“You too.” She smiles but doesn’t go back in the shop.
I turn and cross the street, trying not to look like I’m hurrying off, and picturing her watching me the whole way. When I reach my car, I chance a tiny, sidelong glance back and she waves. Message received. Loud and clear. I open the door and run through the whole exchange in my head—her worry, his insistence that he’s okay, what he’s not allowed to do—and it makes me nervous. Is he not okay? Shelby hasn’t posted anything for a long time, so I don’t know if there’s anything to be worried about medically. . . .
What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I—
I hear the idle of an engine at my back and know it’s Colton in his bus, with the kayak loaded on top and his sister’s concern and my promise to be careful trailing after him. “That was fast,” I say.
“We gotta get out of here before she changes her mind,” he says, smiling through the open window. “Get in.”
And once again, in spite of all the voices in my mind that say don’t, that there’s too much at stake, that it’s not fair to Colton, and that I don’t know what I’m doing, I listen to the tiny, soft voice that comes from somewhere deeper, the one that insists that maybe I do.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much a heart can hold.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald
WE STAND AT the edge of the bluff, looking at the waves that thunder down onto the rocks with a force I can feel in my chest. “Um. I don’t . . .” I shake my head, this time choosing the voice of logic and self-preservation.
“Kayaking may not be in the cards after all,” Colton says. We watch as another wave pounds and swirls over the rocks that seemed so peaceful yesterday, and I couldn’t agree more. “I’ve got a better idea,” he says. “C’mon.”
We hop back into his bus, and I settle into the cracked vinyl of the seat, getting used to the feel of it beneath my legs. Colton twists to see over his shoulder as he backs up, and puts an arm on the back of my headrest, his fingers just barely brushing my shoulder. It sends a little shiver through me, one he sees when our eyes catch as he turns and takes his arm away.
Heat blooms in my cheeks, and I laugh.
“What?” Colton asks.
“Nothing.” I shake my head and look out the windshield, over the dashboard, behind us, where a surfboard lies on the bed, down to the sandy floorboards beneath my feet—anything not to look at him right then, because I’m afraid of what he might see on my face. When I glance down, something catches my eye. It’s a clear pill counter box like my mom sets up for my dad every morning with his medications and a whole slew of vitamins. This one has two rows, every box has at least one pill in it, and instead of the letters for the days of the week, there are times written on them in Sharpie.
The question is on my tongue when Colton sees what I’m looking at. He reaches over and scoops up the box, tucking it into the pocket of his door with a tight smile. “Vitamins,” he says. “Sister’s big on them. Sends them with me everywhere.” Something in his tone, and the way he looks back at the road right away, warns me not to ask any questions, but I don’t need to. I know they’re not vitamins.
We zip along the coast highway, windows down so our hair blows wild around our faces, music turned up loud so no words are necessary, and it feels good. We leave that tense moment behind.
“So where are we going?” I ask over the music.
The highway makes a wide arc inland, and we take the exit. Colton turns the music down a couple of notches. “Another one of my favorite places,” he says. “But first we need some provisions.”
We pull into the dusty parking lot of the Riley Family Fruit Barn, a place my family and I used to come every fall to pick apples and take pictures with the mountains of brightly colored pumpkins every different shade of orange imaginable. I’ve never been here in the summertime, but clearly I’ve been missing out. The parking lot is crowded with families—getting in and out of cars, unpacking strollers, loading full baskets of produce into their trunks. A tractor pulling a flatbed trundles by, packed with kids and parents, some holding full, round watermelons and others taking bright juicy bites from fresh-cut wedges.
I follow Colton as he weaves among the people and into the shade of the produce stand. He brushes his fingers absently over the rainbow of fruits as he goes. “Best place ever to pick a picnic,” he says over his shoulder, tossing me a peach I barely catch.
“What do you like?” Colton says, stopping in front of a display holding multitiered stacks of perfect produce. I scan it and spot a basket of raspberries so red they don’t look real. Colton swoops them up. “What else? Sandwiches? Chips? Everything?”
“Yes.” I laugh. “Everything, why not?”
He’s so happy about it all, it’s contagious.
We load up a basket full of picnic supplies—a couple of sandwiches, chips, old-fashioned sodas in glass bottles, more fruit—and then top it off with the honey sticks in the canisters next to the register. Two of every flavor.
Outside, three friendly minigoats trail behind us with hungry eyes and silly little grunts as we walk. Being next to Colton like this, in the sunshine and the coastal air, I feel the lightness of the day. Easy. Like we’ve left our real worlds far away. We find a bench in the shade and sit, side by side, sharing the raspberries straight out of the basket and tossing a few to the goats who now sit in front of us begging. He tells me some story of how he was traumatized by these same goats as a kid, and I laugh and lean into him, and for a second I forget myself and let a hand fall on his leg like the familiar gesture that it is.