CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Secret spot was accurate. The hidden trail skirted the edge of an adjacent campground, and I needed my phone light to keep my feet from disaster on the uneven path.
“Oregon has really amped up your map-reading skills,” Penn teased as we crept along.
I shone my light on Del’s arrows and landmark doodles. “Would we call this a map?”
“It got us here.” He gestured to the orange glow of a bonfire lacing through the spindly-trunked trees. Music carried across the trail, and a dark swatch of water lay ahead.
Stranger things than maps had gotten us here.
“This place is familiar,” Penn said then. “Cottage Grove Lake. Boating and tubing, then grilled burgers after.” A happy memory that made his smile bloom.
Navigating through the dark and trying to focus on the uneasy terrain, I hadn’t noticed his extreme focus.
During my time with a perfect corn dog and funnel cake, I’d updated my Penn list inside the brown leather notebook.
We didn’t have huge pieces yet, but Penn from Oregon was coming to life.
I could see it in his expression—this was the first memory he felt.
His nostalgic smile faded as we trekked the rest of the way in.
The group was bigger than I’d expected, like the senior-class Venice Beach ditch day where we cut school for hours of food and yearbook-signing and more than a few questionable flasks.
Color that day with evergreen trees instead of sand and nightfall instead of sunshine, and you had the scene with Del’s friends.
Teens huddled in clusters—a few were even in the water, wedged into the middle of inner tubes.
The music we’d heard coming in was live.
Two people with guitars were jamming, and a few bold souls were spread out on a massive blanket, doing some noteworthy harmonizing.
“I’m trying to name that song,” Penn said, amused. “Is it a clue that I don’t know it?”
The chorus finally tipped me off. “Nah, it’s from, like, eight years ago. The bigger clue might be that you’re not into country music.”
“I’d call that a notebook-worthy fact. But it could be worse.” I squinted and he said, “It could be off-key country music.”
“You’ve said that phrase before,” I noted. “‘It could be worse.’”
“Maybe I used to always say it.”
Another peek into the boy Penn had been? “So, let’s say you fall off a ladder or on a ski slope and break your arm,” I argued. “According to you, it’s no big deal. It could be worse, and you could’ve broken both legs too.”
“Those things are still a big deal. I just mean, when things are shitty, it can help to see the bigger picture around them. Yeah, bad times are bad, but there’s still good to be found.”
“I do something different,” I said. “I like to convince myself that the bad doesn’t matter.
I play with its power until I convince myself it never had any.
And I just keep moving forward.” I was camouflaged inside a thick army of trees, blanketed by the cover of darkness. Still, I was completely exposed.
“Does that work?” he asked.
I couldn’t quite meet the ocean-deep blue of his eyes. “I’m still here,” I said.
“That’s it? Just . . . here?”
I could’ve taken this badly. But I clung to the immediate, in-the-moment part of it. “I’m here with the most interesting party date of all time. If there’s a prize for that, I’ve already won.”
Trading snickers, we left the perimeter of the scene.
I’d always dreaded the kinds of parties where I’d arrive alone and the whole room would stop, even if it was only for a couple seconds. This event gave the opposite kind of welcome. One where I was as invisible as Penn.
With him at my side, I dissolved into an already-smooth mix. There was zero pressure to pass my name around a crowd of people who would forget it in five minutes. No need to learn a flimsy string of them in return. The watch still ticked, and Penn was here; that was all that mattered.
“Do you see Del anywhere?” Penn asked.
I scanned the dappled faces along the lakefront. “Not yet.”
“From what you’ve said about her, she’ll find you.”
“You know it.” I toed into the scene a few more steps.
This—this was going to be okay. Fun, even.
I liked the way the bonfire flames changed the faces of everything.
The lake shape shifted into a black mirror.
Native birds tucked their wings in tight, but this place wasn’t tranquil.
It hummed pleasantly with all the nature we couldn’t see, even with the lights on.
Shivers trailed up my arms. “Are there bears here? Like, nearby?”
Penn stepped closer. “Totally. Black bears are really common in Oregon. But don’t worry, you’ll protect me.”
I went for side-eye but failed spectacularly in front of his playfully sheepish face. My laughter flared, and for the millionth time, I couldn’t believe this was my life.
But not for long.
You’re going to miss him.
I ducked my head. My subconscious was done being silent.
I know, I know, I know.
What could I do about it, though? Real talk: nothing. Be it a four-pointed square or a three-sided triangle, I had no plan for missing Penn.
I could only double down on the plan I’d made for my future. I spun toward him on the ball of one foot, found him all but ingesting every inch around him. Guilt slashed across my chest. He would never have this again.
“What do you want to see here?” I asked.
Penn studied the firelit lake. “Everything. Nothing.” He shifted in that flimsy, sleight-of-hand way his body moved. “I just want to be in a place like this with a girl like you.”
My heart rocketed. “You mean a delinquent? A failed Veronica Mars?” I joked to hide the beating tremor in my voice.
He shook his head. “No, just you. What does the real Sylvie Castellano want?”
“To not be left behind,” I said entirely too easily. “To collect my own souvenirs. To have my own place where I can kick people out when I want.” Another smile shot wide, but it twisted. Shrank. “To not care so much when people come and go.”
“I don’t want to come and go,” he admitted.
“I don’t want that either,” I said too freely.
His gaze struck my left wrist, the ridged crown beamed on the side of the watch.
I swallowed a massive lump and blubbered out, “And a woodpecker.”
“What?”
“You asked what I wanted. I haven’t seen one woodpecker since I got here, and I would like to see a woodpecker.”
He raised one hand, a solemn oath. “On my honor, senorita, you shall see a woodpecker.”
Before I go for good.
Colorful sparks flared, and for one muddled second, I thought it was these unsaid words.
Reality was much more boring, but still brilliant. A couple people had shot off a pack of silent ground fireworks on the water’s edge, a few days early for the Fourth of July. A fountain of light glittered across the lake.
While everyone oohed and aahed, we folded ourselves (or just me, really) into the crowd.
After copious amounts of fair food, none was needed here.
Drinks were plentiful, though, but I ignored the keg and other assorted bottles.
Like we did with silly fair hats and jeweled tiaras, we made a game of trying on people’s problems. This was what my curious ghost wanted to do.
Eavesdrop over the dozens of micro–reality shows unfolding across Cottage Grove Lake.
Evie’s parents thought she was spending the night at Del’s. Evie hid her phone on Del’s porch before the fair so Find My Friends would be her perfect alibi. Clever, Evie.
Jones was upset that he’d invited another guy named Derek to hang at the fair with him. Not only did Derek cancel at the last minute, but Jones also saw him waytooclose to some guy named Andrew on a certain Ferris wheel. Penn and I felt for poor Jones. Ouch.
Nearby, Jasmine was stressing about her Vanderbilt University dream. Her boyfriend, Carlos, was a shoo-in for a football scholarship to Washington State and was trying to get her to follow.
“Don’t do it, Jasmine,” Penn said into my ear unnecessarily. “Let him go, and do your own thing.”
“Right?” I said in total agreement. “Carlos isn’t worth missing Vanderbilt. He’ll ghost her after two weeks, and she’ll be stuck at some fallback school.”
“Yeah, he’ll find a way to make the distance work if she’s it for him,” Penn added.
I studied the ground, toeing my shoe into the mulchy grass.
I had never known the feeling of being “it” for anyone.
I’d never let anyone close enough to try.
But Penn saying that phrase so easily had me thinking about far more than the hand-toss of other guys I’d left back in LA.
Had Penn left more than a family and friends behind?
Was there a girl, somewhere, still crying over a box of his mementos?
Still replaying the last moment she’d seen him? Kissed him?
Why did I want him to never remember her at all?
My throat went dry. I pivoted toward the drink table, filling a cliché Solo cup with caffeine-free soda. I took two sips, then another before searching left and right.
Penn had abandoned his spot at my side. I found him a few yards away, head levered downward. His hands raked through his hair, tousling the dark waves the way he always did when he was remembering something.
I started toward him but halted because Del was there, just ahead, drying off with a beach towel. Next to her, Ethan stood in swim trunks. He shrugged into a hooded sweatshirt and filled two cups from the keg. They must have been in the tubing group.
Del slipped into joggers and a long-sleeved tee before locking eyes with me.
Her face tensed, carving deeper into pale marble when she twisted her hair back with a claw clip.
Her mouth formed an impenetrable boundary.
Something wasn’t right. Where was the carefree girl who’d asked me to join her?
Where was the girl who’d skipped off the Ferris wheel?
No more flying solo, she’d said. But everything she was giving said the opposite.
You need to leave.