“Maybe. Or just cut them for logging.” We navigated around a bunch of stumps covered with moss and lichen. A couple of beer bottles, half-filled with dirty rainwater, sat against one of them. And then, just when I was wondering if I truly had imagined everything, I saw it, just ahead: a place where the ground opened up, wide like a mouth. We walked right up to the edge.
It wasn’t as vast as I remembered, and no log lay across it. But there was something familiar, in the exposed roots, the layer of red clay halfway down, the suddenness of its appearance, so unexpected.
“I guess it’s not that impressive,” I said to Mac. “Not like the carousel.”
“I wouldn’t want to walk across it, though.”
I smiled. “When Peyton did that, my heart was in my throat. I was sure he was going to fall and die and I’d have to go home and tell my mom.”
Mac leaned over a bit more, peering down. “But he didn’t.”
“Nope.” I looked up at the blue sky over our heads. “I think he had his own saint protecting him back then. Is there one for morons taking stupid risks in the woods?”
“I don’t think so. But there are a few that can be applied pretty broadly. Like the saint of wanderers, travelers, the lost. Or whatever.” He reached up, taking out his own pendant and glancing at it. “My mom’s favorite is Saint Anthony, the finder of lost things. She has this rhyme she says when anything’s missing: ‘Tony, Tony, turn around. Something’s lost that must be found.’”
“Does it work?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he replied, sliding the pendant back under his shirt. As always, I noticed the give in the chain, the empty length now there. “Doesn’t hurt.”
We stood there a moment, everything silent except the breeze blowing overhead. Looking across the hole, I had a flash of Peyton’s rigid shoulders as he walked over that tree. For once he was focused not on finding the invisible place, but on having everyone’s attention; it was just the beginning of that.
Remember? I’d asked him on the phone that night when I’d mentioned this.
Not my brightest moment.
All this time, I’d thought Peyton saw himself the same way I did, the way we all did. Invincible. Otherworldly. But he’d known he was human, long before I did. Or maybe all along.
Mac turned, looking down at me. “What is it?”
I knew he was asking because I’d made a noise, or a face, thinking this. Or even just gone visibly still. But I took this inquiry wider, stretching it to include everything that had changed since that first day I walked into Seaside. The changes in me.
What is it? Maybe the lives I’d glimpsed in the last hour: the sneaky geeks eating pizza while savoring their resourcefulness, the new bride serving bought fettuccine on her wedding china. Or this place, so strong in my memory, even as I made another memory right now. All I could think was that here, finally, for once, I wasn’t only watching and reporting but part of this moving, changing world as well.
I took my hand from Mac’s, then reached up to touch his cheek. When I did, his fingers moved to my waist, pulling me in closer. It was fluid and easy, like everything had been since we’d met, as I stood on my tiptoes and finally, finally kissed him. There, in the woods, on a late fall Thursday afternoon, it was perfect. I’d had no way of knowing this when I did it, of course. It was just a hunch.
CHAPTER
17
“WAIT. SO we can’t use the studio?”
“No, you can,” I said. “It’s just going to be a little more complicated than I thought.”
I was leaning against Mac in the truck, his arms around me so I couldn’t see his face. When I twisted, he was giving me a look I already recognized: wary, waiting. Classic Mac. “Complicated,” he repeated. “That sounds promising.”
“It’s fine.” I turned back around. “Just trust me. Okay?”
He didn’t reply as I rested the back of my head against his chest, folding my legs up against me. The cab of his truck was cramped and smelled of garlic knots, hardly the ideal place to be together. But I’d learned not to even expect perfection in any form. And actually, this was pretty close.
It had been less than a week since the afternoon in the woods. Since then, one unbelievable thing had happened after another. Us saying good-bye a half hour later, and lingering, the way I’d only seen others do, before I finally made myself drive away. Texts all through the evening and one final call, so his voice was the last I heard before going to bed. Then there was the first day back at school, everything so different, if only to us. Again, I was a girl with a secret. This time, though, it was a good one.
I felt bad keeping anything from Layla, especially something so big as me actually, maybe, falling in love for the first time. This, though, was complicated. Kimmie Crandall, the cautionary tale, was always in the back of my mind. As much as she liked me, Mac was her brother. Better to keep things quiet, for now, anyway.