“How am I gonna let you go?” he asked me. “You’re the only good thing in my life, Amber. The only good thing.”
“Spence,” I said, stroking the side of his cheek. In that moment I loved him more than anything or anyone in the world. A future in California was nothing without Spence. He was my future. “If you have to stay here, then I’ll stay with you.”
His breath caught. “What?”
I kissed away the tears on his cheek. “I can go to UVA, Spence. They have a good program, too.”
He shook his head. “Amber, going to California is your dream.”
I nodded. “It’s not a real dream without you in it, Spence.” He stared at me in shock or relief or gratitude, I couldn’t tell which. Maybe all three. “We’ll stay here together and figure it all out. Momma’s gonna love that I’ll be staying home.”
At last he shook his head. “I can’t let you,” he said. “I can’t let you give up your dreams just because I can’t go with you.”
I placed my hands on the sides of his head and forced him to look me in the eyes.
“I’m staying,” I said firmly, and I almost said it without giving away the heartbreak in my voice. I could give up moving to California, but not without a few tears of my own.
“Amber—” he began.
“It’s settled, Spence,” I said, shaking my head to clear away the tears blurring my vision. “I’m staying. I’ll get in touch with UVA tomorrow. They’ve already accepted me; I just have to let them know that I’ve changed my mind and I’m going to attend classes there in the fall.”
“But—”
“No buts,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s you and me. Together. Forever.”
IT SEEMED TO TAKE ME FOREVER to get ready the next day. I’d changed six times before finally deciding on an outfit and what to do with my hair on the muggy end-of-summer morning.
At least I’d slept a little better the night before. I’d had the usual nightmare, but it’d only been the portion of discovering Ben in the field. When I’d woken up, I’d even been a little less devastated. Maybe I was becoming desensitized to it. But I knew that Amber was still very much with me. It was almost as though I could feel her hovering close by.
Mom was still asleep when I snuck out to meet Cole by the front gate.
“How’d it go this morning with your mom?” he asked me right after I’d gotten into his car.
I sighed. “It didn’t.”
“You guys got in a fight?”
I shook my head. “I was gonna talk to her, but when she got home she was asleep on her feet. I’ve never seen her so tired, so I didn’t want to get into a long discussion with her. I’ll tell her this afternoon when we’re done talking to Britta.”
“We can wait,” Cole said. “I mean, if you want me to go back inside with you and help you explain, I will.”
I put my hand over his, which was resting on the gearshift. I liked the easiness of our relationship, as though he were someone I’d known far longer than a week.
“She’s still asleep, Cole. I left her a note, and she probably won’t get up until after noon. We’ll be back by then.”
“Okay,” he said, then added, “Let’s do this.” And we pulled away from the estate.
“How’d it go at your house last night?” I asked. “Did you tell your mom about the breakin?”
Cole blanched. “No.”
“Did the police come and take a report?” I pressed. Something about the way he seemed to be working hard to avoid my gaze bothered me.
“They did,” he said. When I eyed him skeptically, he crossed his heart with his fingers. “I swear, Lily, they did.”
“And your mom didn’t see the police?”
“She got home after they were already done. I told her that I’d broken the window playing fetch with Bailey.”
“Why’d you lie?”
“Because the cop who responded to the call said they weren’t gonna waste their time dusting for fingerprints if nothing was stolen. He said it was probably just some kids in the neighborhood. He told me that there’ve been a few cases where back windows had been pried open and small stuff—a couple of iPads, some headphones, and about a hundred bucks—had been taken. In one case, a neighbor saw the kids coming out through the window, but they haven’t been able to identify any of them yet. Anyway, he thinks it’s the same group of kids that hit my house.”
My jaw dropped. “You don’t think it was the killer,” I said. “You think it was a kid.”
“That window wasn’t opened very wide,” he reasoned. “That’s what the cop pointed out to me. That the window into the laundry room wasn’t opened far enough to let in a full-grown man. And I could see a little shit vandal coming across a murder file and thinking it was cool enough to steal. I’ll bet it ends up online in the next day or two.”
I crossed my arms. I wasn’t buying it. “You really think it was kids?”
Cole sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Nobody we talked to yesterday seems like they’d track down where I live and break in to steal a file they never could’ve known I had.”