And then I felt it—the punch to my stomach—the feeling that there was something worth holding on to, and I was losing it. Again.
I put my hand up to stop him, but his eyes were closed.
“Get him out of here. I want to come downstairs and have a fucking drink, and I don’t want to have to look at him.”
“Tyler—”
“Don’t, Nic.” He gestured toward the bar. “I can’t—” He dropped his arm. “Look, let’s make this easy. You asked me to leave you alone, and now I’m asking you to do the same. It’s what we both want, right? See? Simple.”
And there I stood, an eighteen-year-old girl breaking up with her boyfriend. The finality of metal on concrete in a dingy stairwell. We’d never had this moment, and maybe it was my fault for slipping away, or his fault for pretending I hadn’t, but we’d never officially called us off. Silly to think about now. That those scattered moments made up the longest and most meaningful relationship of my life. That maybe we’d been together these ten years because we never broke up. I just left. Just cut people off when they no longer suit me.
This was the feeling I couldn’t stomach the thought of back then. Why I slunk off in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye. But ten years’ time didn’t change it at all, didn’t stop the nausea from rolling through, didn’t change the look on his face.
I turned away so he couldn’t see what it did to me.
I floundered for my key, stomped back into the bar, and slammed my hand down on the counter.
Jackson watched me out of the corner of his eye. “Went that well, huh?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” I said. “Please.”
He placed one last vodka on the bar. “On me. Time to go.” I took the glass, but he grabbed my arm. “Really,” he said. “Go.”
This time I downed half the drink myself before making it back to the table.
* * *
“COME ON.” I HAD to pull Everett toward the car; he was solidly past his tipping point. I rifled through my purse to find my keys, and Everett put his hands on either side of me on the car roof.
“Hi,” he said as I looked up at him. He kissed me, his teeth colliding with mine, his hand sliding up my side.
“Hold that thought,” I said, pushing him back. Tyler’s apartment had a view to the parking lot, and I was not, as Jackson implied, that cruel.
“I think,” he said, “I’m drunk.”
“That would be an accurate assessment,” I said, helping him to the passenger side.
He paused, his hand on my shoulder, his gaze tilted up at the building. “Someone’s watching us,” he said.
“Get in the car, Everett.”
“I’ve felt it all day, though.” He swayed slightly, then eased into his seat. “Like someone’s watching. Do you feel it?”
“You’re just not used to the woods,” I said. But a chill ran up my spine, because I did. I felt eyes in the woods, outside the darkened windows. I felt them everywhere.
* * *
THE LANTERN WAS MOVING on the front porch again, casting shadows and ghosts.
“This place is trippy in the dark,” Everett said, following me up the walk.
“It’s trippy when you’re drunk,” I said, leading him inside.
Everett fell back on the couch, his head tipped toward the ceiling. “This is gonna hurt in the morning.”
“I’ll make a fire,” I said.
“It’ll be like a furnace.”
“It gets cold at night,” I said. “Rest.”
While he lay there with his eyes closed and his arm out to the side like a rag doll, I checked the entire house, window by window, the back door with the chair wedged under the handle, my unlatched bedroom window. Nothing looked disturbed. Last, I stood at the entrance to the master closet, shining my phone light inside. The vent in my dad’s closet was exactly as I’d left it, but for how much longer?
“Nicolette?” Everett called from downstairs.
There was no time.
“Coming,” I called.
I helped Everett up to bed, skirted out from under him as he tried to pull me down with him. “Be right back,” I said.
I unscrewed the vent and took the journals and papers downstairs, where I sat in front of the crackling fire. I skimmed everything—the journals turning out to be more like ledgers—and felt the puzzle pieces lining up for just a second. And the spare sheets of paper: descriptions of my mother’s jewelry, or receipts of sales, or itemized lists from pawnshops. I tore the pages from the journal, crumpling them up, and tossed them into the fire, watched as the edges curled, turning to black.
Then I pulled the papers from the drawer, everything on the dining room table that I’d been trying to find meaning in. The bank withdrawals. The highlighted receipts. I burned them all. They turned to ash, to nothing, to smoke. I no longer had the luxury of perusal, of a gradual and gentle understanding. It was coming with a vengeance, like the leaves in the fall. Turning colors in warning, and then, with a strong wind, they all fall down.
The Day Before
DAY 11
The teenagers scattered throughout the clearing were finally asleep, and I carefully wove through their campsite, stepping over empty cans and sleeping bags, heading for the narrow path to the caverns. Dawn was already breaking through the trees, the sky pink and hazy, but darkness beckoned from the entrance of the caverns. Time didn’t exist down there. Too many angles for the light to slip through. Too much distance. You had to move by feel and instinct. My hands on Tyler’s waist, following in his steps, Corinne’s laughter echoing from deep inside—
Ten years ago, these caverns had belonged to us.
From my house, in a car, they’re a good ten miles away, but through the woods, it’s more like two, two and a half. Corinne and Bailey and I used to walk here before we were old enough to drive. Not just for the caverns. That came after. That was always the dare. First there was the clearing where we’d all meet up, just like these kids.
This site used to be privately run and maintained, but now it was abandoned, halfway to disrepair, yet with old restroom facilities and plumbing that still worked. The perfect place for bonfires or parties. It belonged to the teenagers and, like a spell, was forgotten as soon as they moved on.
We’d sneak through the rusted cavern gates, following the roped path deep inside, as far as we dared. Our flashlights off, the chill running up our spines, a tap on the shoulder: Truth or dare . . .
In the darkness, we were all hands and laughter and whispers. We clung to one another or pressed ourselves against the damp walls, trying to outlast everyone else. Pretending to see ghosts, pretending to be ghosts, until someone gave in and flicked a light back on.
* * *
THE OFFICIAL CAVERN TOURS had shut down a generation before, after an accident. A couple left behind, lost in the total darkness, and only one alive by morning. The woman slipped along the slick rocks, hit her head, and her husband couldn’t find her in the dark. Circled the cavern on his hands and knees, spiraling in, calling her name, never making contact. Yelled for help from the locked gate, his pleas swallowed up by the endless forest. It’s disorienting down there—might seem unlikely to be trapped in the same cave and never find the other person, but if you’ve been there, you knew. It could happen.
They found her in a puddle of her own blood and him not twenty yards away.
They’d been exploring a narrow tunnel off the trail. Didn’t notice when everyone left until the lights went off. Felt their way back into the main cavern, searching for the path, for the rope to follow back to the entrance. That was when he lost her.