My brain erupts in clashing thoughts: a mess of fears and wants, worries and memories.
None of your feelings matter! He’s not yours! Grow up!
I know I need to. I’ll be sixteen in a few weeks. I’ve got to stop aching for things that I can’t have. Like Mom.
I let myself cry more as I jog, remembering prom this year. I wore an aqua blue gown and went with Leonard Croix, a junior with spiky hair and vaguely Dash-like features. All he talked about was online gaming, and at the end of the night, he tried to grope my boobs. I came home and wanted to tell someone, but even awful Manda was asleep. Not that I would have told her anyway.
I slow my pace a little, and notice a bleary streak of white-gray over to my right: a trail of pebbles cut into the trees.
It’s so weird, so random, I can’t resist—even though the path is shadow-swathed and I know the little pebbles will be hell on my feet.
Running without shoes hurts my tender soles, but I adjust my stride so I can keep moving. The pebbles are pale, the path wide, so I’m not scared of getting lost; I know when I’m finished, I can simply turn around.
The moon is big and bright, floating in the black sky soup above the swaying treetops, beaming down its long, thick arms of light so I can see the swatch of path ahead.
One minute, my body is moving, my thoughts racing—and the next I’m on my belly, my knees lit up from skidding on the ground, my lungs stunned by the impact. For the first blink, I’m afraid I hit my head, because everything is blurry. Then I realize: I’m missing my glasses.
Holy hell—where are my glasses?
I run my hand over the pebbles, over the grass and leaves. I crawl forward, backward, sideways. I pull my phone out of my pocket, shining it around, but my vision is so terrible it doesn’t really help.
I crawl so much I get turned around, and I can’t tell which way is back toward the house. Not without my glasses…
I draw my legs up to my chest, balance the phone on my knees, and blink down at it. I can’t even see the screen. Can I make a call if I can’t see the screen?
Tears well in my eyes again, and at that moment, I hear footfall. Heavy. Fast. I know it’s Dash from memory and instinct.
I feel more than see him kneeling down beside me. “Am?” His hands come down on my shoulders. “What are you doing?” His voice is strong and clear, but I can feel his chest pumping, hear the ragged edge of his breaths.
“I lost my glasses,” I say thickly.
Dash pulls me up against him, and I smell whiskey and warm skin.
“Hang on,” he says, as if he’s going to find them—but he doesn’t stop hugging me. With one big arm still locked around my back, he murmurs, “There…”
Then he’s letting me go, sliding my glasses on my face.
“They were this close?” I ask after I blink at his older-Dash face.
He smiles softly. “Right beside you.”
I can’t look at him. I look down at the ground.
“I’m sorry, Ammy Dove.”
“For what?”
“You know what.” His voice is husky.
“That you disappeared?”
He just looks at me, his lips pressed flat, the corners downturned slightly. It’s the face people make when they have bad news.
“Why? I don’t get it, Dash. Was college that awesome?”
“No, Amelia.” Dash stands with a heavy sigh, wiping his palms on his pants before holding out a hand for me. “You want to walk?”
I answer by taking his hand.
There’s an air of gravitas about our quiet, moonlit walk. All around us, pines sway in a gentle, summer breeze. Dash leads me down the trail, our hands folded in sweet union that doesn’t go beyond our fingertips. I feel dizzy with the nearness of him. It’s as if no time has passed—or maybe a million years have glided by us.
When we see white light spilling through the leafy trees ahead, I realize it’s the moon reflecting off the lake. Dash parts a few limbs, and we follow a grassy path down to the red clay shore. After a few steps toward the water, I let his hand go. It felt good to walk with him, but now we’re out here in the open, and I know if I stay too close, my heart will beat so wildly it will burst right out and flop at Dash’s feet.
I cast my gaze around the tiny strip of beach. It’s shrouded by veils of moss, by green trees, leafy with summer, by boulders scattered to our right. Near the boulders, the shore juts out into a little point, water lapping quietly around it. I can’t even hear noise from the lake house, despite knowing that we must still be close. It feels like we’re in another world.
Finally, I let my gaze touch Dash. I find him looking down on me with serious eyes, a solemn mouth. And in that moment, I don’t want to be here. Whatever he’s going to tell me…
I sit down on a nearby boulder, pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. Dash paces in front of me, his thick arms folded.
I can feel the pent-up words inside him fighting to get out. And I can see he won’t let them. It’s in the way he moves, so taut and tense. And then his shoulders slump and he pulls a flask out of his pocket. Sits down in the sand in front of me and takes a long swig.
“You have your own flask.” My words sound dry and disapproving.
I wait for Dash to answer, but instead he draws his knees up like I have mine, but more loosely. He wraps his arms around them, showing me the well-honed muscles of his biceps and his forearm. He looks so much bigger. So much sturdier.
I watch as he lifts a hand to his face, rubbing the scruff along his jaw. And I note his gaze: down on the ground.