Finding Dell (29 page)

Will traced his hand down my arm, across my chest, up my neck, his fingertips just barely grazing my skin.

“So many freckles,” he whispered.

His trailing touch paused at the most prominent freckles on my collarbone, jawline, nose.

“You’d miss them if you didn’t look closely. I’m the only one who knows how many freckles you have. They’re your own constellations.”

“I have a real constellation of stars on my shoulder.”

Will’s fingers slid to where he knew my tattoo to be.

“Those stars are man-made. Anyone can see them. Your freckles are the real stars, waiting for someone to figure out the pattern.” Will kissed my neck, his hair carelessly tumbling to tickle my cheek.

In the hallway, someone shuffled in slippers, singing lightly. The voice had a deep twang; it was Helen. She lost her self-consciousness about her twisted hand when she was alone, when she could be the outgoing Southern Belle she craved. But lately, I thought it was her relationship with Tennessee that had bolstered her confidence more than anything else.

Will pulled away and rolled onto his back, groaning as his back flattened against the tile floor below the rug.

“Let’s put your mattress on the floor. It’ll be cool and comfortable. Best of both worlds,” he said. He pushed up on his elbows to wait for my nod of approval before he stood up and I scrambled to collect the sheet from the rug.

Will tugged the mattress loose from the frame in a single motion. Without grace, the mattress thudded to the rug below. I straightened the sheets on the bed and when I looked up Will was crouched over the skeletal bedframe, a handful of glossy photos clutched in his hand.

He shuffled the stack from hand to hand as he examined them. The crease in his forehead grew deeper with each photo.

“These are all pictures of us. From last year.” His voice was solemn, unquestioning.

I kneeled and reached for the photos, but Will didn’t give them up. He held them by the corners, cautiously, as if they would disintegrate in his hand.

“I couldn’t bear to throw them out, but it was too painful to look at them. I needed to put them somewhere I couldn’t get to them easily.”

“So you’ve been, what, sleeping on pictures of us all year?”

There was a shift in the room. I could feel it and it was written on Will’s face, in the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes or let go of the pictures.

“I forgot I put them there, I swear. It doesn’t matter now. That was in the past.”

“I managed to hurt you so much that you had to hide these pictures from yourself?”

“It’s not like that.”

I moved my hand to his elbow and applied pressure, urging him back so he might trace my freckles again and forget he’d found the photos.

“Apparently I did so much damage that you couldn’t even see a reminder of me. I’m surprised you didn’t burn them.”

“Will,” I pleaded, “it doesn’t matter if you hurt me in the past. We’re together now and everything is perfect. I know you’d never hurt me like that again. We’re past all that.”

He placed the stack of photos on my desk. He stepped over the bed frame and sat down on the mattress. With a sigh, he lay down while I sat cross-legged, watching him, waiting for him to say something to make everything better.

“I didn’t realize how much I hurt you.”

I didn’t know how I was going to fix the shift looming between us.

“Look, it won’t happen again, so let’s not talk about it anymore,” I said.

Will wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and the room seemed to return to normal. The warm, muggy spring air reminded me why we were sleeping on the floor in the first place. I lurched over Will’s body to get the small portable fan from the closet. I positioned it to spin near our faces and turned off the overhead light.

“I thought you didn’t have a fan,” Will said. “Isn’t that why we used to sleep in my room?”

“I didn’t know you’d live off-campus when I bought it, and I thought if I had one you’d sleep in my room more often.”

My voice came out in a whisper and although I meant the comment to come out flirtatiously, my tone was accusatory, harsh.

The door opened and Natalie was silhouetted in the light that spilled from the hallway.

“Oh.” She closed the door behind her and edged around the mattress, picking her way across the room. “I thought you’d be asleep by now,” she whispered.

Glass clinked as she set the tiny jars of feed samples down on her desk. I felt Will sit up next to me and scramble off the mattress. A moment later, the room was bathed in light once again and it left us all blinking.

“I don’t want to crowd your room. I’ll sleep at my apartment tonight,” he said.

He kneeled next to the mattress where I was now sitting and I thought he might lean in for a kiss, but his gaze was solemn, not playful. He lifted the edge of the mattress off the floor just slightly.

“Dell, get off and I’ll put the mattress back on the frame for you before I go home,” he said.

I crawled off and he hefted the bed back into place. Will and Natalie were standing, and from my place on the rug I felt small.
Will slipped his feet into untied shoes and gathered his rolls of drafting paper and reading glasses.

“I’ll call you,” he said, looking down at me. “Goodnight.”

When the door closed behind him, I grabbed the edge of the trailing blue sheet and yanked it hard, balling up the fabric in my lap while I sat on the ground.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Natalie said softly.

“It’s not your fault.”

I stood up and walked over to the fan whirling on my desk. With a slam, I pounded my fist down on the power switch and it shuddered to a stop. I turned off the overhead light and once again the room was bathed in darkness. Hot, humid darkness.

It was silent in the room but for my breathing and Natalie’s sheets shuffling as she crawled into bed.

“Dell,” she started, “don’t forget what happened at the lights parade. Will is good at stringing you along. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“It was just a misunderstanding.”

“Okay.”

I heard Natalie shift in her bed, then the creak of the window crank as she eased it open and let the sounds of Wild Mare Point into the room.

“I’m just going to say one last thing before we go to sleep,” she said. “Will likes to figure out how things work. He likes to be challenged. When there are no surprises and he’s not challenged by you, that’s when he’ll hurt you again.”

I lifted myself up onto my elbows and wiped my sweating brow with the corner of the sheet.

Natalie’s pointed observations about Will were true, but that’s not what worried me. It was the unspoken other half: my personality. I’m stubborn, I like control, and I hate surprises. How did that fit in with Will’s personality?
Did
it fit in?

CHAPTER 32

“HE’LL BE HERE
soon,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s keeping him.”

Ruby nodded. She hooked her thumbs under the straps of her life preserver and rocked on her feet. The wooden planks of the dock groaned beneath us.

I scanned the rolling lawn leading to Sweet Bay Beach and the boat rental dock, but I didn’t see anyone approaching. Small groups of people huddled on blankets on the beach and sipped from concealed containers. The air was warm and lightning bugs lit up the beach like winking candle flames.

Dean twirled an oar in his hand and edged closer to the canoes rocking in the water next to us.

“We can go another time,” Ruby offered.

“No, no. He’ll be here. This is our big double date. I don’t want to reschedule,” I said, the beginnings of a pout in my voice. “Besides, we don’t have many weekends left.”

“Ah, there he is,” Dean said.

I turned anxiously and frowned. Will approached with Rocco at his side.

“Sorry we’re late,” Will called as he clattered onto the dock.

Ruby eyed me curiously and I tugged on a dangling strap of the life vest that now felt too tight.

“This is a couple’s moonlight paddle,” I said. “Why did you bring him?”

“Hello to you, too, Dell.” Will leaned close and kissed my temple.

“Well?”

“He wanted to come along. What am I going to do, say no?”

Rocco stood behind Will with his university branded hat pulled low over his eyes, pretending not to listen as we argued over his presence.

“You two go ahead,” I said to Ruby. “We’ll wait on the beach.”

I angrily unsnapped the plastic clasps on my life vest and shrugged out of it with sharp twists of my shoulders, then pounded across the dock to the small boathouse offering rentals.

“I don’t need this, after all,” I said to the boy at the counter.

“It’s non-refundable,” he warned. “You’re sure you don’t want to go?”

I shook my head. Without turning around, I could hear the sound of Ruby’s laugh as she lowered herself into the bobbing canoe, and a splash as Dean dipped the oar into the water to push away from the dock.

Hollow footfalls made their way down the dock. When they reached me, Will placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me to the sandy beach.

We sat near the edge of the water. The wet, smooth sand smelled like seaweed. All around us, bottles clinked and laughs broke as they carried across the water.

“This reminds me of being at the cabin on the lake last summer,” Rocco said. “Remember when we dared Codi to jump off
the pier and she actually did?”

Will laughed. “What about when Noah and I hid your mattress in the attic, and you couldn’t find it for three days? You kept promising you wouldn’t be upset with us, to just tell you where it was.”

I wrinkled my nose as I listened to them share memories. I hated to hear about the cabin. Between leaving school and returning in the fall, something caused Will to break up with me, and I was convinced it was related to his time spent at the cabin.

Rocco and Will continued to reminisce. I buried my feet in the sand, creating an image of the cabin in my head. Based on their stories, I could see Rocco clearly, pleading with them to ease up on their practical jokes but secretly thrilled that he was included.
I bet he wavered between pride in being involved and anxiety that he was the brunt of their jokes
, I thought.

“The best was when we hid that mannequin in Tennessee’s bed. And then he was so tired after the long drive to the cabin that he just pushed it over and slept in bed with it.” Rocco roared with laughter.

I snapped my head up at the opening for me to join the conversation.

“Tennessee?”

Will jumped back as if he’d forgotten I was there. I felt a sudden, irrational burn of embarrassment that I was the third wheel, as if I were interrupting their private conversation.

He weaved his fingers through mine and I started to feel better. His palm was sweaty and gritty with sand.

“I forgot you knew him,” Rocco said.

“I bet I spend more time with him than you,” I shot back. “He’s seeing my friend, Helen, after all.”

“Cool it, Dell,” Will said.

I shook my hand free from Will’s and crossed my arms over
my knees. Will turned back to Rocco and they kept talking while I stared across the water at the bobbing canoes silhouetted in the moonlight.

After a few minutes, I let my hand drape casually to my side again, palm-up in the sand. I made my point when I released Will’s hand. Now I waited for him to take it again and make up.

My hand lay face-up in the sand until Ruby and Dean paddled back to the wooden dock and collected me from the beach to walk back to Paso Fino with them.

CHAPTER 33

BEAUMONT LIBRARY’S FOUNTAINS
sent columns of water towering into the night.

I spent most of the evening buried in the pages of my art history textbook. I rubbed my eyes while I walked down the library steps and a familiar voice spoke up.

“It’s not safe for you to walk home by yourself. I’ll walk you back to your dorm.”

I found myself looking into Cam Finn’s wide brown eyes. I thought about protesting because it would be a long, awkward walk back to Paso Fino with him, but I knew he was right.

“Okay. Thanks.”

Cam’s pace matched mine as we walked down the sidewalk.

“Are you studying for finals already?”

“I only have a final in art history,” I said. “The others have projects or papers to turn in.”

“My classes are the same way. It’s hard to test something that’s so instinctual. Can you imagine an exam that asked you to write a paragraph about how to build a tripod or where to lay cables for a shoot?”

We laughed and I felt more at ease. I stopped on the sidewalk and reached down, peeling my ballet flats off my feet. They dangled from my hand and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you going to walk home barefoot?” Cam asked incredulously.

“I have to! They’re killing me. Remind me to never wear new shoes when I have to walk across campus.”

“You won’t have that problem too many more times. You’re moving into an off-campus apartment next year, right?”

“Yeah, with Ruby and Natalie. We signed up for a three-bedroom apartment on Cherry Court, close to Railroad Pass.”

“I remember that was your plan, but I didn’t know if you went through with it,” Cam said.

It struck me that we hadn’t spoken since our breakup.

“It surprises me that you’re going to live with Natalie again. You two didn’t really get along as roommates.”

“I think our relationship will be a lot better when we have our own rooms to go to at the end of the day,” I said. “It’s been tough living in a tiny space with another person. She was my best friend last year, and I don’t want to give up on that.”

Cam and I fell silent for a moment.

“Watch out for glass up here,” Cam said suddenly, pulling me onto the lush bluegrass lining the sidewalk. Ahead, the pavement glittered with the remains of a broken beer bottle.

As we padded through the grass, me with my bare feet and Cam in his Converse, he unzipped his black sweatshirt and shrugged it off.

“Here. You’ve got goosebumps.”

I hesitated, then took his sweatshirt. He reached down and plucked my shoes from my hand.