The silence in the beautiful lake house was resounding. Or maybe it wasn't the silence, but the pounding of my heart reverberating in my head.

My wrists were almost raw from tugging at the handcuffs. Rawness that matched my sore throat from screaming Christian's name for a full five minutes after I heard his truck drive away. I knew he couldn't hear me, but yelling made me feel like I was doing something since I wasn't getting anywhere with freeing myself from my restraints.

Wishing I hadn't wasted so much energy, I slowly slunk back to the floor. I wrapped my legs around the beam and pressed my forehead against it. It was then that I noticed the stinging in my forearms. Casting a wary glance at each arm, I realized that the tender insides of both of them were bright red and filled with splinters. I'd been so engaged in my useless tug of war, I hadn't noticed that my arms were teeming with scratches that were deep enough to draw blood.

I sighed as I glanced around the tastefully furnished room, unconsciously admiring the soft leathery couches, the vibrant wall tapestries portraying mountain scenes, and the black baby grand piano nestled in a far corner. It reminded me of my own home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just over the border in North Carolina. The home where my family was going about their daily routine, having no clue of what I had gotten myself into.

"I suppose it could be worse," I said to no one. At least it wasn’t a cabin with no plumbing or electricity. I shuddered when I thought about the kinds of creatures that took up residence in some of those old hunting shacks.

"You're handcuffed to a post in the middle of nowhere and you're thinking about plumbing and spiders?" I scolded myself out loud.

I forced myself to take a calming breath and considered what Christian had said moments before leaving me chained to the beam. He'd accused me of lying to him when my family moved away from Florida five years ago. I hadn't lied to him. I'd honored what I'd told him. He had some nerve flinging accusations at me after what he'd done. It was bad enough that I'd been rejected by his older brother, Slade. But the pain Christian inflicted had been much worse. He'd shattered my heart into a million pieces.

It had been only a couple of months since my family had made the move to North Carolina. I sat on the front porch swing and wrote in my journal as I reflected over the summer. I was elated that my family chose to only go as far as North Carolina instead of moving all the way to Montana. The lazy creaking of the swing was comforting, soothing, as were my happy memories of my first summer in the mountains.

The previous two months had been filled with cementing new and lifelong friendships. Most of them with my cousins. Cousins with whom I’d be starting my senior year in high school. Cousins I hadn't known existed this time last year. I’d also caught myself thinking about someone who would never be part of this new chapter in my life. Thinking of and missing this person so badly my heart physically ached. My father, Tommy Dillon. He wasn't my biological father, but he was the man who'd raised me. The man I’d called Daddy. The man who'd died last year leaving me, my mom, and my younger brother, Jason, alone. That was until my mother discovered that my biological father, Grizz, was still alive and wanted very much to be part of our lives. The only way that was possible was for us to leave South Florida. We’d left soon after my mother tracked down Grizz's family, insisting that he meet them. The family Grizz hadn't known about until last year.

So here we were, cut off from all of our ties to South Florida. Cut off by choice and thriving in our new home near long-lost relatives. Yes, I thought to myself, North Carolina definitely feels like home. With one exception.

Him.

Christian Bear.

How had I not seen it when I was still living in Fort Lauderdale? I remembered feeling attracted to him the morning he drove me home after babysitting the night before for his little sister, Daisy. The same night I'd suffered a humiliating rejection from his older brother, Slade.

The months following that encounter seemed like a blur. I remembered calling Christian's mother, Christy, several times asking if she needed me to babysit again. But the answer was always the same. She would keep me in mind and let me know. I remembered thinking that maybe she was trying to help me get over Slade’s gentle rebuff, guessing that my mother had probably mentioned it to her. But that wasn't why I wanted to babysit. I realized that I was hoping to run into Christian again—to gauge my feelings for him.

Months passed and there hadn't been any occasions to see the Bear family. After not getting any replies to the texts I sent him, I convinced myself the ride home Christian had given me was just that, a ride home. And I believed it. Until our last night in Florida. My mom, my brother, Jason, and I spent that last evening in Fort Lauderdale having dinner at the Bear home. I tried to act casually while we were eating, but noticed Christian's demeanor change after his mother mentioned it was a going-away dinner for my family. He left the table without giving any of us a backward glance.

I finished the meal in silence and was secretly disappointed that he hadn't returned to the table. I'd excused myself from the after-dinner goodbyes and went to his bedroom, knocking lightly on the door. When he didn't answer, I opened it and went inside. He'd been throwing darts, and I remembered a lump formed in my throat when he turned to look at me, dropping the dart to the floor with a thud. I'd been so startled by what I saw in his expression I forgot to ask him why he'd never responded to any of my texts. I'd stopped sending them after the fifth or sixth one went unanswered.

I’d relived those last two minutes with Christian a million times. I’d fantasized what it would have been like if he'd kissed me that night. What it would've felt like to run my hands through his black silky hair, breaking from that kiss anticipating what I would see in his eyes.

I shifted my position on the porch swing and it gave a louder than usual groan. Swatting away an annoying insect, I continued to ponder everything that had led up to this moment. As far as everyone knew, my family had started a new life in Montana, breaking contact with everyone from our past. That night in his room, I'd promised Christian that I’d keep in touch with him, and I'd been wracking my brain for the last few months trying to figure out a safe way to do it. I'd confided in my cousin and now best friend, Rachelle, telling her I needed to get a message to a friend and provide a way for him to communicate with me.

Rachelle had come up with an excellent plan a few weeks ago.

"You can't text because you dumped your old phone and don't have any contacts," Rachelle said matter-of-factly. “Besides, you said he never answered the ones you sent before you moved.” We were sitting cross-legged on my bed. The windows were open, and the fresh mountain air, along with the smell of whatever my grandfather, Micah, was roasting in the fire pit, had wafted in.

I nodded.

We heard the sound of bedsheets flapping on the clothesline. My mother insisted on hanging our linens outside to dry. She swore the mountain air made them smell fresher than any dryer sheet could. I smiled when I remembered watching Grizz carry the heavy load of wash to the clothesline. He didn't want Mom doing laundry at all, let alone hauling it around. He doted over her like nothing I'd ever witnessed. Even more so after they found out my mother was pregnant with twins. Their love was so obvious that seeing it sometimes caused an ache in my chest. Is this what I could've had with Christian if only I'd seen it sooner?

"Earth to Mimi!" Rachelle snapping her fingers in front of my face broke through my thoughts.

I shook my head and smiled. "Sorry. Yeah, I don't have any contacts from my old phone, and before you ask, I don't have a clue if Christian has an email account. I highly doubt it." I looked hopefully at my cousin. "What else ya got?"

"Do you know his address?"

"Umm, yeah, I know his address. Even if I didn't, we could find it online. But I can't mail a letter from here, Rachelle. Even if I didn't put a return address on it, it would still be stamped with a North Carolina postmark. I can't let him know where I am. I have to honor my parents’ wishes. I promised them I would.” I knew the tone in my voice conveyed my disappointment. "Besides, he thinks we're in Montana."

I jumped when Rachelle sat straight up on my bed. "It won't have a North Carolina postmark! It'll have a California postmark!"

Her excitement was brimming, though she wasn’t making sense. She ignored my confused expression.

"I'm going to California before school starts. Remember? You write him a letter. Don't put a return address on it. I'll mail it from California." She beamed at me, and slapped her right thigh.

"That's an awesome idea!" I said, my excitement joining Rachelle’s. But another thought followed, and I felt my shoulders slump in defeat. "But how can he get back in touch with me? I can't give him my new phone number this soon. I'm still trying to be careful. And you know there's no way I can give him an address to write back to me."

Not one to be deterred, my cousin's enthusiasm returned as she burst forth with another plan.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do," she said quietly. "We are going to drive down to South Carolina. I mean, we're what, eleven miles from the border? We’ll open a new email account at any public library. But you cannot sign into that account from any computers at our school, your house, anywhere in our state. You can only check that email when you're not in North Carolina. Think about it, Mimi," she challenged as she stared at me with wide eyes, "we are in the perfect location for this. You can drive from here in any direction and be in Georgia, South Carolina or Tennessee within thirty minutes to an hour. You write him a letter and tell him to send you an email." She sat back against the headboard and crossed her arms in front of her, satisfied with her suggestion. "And the next time we go to the mall in South Carolina or Dollywood in Tennessee or river rafting in Georgia, we’ll swing by a public library, and you can check your email account. It's that simple."

I slowly nodded as I started to see how this could essentially work. I would explain in my letter to Christian how he should do the same thing; create an email address only to be used from a public computer. That way there would be no chance of someone in his house happening upon an open email. I didn't understand how people could be traced through their computer addresses, and I highly doubted we needed to go to the extreme that Rachelle suggested, but it was a good idea. It also made me feel like I wouldn't be in too much violation of the "breaking all contact" rule that my family had established. Besides, Christian Bear was my oldest friend, and there would certainly be an exception for him.

"I think this might actually work, Rachelle!" I whisper-yelled, as I remembered the open windows and my parents’ presence at the clothesline right outside.

I swatted at a yellow jacket as I was brought back from the memory of almost a month ago. I closed my journal and laid it next to me on the porch swing as I reflected on how Rachelle had visited California and was now back. Christian definitely would've received my letter by now. Rachelle would be picking me up in less than an hour, and we were driving over the state line into South Carolina. We would be stopping at the same public library I'd used to set up an email address before giving Rachelle the letter to mail to Christian from California. The anticipation of logging onto the computer and finding an email from Christian gave me a heady buzz. I was so excited I could barely contain myself.