on my good leg than my bad, I stand and then redistribute my weight.
Nope, not broken, but it throbs. I count over two spots from the oak tree and I hobble past the first tree then pause. Wow. That’s a lot of names for a trunk of a tree. One rotation of a dizzying circle and my world becomes distorted. Oh my God, it’s not just one tree. It’s several and stacked one upon another is name after name.
“Two spots over,” I whisper. This tree isn’t as towering as the others. Its bark is white and peels off in sections. The leaves aren’t as big. My eyes shoot to the top of the list then frantically search down. Some are first names. Some are initials. Most of the names don’t make sense. The world grinds to a halt as a cold clamminess overtakes my body. MZN...Megan Zoe Nader.
It’s not possible. It’s not. I stumble back from the tree and into Oz.
His glare pins me to my spot. “I told you to stay put.”
He did, I didn’t and now I’ve plummeted down the rabbit hole Oz warned me about.
“If I asked you a question would you tell me the truth?” I ask. “Because we’re friends now and that’s what friends do.”
Oz hardens. “It’s my job to watch over you.”
“Yeah, I kinda assumed that, but we’re friends now, right?” He didn’t outright say it last night, but he suggested it and I have a hard time believing there isn’t some sort of connection between us—even if it’s just friendship.
He reaches down to his hip and extracts his knife from the sheath. “The tree we’re using is over there. Let’s get going before the storm blows in.”
He walks away and I have my answer.
Oz
WIND SHAKES OLIVIA’S CABIN. It’s been standing for over a hundred years and I can’t imagine any storm blowing this house down. We’ve heard a few rumbles of thunder. Heat lightning flashes in the dark overcast sky, but the front that we were promised never arrived.
The air is thick with humidity, with expectation. Each night we go without a storm only builds the electricity. The air is practically crackling with the shit.
I sit on the steps of the porch and nurse a beer. Emily’s muffled voice drifts out of her window. It’s ten at night, which means she’s either on the phone with her parents or her friends. Chevy said that Stone told him that she and Violet talk on the phone. According to him, they discuss girl crap: clothes, hair, colleges in Florida. Violet better be keeping her mouth shut about the club to Emily.
Lights glow from the open bay doors of the clubhouse across the yard. A group of five guys hang around in a circle talking and smoking cigarettes.
The summer crickets are quiet. So are the frogs. Even the voices from the garage don’t carry right. The clubhouse should be exploding with people and noise and the silence gives the place an eerie mood.
My instincts scream that something’s wrong. That we’re teetering on the brink of a moment so huge that if we topple it’ll lead to a downward spiral straight to hell.
My phone buzzes. Ten fifteen on the dot. Eli hasn’t missed a check-in yet.
Eli: Give me an update
I take a long draw from the beer then set the empty bottle on the porch.