She shakes her head. “No one knows. They still think it was a bunch of rowdy teenagers, breaking in and causing trouble. They don’t know it was all my doing, that I almost burned down their business.” She looks off to the side. “I almost destroyed everything my dad worked for. It took Ford and my dad a long time to bounce back from what happened.” Tears well up in her eyes. “I haven’t talked about it with anyone . . . ever.”
“It’s not good to hold things like that in, Palmer.”
She shakes her head. “There’s no way I could tell them. Ford would never talk to me again. I think my dad would disown me. They don’t know the truth, and I plan on keeping it that way.”
“Is that why you fled? Why you left Marina Island?”
“Yes,” she answers. “I never had any serious intention of traveling around the world, despite what I told my family. But I was too nervous to go back home, to face the reality of what I did. So, I put on a facade in front of them—I was just too horrified to let them know the truth.”
“And what was the truth?” I ask.
“I almost took away their livelihood, Beau. I couldn’t be around the store and look at what I’d jeopardized day in and day out. I needed to escape the guilt. And I wanted to punish myself in a way, pay a penance by distancing myself, but also be someone other than the family screwup. My parents always said to pave your own path. And that’s what I set out to do, not just to prove to them that I could do it, but to prove it to myself.”
“I can understand that.”
“It’s not like my choices affected anyone else, though. The store thrived, my family lived on, and I . . . well, I grew more and more lost.”
She looks down, and I realize we’ve reached an incredibly heavy part of our conversation, so I decide not to dive too deep. It’s obvious her mind is reeling, and the last thing I want to do is make her feel worse. She came here for solace, and that’s what I’m going to give her.
“Well . . . we missed you around here,” I say, taking the toast off the griddle and putting it on a plate for her. “Maple or regular syrup?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PALMER
We missed you around here . . .
Those five little words pack such a punch that I feel like I can barely grasp enough air for my lungs.
And sitting across from Beau, wearing his clothes, smelling like his fresh soap, and staring into his brilliantly understanding eyes, makes it that much worse. I’ve never talked about what happened out of fear of judgment and hate. But Beau isn’t looking at me like that; instead, he’s offering me comfort, the same kind of comfort he offered me that night, all those years ago.
The night he saved me.
The night we almost kissed . . .
Those sirens screaming in the dark of night, breaking the lock of our eyes, the comfort of our embrace after he saved me—they still play in my head late at night, causing me to break out in a heavy sweat.
The guilt consuming me, eating away at my resolve until my lungs don’t feel like they’re filling up with enough air.
And yet, to this day, I still can’t say anything. I can’t fathom coming forward and telling them the truth. I would be isolated, more than I am now.
When I left Marina Island, I left with my tail tucked between my legs, fleeing the scene of a crime, not looking back out of fear that no one would ever welcome me with open arms. I kept my mouth shut, I forced Beau to lie, and in the end, I only hurt the people I loved, leaving them to clean up my mess.
It was supposed to be a secret party in the back of Watchful Wanderers. My parents were out of town, it was the end of my senior year, and we all wanted one last hurrah before we went off to college. I’d just finished a long shift of unpacking new products, taking pictures for the website, and enjoying every second of my job. I remember being in the best mood—the night was young, and my life felt so full of promise. I set up the party, with candles in the back of the store as our only source of light so we wouldn’t attract any onlookers. The security cameras had recently been set up, but I knew they weren’t on just yet, which gave us the chance to have a party without getting caught. It was the perfect plan, the perfect last moment before we all went our separate ways.
And that perfect moment turned into the worst night of my entire life. I was out back, saying goodbye to my friends, and from the corner of my eye I saw a flame in the store. A soft glow of terror. My stomach dropped as I realized I never blew out the candles. I burst through the back door and attempted to put out the flames using a bucket and water from the sink, but it didn’t work: the flames grew to a powerful force, and I was caught in the middle of it, crawling on the ground, screaming for help.