EMILY DICKINSON
Your mom wouldn’t want you to head out into that.” Chatham points through the foggy window to the monsoon outside.
“A Category Five hurricane won’t stand between me and my phone.” I inch backward toward the front door as I speak. “If there’s any chance of me stepping foot outside the house again before my fortieth birthday, I need to call home now.”
“Okay, then.” He waves a quick good-bye to George and shepherds me through the rain to his car. “I want to see you again before you get wrinkles.”
I try to ignore the guilt chewing at my insides as he stands in the rain holding the door open for me, but I don’t pause to apologize. Instead, I snatch my phone from the cup holder and hit Escape, ignoring the text box announcing the seventeen missed messages. My fingers fly in a flurry of activity.
Mom, I’m fine. I’m so sorry I forgot
to text. Headed home now.
My stomach sinks at her short response.
Good. We need to talk.
Chatham inches along at a reduced speed because of the weather, heading north on the bypass at a nice, safe thirty-five miles an hour. I try really hard not to lean forward in an effort to will the vehicle to higher speeds.
Chatham can’t possibly understand the severity of my panic, which is probably why he’s so focused on the road and we’re draped in silence. The only sound penetrating our private little world is the scrape of the windshield wipers in their losing battle against the sheets of rain pummeling the glass. When we finally turn right off the highway onto my road, I’m wound so tight tension coils in my shoulders.
I have to do something. I’ve got less than two minutes to tell him about the epilepsy. “Chatham, I, uh . . .” I pause, realizing in the middle of the awkward silence I should’ve thought through this confession ahead of time.
“Look at that.” He whistles, taking a hand off the wheel to point at a swarm of blue lights up ahead. Several dark-colored sedans and SUVs block the road.
For a second, I think the cops have descended on my house. “What the . . .”
Chatham rolls to a stop, and I see they’re swarming Cindy’s house. I open the passenger-side door, jumping down to the sand at the edge of the road. But before I make it two steps from the car, a granite block of a buzz-cut officer cups my elbow in his meaty paw, pushing me back into the car.
“The suspect’s in custody,” a gruff voice barks from his walkie-talkie.
The suspect? It sounds like a reality cop show. Suspects aren’t taken into custody in Crystal Cove, North Carolina—not unless they’re teenagers driving under the influence.
“Ten-four,” Concrete Cop snaps, then turns on me. “Do you live here?”
“I, uh . . .” I shake my head. “I live next door.”
“Then you need to get on inside.” He presses me into my seat, ducking his colossal head inside the car to speak to Chatham, who’s leaning over the console, eyes wide, mouth half open. “Son, get her home.” He gestures toward my house with his thumb.
Chatham nods, his face washed out by the flashing blue lights.
“But, wait.” I grab the sleeve of the man’s navy blue uniform. “I’m friends with Cindy, the little girl who lives in that house. You have to tell me if she’s okay.”
“Miss, I don’t have to do anything.” He gently pries his arm free and steps back toward Cindy’s house. “But I’ll tell you she and her mom are safe.”
Thank God.
“You need to get home.” His radio crackles as he fiddles with one of the dials. “I’m sure Ms. Blackstone will check in with you when the situation is resolved.”
I shut the door, praying that Mom has some information about what’s going on. Images and snippets of conversations pop in and out of my head, waving red flags I should’ve listened to over the past several months—the angry bruise on Cindy’s face, the frightened look when her mom called down to her on the beach, the heated argument between her parents in the sterile kitchen. I promised Mom when they’d moved in that I’d mind my own business. But now I’m second-guessing myself.
“You know that family?” Chatham asks, squeezing around a police car, creeping toward my driveway. Every light in my house is on. He parks, turning off the engine and reaching for his door handle.
“Mostly, I know the daughter. The parents, not so much.” I place a hand on his upper arm, stopping him before he steps out of the car. “I think it’d be best if I go in by myself.”
“Okay.” He places a warm hand on top of mine. “I hope your mom isn’t too mad.”
“She’ll be beyond mad. I hope I survive this.” Before opening the door, I take a minute to memorize his face, the straight line of his jaw, the wave in his still-damp hair, even the faint smell of his citrus shampoo. I don’t want this day to end. Standing out on that balcony with Chatham was the high point of my post-dead-dad life—a living, breathing fairy tale. The bad weather, the irate mom, the blue lights—these things don’t belong in that story.
“Thanks for today. It was . . . special.” I lean across the console to brush his cheek with my lips, and my head spins at the bold gesture. It’s like I developed a backbone all of a sudden and morphed into Molly Ringwald in the closing scene of Pretty in Pink. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But still.
I pull back a fraction of an inch, prepared to step out of the car and face my impending doom. Before I can escape, Chatham cups my face in his hands, pulling my mouth to his. His hands wrap around my neck, tangling in my rain-matted hair, and I forget about the crowd of police officers, my angry mom, and the promise I made Ayla. A pinwheel of flickering lights sparks on the backs of my eyelids and bursts into fireworks inside my head. His kiss is like the Fourth of July finale at the Nags Head Pier Spectacular. When he pulls away, it’s as if someone’s thrown cold water on me to douse the flames.
It takes me a second to realize the flaring lights weren’t in my head. Mom’s backlit in the glass of the front door flipping the porch light on and off like the captain of a foundering ship signaling the coast guard. I push open the door, motioning for her to stop the psychotic flashing. If I could, I’d disappear inside the oversized Cape Hatteras National Seashore sweatshirt, but it doesn’t belong to me. I start to pull it over my head.
Chatham stops me. “No. Keep it.” He turns the key in the ignition, and the engine roars to life. “It looks good on you.” His smile brightens the dim interior of his car. “Go—before your mom comes out here to get you.”
Good advice. I head up the stairs to the front deck, looking over my shoulder, watching as he backs out of the driveway. When he taps the brakes, the red lights on the receding black SUV flicker through the fog like a scene in a cheap horror movie.
Before my feet hit the bottom step, Mom opens the door. Hitch charges down to meet me, then escorts me up to the house, attached to my thigh like a suckerfish on the underbelly of a shark. I brace myself for the oncoming assault. But instead of the irate tirade I’m expecting, I’m greeted with a bearlike embrace. Mom and I haven’t had this much physical contact since her genius idea to “immerse me in life and in an authentic high school experience.” I mean, we’ve exchanged some awkward hugs, maybe even pecks on the cheek, but nothing this heartfelt, this genuine.
After my initial shock, I settle into her arms, catapulted back in time to a real family with real emotions who comforted each other in their times of need—unlike the robotic, disjointed interactions she and I have suffered through more and more frequently since Dad died.
“Oh, Emilie, sweetie.” She caresses the back of my damp head, hanging on to me for dear life. “Thank God, you’re okay. I was so worried.”
The skin at the base of my neck tingles, coming back to life. Muscles in my shoulders relax, the way they’re supposed to under a mother’s soothing touch. My heart unknots.
“You are okay, right?” She pushes me away to examine my face.
“Yes, I’m fine.” And I kind of am. Despite my concern about what’s going on next door, I feel like I’ve made some kind of breakthrough today—first with Chatham, now with Mom.
“Then why didn’t you call?” Her voice catches on the last word.
“I should have. I’m sorry. Chatham and I both forgot our phones in the car. Then it rained . . .”
“I was so worried—between the weather and you not calling. And now this thing next door.” She gestures toward the blue lights.
“What is going on next door, Mom?” I ask, steering the conversation away from my mess-up, and needing proof that Cindy’s okay.
“I don’t know exactly.” She tucks a wild sprig of hair behind her ear. “About an hour ago, the first two cops showed up.”
I step toward the glass door for a view of Cindy’s driveway while Mom closes the blinds on the front windows.
“Cindy and Debbie left with a female officer before I could get down to them.” She shakes her head as if she can’t wrap her mind around the night’s events.
The stocky officer glances up at me from where he stands in the driveway. When we lock eyes, I step back as if I’m the one caught in a crime instead of the suspect at the Blackstone’s house.
“The next thing I know, policemen are breaking in the front door with one of those battering-ram things.” Her shoulders shrink inside Dad’s faded OBX T-shirt.
Hitch abandons me to nuzzle his head under her hand. When she runs her fingers through the blond fur on his head, I notice her nails are bare. All traces of the pink nail polish have vanished. Dark circles bruise the puffy skin beneath her eyes, aging her face.
A stitch of guilt pricks the edge of my heart as I scoot around the couch for a better-camouflaged view through the blinds. Mom squeezes in behind me. We peer down at Cindy’s house without talking. A minute later, Mr. Blackstone staggers out the front door, his hands cuffed behind his back, followed by two stern-faced officers.
Mom gasps. “What in the world?” She pulls me back against her chest, wrapping me in her arms, the way she did before our constant bickering.
When Mr. Blackstone looks up at our house, I let the blinds close all but a fraction of an inch. He’d have to have X-ray vision or super powers to see our eyes through the tiny slit in the blinds, but I still shiver. How could I be so blind to have never noticed the nasty glint in his eye? And to think I was jealous of Cindy’s life next door. How could I have thought having a Y chromosome in the house would magically make life better?
My views of people and the world are changing so fast, my head spins in an effort to keep up. The family I thought I envied is crumbling before my eyes. I climbed a one-hundred-and-sixty-five-foot lighthouse today and kissed a boy I wouldn’t have had the confidence to make eye contact with a month ago. Even Mom and I are reaching out to each other.
I strain at my too-tight shell, my hermit crab body preparing to molt, ready to shed this skin in favor of a larger shell that will accommodate my new growth. It’s time to head out into the aquarium unprotected in search of a better fit, time to quit burrowing down into the same old sand and hiding from the world.