Golden (27 page)

“Two souls may be too widely met.”

—“A MISSIVE MISSILE,” 1934

I can hear her running water in the bathroom as I sit alone on the couch. I watch the shadows of her feet move in the slice of light coming from beneath the door, like if I take my eyes away, she might disappear again. Just vanish into the night like before. She'd have reason to, with what I know now.

I barely spoke in the last hours, and she unraveled it all, detail after painful detail, like I imagined people did in confession if they were really serious about it. And that's what it felt like—a confession. I didn't ask, but I don't think she'd ever said any of it out loud. But she had no choice with me. Her own words, in her journal, had come back to haunt her and brought me along with them.

So she told me everything. She told me that after she'd swum to the shore, she lay there alone until the snow stopped falling and a blanket of white covered the red of the snow all around her. The clouds moved on, and the stars appeared again, just in time to disappear into the pale light of morning. And that's when she crossed the line she could never come back from. She said good-bye. She didn't say any more than that about Shane, but I knew what that meant. The papers said they'd both been swept down into Summit Lake by the rushing cold water of the river, and I know now they were right about him.

She'd walked all the way to the other side of the lake then, bruised and bleeding, in shock and half frozen. A broken person, lost and then found by a carful of college kids on their way back to Southern California from Summit Lakes. They thought she was lost, a runaway, a victim of something horrible. She let them believe it. They tried to take her to a hospital, get her help, call someone she knew. She told them no, that she just needed to get as far away as possible. And that's what they helped her do.

She didn't go into the details of what happened next. Only said that the months that followed were the darkest she'd ever known, but that the longer she stayed away, the harder it was to think about coming back—like watching a door close by inches and millimeters, until finally it's locked and the key is thrown away.

I listened to everything, weighing each of her words, and trying not to think about what they meant. I tried to put myself in the place where she'd been, but I couldn't. It was a
place I didn't even want to imagine, and one that I wasn't sure I could ever understand.

When she finished, she said, “I've been alone for a long time, and it's how my life should be. I caused too many people too much pain, and after this long, going back would do it all over again. I told you all of this so you could understand why, even if I wanted to come back, I couldn't.” She paused then, and the certainty in her voice seemed to waver. “Even with Orion there. Even if I thought we had a chance.”

I wanted to argue with her, despite everything she'd told me, because a little part of me still believed there was a reason for all of this. For everything. And that maybe it was never too late. But her small jaw was set when she spoke again, and she looked me in the eye, and it was with conviction that she said, “I need you to promise to keep this secret.”

“I promise,” I answered, and I felt sick and empty when I said it. It's a strange, surreal thing to watch an ideal crumble right in front of your eyes, and to know there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Julianna comes out of the bathroom now, her hair pulled back and her face washed clean of the rain and tear-smudged eye makeup, but I can see it's the only thing she's washed clean of. Telling me everything didn't absolve her of anything. Didn't change anything.

“You can stay here if you need to,” she says. “I can help you find your friends in the morning before I leave. I'm sure they'll be back here looking for you.”

I hope so. After Julianna's story I'd tried to call my phone
to at least let Trevor and Kat know where I was, and that I was okay, but it just went to voice mail. Now I have no idea where they are or how I'm going to find them, but I can't stay here any longer. Sitting here on the couch in her living room, it's the saddest, loneliest place I've ever been. I'm angry and frustrated and heartbroken, and I want to hate her for it. I want to hate her for not being who I thought she was, and for not doing what I hoped she would, and jumping at the chance to go back to Orion, because I'm more sure now that she loved him, and had things been different, she might have even ended up with him. But I can't. I'm too sad to hate her.

I look at her standing there, resigned to the choices she's made, and I know there's nothing more I can say or do. I'm finished here. “Thank you,” I say, standing up. “But I should go.” I glance at the journal on the coffee table. It's where it belongs, but I am not.

Julianna doesn't argue, just nods like she understands. “Thank
you
for just listening like you did. I've never told anyone. And I'm sorry. You must think . . .” She shakes her head. “I don't know what you think. I hope you know I would go back and change it all if I could.” Her eyes drop to the floor, away from mine. “But life doesn't work like that, and we all have to live with the choices we make.”

She walks me to the door, and we say good-bye, and then just like that, it's over. The story ends with the soft click of her lock sliding into place.

“It doesn't have to be that way,” I say to the empty hallway. “You called yourself Hope.”

“Suppose you've no direction in you,

I don't see but you must continue”

—“TO A THINKER,” 1936

I step out the back door of the building and into the dark drizzle with no plan or direction or any idea of what comes next. Maybe after hearing everything I should think she's a horrible person who doesn't deserve another chance. Maybe for a lot of people it would be easy to think that, and decide that who she is now is made up of the things she's done. But I can't. I can't draw that line between wrong and right anymore because she exists somewhere in the space between those absolutes.

It's a truth I'd rather not know. The reality of what happened to her and Shane, and what I saw in her when she said
she could never go back make me wish I'd never found the journal in the first place. Never thought there was a different version of the story. Never hoped I could have a hand in writing it. But mostly, it makes me wish I'd never let it mean so much to me.

I round the corner, more lost and low than I've ever been, and just beyond the streetlight's reach, standing beneath an awning with his hands in his pockets, is Trevor Collins. Solid, and real, and waiting for me. The sight of him lifts some of the heaviness from my chest, and I take a few tentative steps toward him.

He looks relieved when he sees me. “Parker, hey.” With a hand on my shoulder, he ushers me under the awning with him. “I was getting worried. Thought you might've run off and disappeared with that girl.” He pauses, and his eyes search mine in the dim light. “Was it her?”

I glance up at the apartment window above the gallery, where drawn curtains hide a lost girl who doesn't want to be found. And now it's my choice. I can let her stay that way, living a life I'd never wish on anyone, or I can change it for her. Against her will.

I don't have to weigh the options long to realize it's not my place. No matter how much I want it to be different. Trevor's eyes trail up to the window too for a second, then he looks back at me. Waits expectantly for an answer.

“It wasn't her,” I say, and again, there's that sick, empty feeling. The words taste wrong.

Trevor's face falls. “Oh no.”

“I was wrong,” I say, “about everything.” I lean against the
wall, and he does too, shaking his head like he can't believe it. I don't like lying to him, not at all, but I made a promise to Julianna. “That girl
was
the artist of those paintings, but her name is Hope and she had no idea what I was talking about,” I continue. “I think she thought I was crazy at first, but then when I had nowhere to go she let me stay for a while.” I look down at my hands. Fumble with them like it'll keep me from crying.

Trevor reaches over and lays a warm hand over mine. “I'm sorry. I know how much you wanted to find her.”

I try to shrug it off, try to tell myself not to cry about this. Not right now, in front of him. “It's fine,” I say, but my voice has that shakiness that comes along with holding back tears, and I'm sure he can tell. “It was a stupid idea anyway,” I add. And then I take a deep breath and watch the mist come down in the glow from the streetlamp, and I realize how true it is. Bringing them back together was a ridiculous idea, and a naive thing to hope for, because life doesn't work like that. Julianna had said it herself.

“It wasn't stupid at all,” Trevor says. He turns, and I can feel him looking at me. “It was pretty impressive, actually, the way you chased that girl down.”

That almost gets a laugh out of me. I turn to him and he looks at me then—really looks at me, in a way that's surprising because it's so serious. “You know what
is
stupid?” he asks, and he pushes off the wall and stands so we're face to face.

“What?”

His eyes run over mine, and for the second time tonight, everything speeds up and slows down in the space of a few
seconds. He steps closer. Brings both his hands to my cheeks. Pulls me into him gently. Speaks words I barely hear. “That's it's taken me so long to—”

His lips on mine finish the rest with a kiss that's light and soft, almost a question. Warmth spreads out in me, and I want to answer him and sink into this kiss, and this feeling. I want to forget about everything that Julianna said and lose myself in this moment, with the rain falling soft and the smell of the wet pavement rising all around us, and his hands on my face like it's where they belong. I want to believe in this moment so much.

But I don't. I can't. I can't because of what I know, and what I've seen, and everything it means.

I pull away. Trevor lets go.

He leans back against the wall and avoids my eyes as I search for something to say to explain. A way to tell him how badly I wish things were different, but I know it's too late. The low hum of an engine, distant at first, then all of a sudden close pulls us both out of the heaviness of the moment. Before we can say anything, the Silver Bullet pulls up right in front of us, and Kat jumps out.

“
Wow
. I spent the whole drive back getting ready to apologize for taking off and being gone for so long, but—” She steps past the headlights and stops between us, smiling. “But now I don't feel bad at all.
Actually
, it looks like you guys owe me a big, fat thank you.”

When neither one of us say anything, she catches the tension. “Or maybe not.”

“Where
were
you?” I ask, needing to change the subject.

“It's a long story.” She looks from me to Trevor and back again. “Probably as long as this one right here. Why don't we go get some food and caffeine, and then maybe we can all share. Yes?”

Trevor clears his throat and pushes off the wall without looking at me. “Food sounds good,” he says flatly. “Let's get outta here.”

Kat holds out his keys, and he takes them and gets in the driver's seat without saying another word. When I go straight for the back door on the passenger side, she follows me, grabs my wrist before I can get in, and gives me a
What happened?
look. I shake my head without answering and open the door.

What happened is I just lost my last chance. And I hate myself for it.