Paul lays the letter in my hand. “Here you go, my dear.”
“Come back to you with questions?”
He grins, delighted by our routine. “You got it.”
I turn in my seat—only to find Theo’s face inches from mine, his eyes open and watchful.
“Jesus,” I gasp out. “You were asleep two seconds ago.”
“I was never asleep,” he says, his voice rough. “I was trying not to die.”
I hold up the letter. “Wanna read?”
He lets out a minty sigh. “It’s literally the only reason my eyes are open.”
I decide to let him get away with being grumpy; his hangover is punishment enough. I hold the letter between us so we can read it together, but my mind won’t latch on. Theo has moved in close, his arm pressed against mine, chin dipping into the space above my shoulder.
“Can you . . .” I press my elbow into his side.
He shifts, barely, but I feel the minuscule smirk that twitches at his mouth. “Distracted?”
“With you mouth-breathing on me? For sure.”
A quiet huff of air escapes his nose, and I bite against a smile. Amused-at-my-expense Theo is better than comatose Theo.
“Start at the same time,” he says. “Ready?”
But I’m already reading.
December 15, 1956
My god, how were we supposed to prepare for that? That stupid list I made didn’t account for what to do if our fathers started yelling at each other in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Or how to respond when my brother started interrogating you like you were the enemy! Asking you what your intentions were, Lord help me.
Your parents must hate my family. You must hate them, too, and my heart is breaking at the thought. I was lectured for the entire car ride back to Glenlake. I’ve never been talked to like that, not from them or anyone else.
Paul, they told me I can’t date you anymore. They said I can’t return to school unless I promise. I told them I would, but it’s only because I’m desperate to get back to you. I can’t believe I’m stuck here until the beginning of the year.
All I can think about now is how, in those weeks before our dinner, I’d worry about what was going to happen, and you’d force me to stop pacing. You’d put your hands on my shoulders, look me in the eye, and say “it will be okay no matter what.”
I need you to tell me that right now. But you’re not here. I’m alone, and I have to figure out a way to keep you and keep my family, too.
I have two weeks to figure it out and then we’ll be together again. I love you. Please don’t give up on me.
Love,
Kat
“Were you in LA when she sent this letter?” I ask Paul, turning in my seat. Theo plucks the letter from my hands and continues reading.
Paul nods. “Yes, she had a girlfriend in Glenlake send it to me so her parents wouldn’t know we were talking.”
“You must’ve been so upset.”
“For her,” he says. “I knew she must’ve been a mess. I hated to read that last line in her letter, pleading with me not to give up on her. She was the one with everything to lose if she didn’t give up on me.”
It’s true. She had so much to lose if she chose him—her education, her relationship with her family, her access to Paul if they didn’t allow her back at UCLA. I sense the corner she felt backed into to tell this lie, how sick she must have been, torn between her family and the man she loved.
I think about the hope she had before that dinner, the mixture of want and fear, and my throat crowds with emotion. I know that feeling, too—the plans you make, the dreams you weave in your head, only to have them break apart under the slightest pressure. It could be a terrible dinner, a family who doesn’t approve. A mentor who makes you question yourself for years.
It could be a man who lets you lean on him, but won’t lean in return.
Plans can be made and then just as easily broken. Hope can be created and fizzle away.
I wish Gram knew how brave I think she was for trying, even in the face of almost guaranteed failure.
And god, I wish she’d tell me how to do the same.
Next to me, Theo is silent, sensing my mood shift. He leans into me, just a bit, like he heard my thoughts. It’s such a small movement, would be nearly imperceptible if I wasn’t so hungry for it. But I am, so I feel it as if he wrapped his arms around me, and though I know I should, I don’t push him away.
* * *
I leap off a slab of rock, yelping when the frigid water touches my skin. It swallows me whole, and I come up gasping. Across the way, Theo moves toward me, his naked shoulders glistening under the sun.
“Oh, holy shit,” I laugh. “It’s so cold.”
We’re spending lunchtime at a swimming hole one of Theo’s friends told him about, not far off one of the popular trails. Apparently, it’s not as well-known as several other places to swim—no one else is here.
It’s an oasis. We’re surrounded by cottonwood trees and smaller, scrappier bursts of verdant plants. Above us, the mountains tower into the sky. Voices echo everywhere, but they’re distant and then gone.
After a morning of exploring some of the more popular, easygoing paths in the park, the frigid water is a welcome shock to my skin. The morning started out chilly, but now, with the sun hanging high above us, the temperature’s creeping past eighty. The dichotomy of the heat in the air and the chill in the water is delicious.
Theo glides to a stop in front of me, his shoulders bunching with his short, treading strokes. “Always have to make an entrance, huh?”
I push my plastered hair off my forehead. “You have to admit it was splashy. Pun intended.”
“The cherry on top would’ve been you slipping and cracking your head on a rock. This trip is missing a hospital visit.”
My fingers instinctively go to the scab on my knee, my stomach twisting. “No need to make up stupid shit I could do, Spencer. I’ve already racked up a couple of actual instances.”
He moves closer, his expression smoothing out into something lighter in deference to my tight tone. If nothing else, he pays attention. “What, like that time you fell down an embankment and nearly gave me a heart attack?”
“Or the fact that you’re sleeping on the floor because I didn’t read the Airbnb details closely.” We drift to a shallow spot, my toes brushing against the rounded rocks below. Theo stands. It exposes his chest, that softly freckled skin, and he runs both hands through his wet hair, pushing it back from his impossibly handsome face. I clear my throat, blinking away. “You didn’t have to sleep on the floor, you know. The pullout is big enough.”
“Don’t think it is,” he says, his voice the same texture as the red rock I run my palm over to ground me, a velvet roughness. “I was too drunk to care about sleeping on the floor last night, but I’m paying for it now. My entire body is fucked up.”
“That could also be the—and I quote—metric ton of bourbon you drank last night.”
He groans. “Not my most brilliant moment.”
My gaze drifts to Paul, who’s across the way, propped up on a flat rock, book in hand. Though he has a clear line of sight to us, I feel alone with Theo.