Henry let out a breath and looked back at me. “I just want to be here for you,” he said, his voice quiet and pained. “I don’t understand what’s changed.”
Suddenly, all I wanted was to tell him, about the hospital, about my grandfather, about all of it. I wanted to feel his arms around me, the one thing that made sense while everything around me was falling apart. But I had a feeling that if I did, I’d be hurting him—and myself—much more after the summer than either of us was hurting now. “I can’t explain it,” I said, making my voice as cold as I could, trying to push him away hard enough so that he’d go, and stay gone. “Sorry.”
Henry looked up at me, and for a second, I saw all the pain—all the pain that I was causing—cross his face. Then he nodded, and just like that, he was back to being what he’d been to me at the beginning of the summer—a little distant, a little cool. “If that’s what you want,” he said. I nodded, and pressed my nails hard into my palms to stop myself from telling him otherwise. He looked at me for one moment longer, then turned and walked off the dock, shoving his hands in his pockets as he went.
As I watched him go, I felt a tear hit my cheek, then another, but I didn’t even bother to wipe them away. When I was sure he’d gone inside, I walked slowly up the dock myself, making sure not to look back at what we’d carved so long ago—the plus sign, and the heart, that was a lie once again.
chapter thirty-three
seven summers earlier
I WAS OFFICIALLY LOST.
I turned in a complete circle, but all I saw around me were trees, and trees that all looked exactly the same. Any sign of the path I had taken when I’d stomped into the woods was totally gone. The trees were blocking out the light above me, and this deep in the woods, it was darker than I had realized it would be. I could feel my heart start to beat faster, and made myself close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, like I’d seen my father do before he had court, and once when he saw what his car looked like when my mom rammed it into the tree that came out of nowhere.
But when I opened my eyes again, nothing had changed. I was still lost, and it was now a little darker out. I hadn’t intended to go into the woods. But I’d been so mad at Warren, for cutting me out of his stupid game. And when I’d told my mother about it, she was helping Gelsey with her new ballet slippers and told me she didn’t have time to deal with me right then. So I’d headed out the door, planning on just taking my bike and going down to the lake, or maybe seeing if Lucy was around and wanted to hang out. But the more I thought about it, the unfairness of it all, the madder I got, until I’d convinced myself that all I wanted was to be alone. And at first, I’d been so busy noticing things—a huge anthill that I would have told Warren about if I’d been speaking to him, the springy moss that grew at the roots of trees, the thousands and thousands of ferns—that when I stopped and looked around, I realized I had no idea where I was. Figuring I couldn’t have gone that far, I headed toward where I was sure the road back to my house was, only to find woods, and more woods. So I’d changed direction, but that hadn’t helped, and had only served to make me more turned around. And now it was getting dark, and I was starting to feel myself panic, despite all the deep breaths I was taking. I had a ton of freedom up in Lake Phoenix, and could pretty much do what I wanted with my day, so long as I was back for dinner. And even though my mom always complained when I did this, I sometimes went for dinner at Lucy’s and forgot to call. So it could be hours before anyone realized that I was gone, that something was wrong. And it would be dark by then. And there were bears in the woods. I could feel the first hot tears start to build up behind my eyes, and blinked them away hard. I could find my way out. I just had to think rationally, and not panic.
A twig snapped behind me, and I jumped, my heart hammering harder than ever. I turned around, hoping with everything I had that it would just be a squirrel, or better yet, a butterfly, basically anything but a bear. But standing in front of me was a kid who looked around my own age. He was skinny, with scraped-up knees and shaggy brown hair. “Hey,” he said, lifting one hand in a wave.
“Hi,” I said, looking at him more closely. I didn’t recognize him, and I knew all the kids’ whose families had homes in Lake Phoenix—most of us had been coming up here since we were babies.
“Are you lost?” he asked. And though he didn’t say it mockingly, and I was, I still felt my cheeks get hot.
“No,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “I’m just taking a walk.”
“You looked lost,” he pointed out, in the same reasonable voice. “You kept turning around.”