THERE ISN’T A place to turn around on this road, even if I wanted to. Just a steep drop down a hillside of moss-covered oak trees that rise up out of the tall, summer-gold grass. The road goes on for miles like that, winding its way all the way to the coast, where he’s been all nineteen years of his life. Thirty-six miles away.
When the trees finally give way to the wide blue expanse of ocean and sky at the edge of his town, my hands are shaking so badly, I have to pull into the scenic overlook on the shoulder of the highway. A thin swath of fog clings to the cliff’s edge, melting beneath the morning sunlight that spreads over the water beyond. I turn off the car but don’t get out. Instead I roll down the windows and breathe. Slow, deep breaths in an attempt to calm my conscience.
I’ve been here, to Shelter Cove, lots of times before. Driven past this spot and headed into the little beach town on countless spring and summer days, but today feels different. There’s none of the giddy anticipation that used to bubble between me and my sister, Ryan, in the backseat as we drove over with Mom and Dad, our trunk packed full of beach towels and boogie boards, cooler bursting with all the junk food we were never allowed to eat at home. There’s no thrill of freedom that came when Trent first got his license and we’d drive over in his truck for the day, feeling grown-up and romantic. Today there’s just a grim sort of determination, and the tense feeling that comes along with it.
I look out over the water, and a startling thought occurs to me. I wonder if, any of those times I’ve been here, I ever saw Colton Thomas. If Trent and I ever walked past him on the street, eyes catching for half a second before moving on without another thought, the way strangers do. Completely unaware that one day there would be this link between us. Before everything. Before Trent’s accident, and writing letters, and meeting the others, and before I spent so many nights hoping to hear back from Colton Thomas and wondering why I never did.
It’s a small town. Small enough that we could’ve seen each other at some point on one of my trips over. But then again, maybe not. He probably didn’t spend his summers the way the rest of us did. I’ve studied the careful time line his sister kept on her blog, which is what eventually led me to him. Though she didn’t start it until he was put on the transplant list, I know that he was fourteen when his heart began the excruciatingly slow process of failing him. He made the transplant list by the time he was seventeen. And he would’ve died had he not gotten the call in the eleventh hour of his eighteenth year. On the last day of Trent’s seventeenth.
I push away the thought and the heavy feeling that comes along with it. Take another deep breath and remind myself how careful I need to be with this. I’ve broken too many rules already, written and unwritten, protocols meant to protect both the donor families and the recipients from knowing too much. Or expecting too much.
But when I found Colton, and his whole story out there for anyone to see, I replaced those rules in my mind with a new set. Rules and promises that I’ve repeated over and over, that have gotten me this far today and that bolster me enough to pull back onto the road as I repeat them: I will respect Colton Thomas’s wish for no contact, though I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. I just want to see him. See who he is in reality. Maybe then I can understand. Or at least make peace with it.
I won’t interfere with his life. I won’t talk to him, not even to hear the sound of his voice. He won’t even know I exist.
I park across the street from Good Clean Fun and shut off my car, but I don’t get out. Instead I take a moment to absorb the details of the shop, like maybe I’ll see something that can tell me more about Colton than all his sister’s posts have. It looks just like it did in the pictures I’ve seen: perfectly stacked paddleboards and kayaks fill the racks on either side of the door, bright splashes of yellow and red against the otherwise gray morning. Behind them I can see through the front window, where an assortment of wet suits and life jackets hangs in neat rows, ready for the day’s adventure-seeking customers. Nothing beyond what I was expecting. Even so, it’s strange to see it now, a shop I must’ve walked by more than once and never paid any attention to. Today it’s a place I feel like I know, with a history made up of so much more than the equipment on the racks.
The shop’s not open yet, and the street is mostly empty; but up ahead, where the pier juts out into the choppy gray ocean, the locals are out, beginning their days. Surfers dot the water on either side of the mussel-covered supports. A fisherman baits his line before he casts over the railing. Two older ladies in tracksuits walk at a brisk pace along the water, chatting and pumping their arms enthusiastically as they go. And in the parking lot next to the pier, three guys in board shorts and flip-flops lean against the railing, watching the waves as steam curls lazily from the coffee cups in their hands.
I decide coffee might be a good idea. If nothing else, I could use a cup to hold in my own hands. Maybe that would be enough to steady them. And finding some would give me something to do besides sit across the street from the shop waiting, and becoming less and less sure of myself by the second.
A few doors down on my side of the street is a sign that looks promising: THE SECRET SPOT. I give the closed rental shop one more quick glance, then get out of the car and head down the sidewalk, trying to look comfortable and relaxed, like I belong here.