CHAPTER TWENTY
“You took her boots?” Penn asked the following morning, amused.
“Hey! It wasn’t like the Disney necklace. It’s more like I exchanged them for my Chucks and forgot to switch them back.”
“Your favorite sneakers,” he noted correctly.
We stood on the Bearberry Creek footbridge, dead center.
Below, the water babbled its secret language, busying itself over pebbles and mossy rocks.
I’d come here after breakfast, partly to check out Tía Viv’s finishing touches.
Mostly to work through the possibility—not the certainty—that the watch had caused Winnie’s reaction.
And my injury. And how to do that without lying to Penn.
He appeared before I’d figured any of that out.
“I’ll get them back,” I said. Del hadn’t texted me about the boots. Maybe she felt I needed some distance after the way I fled the stables. I hadn’t texted for the same reason.
Heavy and loopy and still aching, I ducked my head.
My right hand was clamped around the railing next to Penn’s left, making neighbors out of our pinkie fingers.
His phantom touch tickled every inch of me.
Three nights ago, he kissed me. It might never happen again, and we hadn’t talked about it, and—-
“Sylvie.” His voice. My name mixed with hourglass sand.
You’re going to miss that sound so much. I dragged my flip-flop across the wood. Absorbed a hint of the inevitable blow before it came.
“It was a shitty day, huh?” he noted. Correct again. He’d already heard the Winnie story. What he was likely seeing was the anxious pie chart carved into my face—part my life, part his. Part Del and a haunted gold watch I needed to trade for a future. One I wouldn’t let him tell me to remove again.
I forced the bud of a smile. “It was a shitty day. Hot and sticky, and I got stable dust everywhere. I even forgot to ask about a permanent home for Anne Shirley.”
“The ginger troll.” He motioned toward the riser Vivian had expertly carved with twists of cherry-blossom sprays that looked so real, you’d take a whiff of them if you were drunk.
Or in love and senseless (which was your own damn fault).
The cat sprawled out on the bottom step with a cross this plain and ye shall die aura I highly respected.
I was maybe, a little bit, starting to like her.
“Mine for another day.”
Penn hadn’t heard me. He’d leaned in, bending low over my right arm. Small red drops had bled through the sleeve of my white tee.
“Ugh,” I said, and yanked up the cuff, revealing the bandage. It needed changing again. I’d told Penn about cutting my arm in the fall but had minimized the injury for too many reasons. “I am not getting stitches. It’s fine.”
“Let me see,” he said.
I relented on a grumble, knowing he wouldn’t let up. Carefully, I peeled back the outer edge to reveal the red, straggly gash.
“Huh,” Penn said, leaning in close. “The cut isn’t all that deep.”
“I told you I don’t need stitches.”
His brows flicked upward. “You’re not scared of needles, are you?”
“No comment.”
“Doctors? Hospitals?”
“No comment.”
Penn rolled his eyes on a smile and looked back at my wound. “If this was from yesterday, it should’ve clotted by now.”
“You’re too young to be a doctor.” My head jiggled back and forth. “Also, what does that mean? Is something wrong with me?” Add it to the list.
“Probably nothing big. You should get your levels checked when you get back to LA. Could be low vitamin K, or iron. Anemia. All really common.”
Why did he always make me feel better? Why did the thought of me being the one riding shotgun back to LA suddenly make me feel worse?
In the workshop, one of Vivian’s machines whirred. Not the band saw—one of her less shrieky tools. We could still enjoy the rippling water, the birds chatting in the branches crisscrossing above the creek.
“For now, keep it clean, and carry bandages with you if we head out on more adventures.” Penn might’ve gone on, but he left a tremendous pause instead.
His face smoothed to glass. After a teetering, warm breath, he made a move that told me he’d forgotten—again—what he was for a moment.
His hand poised under my wrist, trying to lift it, but passing through instead.
Heart skittering, I did the work. He bent and brushed his mouth across the edge of the cut.
Dying stars shot across my entire arm. Next came my forehead, both cheeks.
I closed my eyes; it was easier to daydream him different that way.
It didn’t matter that I hadn’t dreamed for real since arriving in Oregon.
Maybe from the change in atmosphere, or probably the workings of the watch.
I didn’t care. Normal dreams would’ve lost to this every time.
My lips tingled then—his mouth. I parted them under the softest whisper.
At any point during this otherworldly summer with Penn, did I stop and click into real life?
Of course I did. I’d sent another round of messages to my parents and Ana and Grier telling them not to worry about checking in.
At first, my phone showed the texts had slipped through the service that was too spotty and too annoying to manage.
Then, in the middle of the night or while I was away from the cabin or passing some other town, the little red exclamation point would disappear.
Success . . . maybe. No messages came back.
My people were living out their own unreality on the Cape, on the Med.
This was my phantom adventure. A big, big life.
But all adventures had to end, right? Like the best kisses. I sank so much of myself into him, grasping for sensation, that I knew the microsecond he’d pulled back.
So close. Today he’d shown up in a light blue T-shirt with a linen weave.
If I hadn’t known better, I could’ve sworn I’d caught a whiff of dryer sheets and sunlight.
Another trick. His eyelashes were a palette of browns and sepias, a hint of blond.
Like the peppery stubble that showed up every visit.
I could’ve buried my fingers in his dark waves. He really was so beautiful.
“My wish hasn’t changed,” he said. “I just wanted you to know.”
The thing about big, big lives? They leave you with so much farther to fall.
This I knew because my wish hadn’t changed either.
I told him so on that bridge. I said the words out loud, earning the saddened joyfulness of his smile.
And worse, my wish had spread like tossed glitter, the kind that sticks in hidden places.
So inconvenient for a heart that worked like mine.
I ran my tongue across my top lip, over the cracks and lines.
I’d decided a long time ago that guys were best as surface dwellers (sweet, exciting, temporary).
But now Del’s thoughts about heartbreak taunted me from deeper places.
Telling me that of course I had picked someone I had no choice but to lose.
The only answer to protecting myself and my future was his freedom. I’d forgotten this a little—we both had. While his memories came slowly, we were living in the gaps between them. On bonfire lakeshores and twilight Ferris wheels.
“Are you up for another adventure?” I asked. “I have an idea on how to spark a memory.”
His grin was all in and let’s go. But after I changed my bandage.
“This is my favorite place you’ve brought me.”
“I don’t even know what to do with that,” I whispered. The earbuds were in.
Penn splashed his arms wide over the magnificent library scenery. The dated paneled walls. The wiggly fluorescent lights and threadbare chairs and gym-sock aroma. And that nasty orange carpet.
“Come on, Sylvie. This is—well, it’s just great. It’s like I’m back in high school pretending to study with, you know, a girl.” He paused, smiling over the word. “Hoping the librarian won’t kick us out for being too loud.” Another grin. “It could definitely be worse.”
Thunk—the sound of my heart striking the base of my belly.
Instead of this topic inspiring a second wave of jealousy like I’d felt at the lake, this was all heat and dazzling memory of the times he’d kissed my wounds.
My mouth. I sucked air through my teeth and shook some clarity into my head.
He’d given me a good lead, and I needed to focus.
“You remember sharpening your game while hitting the textbooks? What about a specific place? A mascot? A motto painted on the wall, even school colors?”
He paused, squinting. I took the time to update the brown leather notebook. In front of us, the cursor blinked on one of the desktop screens.
“Sorry,” Penn said, and spilled a noise of frustration.
“Nothing. Sometimes I hear that nudging voice in my head, and I have to work to grab those concrete details. And other times it’s just the ideas of things without actually being able to picture the scene they came from.
Like knowing how to get places. Or my, um, history with libraries and dark corners but not being able to see who the girl was or remember names. ”
“Okay, then I was right to try this.” I grabbed the computer mouse. “So much happened at the lake, and after, we didn’t do enough with your grandfather and the things you remembered about him. We do have his name.”
“Patrick,” Penn said. “There’s probably thousands of Patricks in Oregon.”
“Yeah, but we’re going to start with the name and see where it takes us, and not think too much about it—just follow the trail. That might open up your memory.”
“I’m game. Do your thing.” His mouth twitched, and I noted the way he eased his body into the second chair, being there as only he could. My pulse blinked like the little black cursor in triple time.
I scanned the brown notebook. “Let’s see what keywords can do, like ‘Oregon’ and ‘Patrick’ and ‘Cottage Grove Lake’ and ‘boat’ and ‘tubing,’” I said, and typed the words into the search bar.
“Maybe your grandfather wrote a blog post on boating or was mentioned in a newspaper article. You might recognize a last name. Or one result might lead you to something else that ticks your memory.”
I pressed enter, earning us hundreds of results to scan through.
“Again, don’t think too much. Just watch the screen and tell me where to go.” I faced him with a little smirk. “You probably absorbed more English lit or chem than you realized, even though your main focus was whatever, um, friend you were studying with.”
“Pretty sure I learned more than textbook facts.”
Straight into my chest before I could catch it. I fought a smile and motioned toward the screen.
We made a game out of it. Leisurely scrolling Patricks, their hobbies, their dental or legal practices, the books they’d written, their university review articles.
When no headshots or photos were matches, we followed links to favorite restaurants and hiking trails and movie recommendations and public Facebook pages. Penn nearly fell into the screen.
It eventually worked because he forgot about a specific end and was just absorbing stuff—other people’s stuff. We flipped through vacation photos and wedding pictures and graduation memories. Cute dogs and hazy, light-dripped concert footage.
After about an hour, our web search brought us back to water. This was a good place to be, as I guessed Penn and his grandfather had done a lot of outdoorsy activities.
There were more hits and links about lakes and ponds and beaches than we could follow in ten afternoons. Oregon was full of water, and Penn wanted to stay in this realm.
“Stop.”
“What?”
“Go back,” Penn said. “That page you were just on. Go back.”
“Oh.” I snapped into focus and retrieved my bearings. “You saw something?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Just go back.”
One click on the left arrow landed us on a colorful website highlighting the Oregon Coast. There was a page about the beaches of Lincoln City. “You’ve been there?”
“I—yeah. I have been there,” he said after he’d angled away over a drawn-out pause. Reaching for memories. “Scroll down.” I moved the mouse, and he sucked in a tremendous breath. “Finders Keepers,” he mused, which made no sense until I saw it was the name of a local community art project.
I read, paraphrasing to myself. “‘Artisans make and hide hundreds of glass floats along Lincoln City beaches.’ What are glass floats?”
Immediately Penn said, “Years ago, Japanese fishermen used blue or green blown-glass globes to keep their nets afloat. They tied them on with rope, but the globes sometimes broke off and drifted onto the shore. Beachcombers would look for them.”
“So cool,” I said. “Like searching for treasure.”
“Exactly what the program tries to re-create. Artisans hide them every day.” He faced me, eyes bright. “I remembered I’ve been there to look for floats . . . with my family. The place feels important.”
“Then we need to go,” I said. “I told you my computer idea would work. It could’ve been way worse, and we could’ve been sitting here for hours looking at cat photos. But . . .” I trailed off. Everything about him was slower, quieter. Bearberry Creek could’ve outrun him. “Penn, are you—”
“Yeah, my time’s up soon.” One shoulder popped up. “I’m sorry. It feels like we were just getting started.”
Why did it always feel that way lately?
“It’s okay. You’ll come again. And when you do, we’ll go to Lincoln City.” I leaned in, scooting as close as I could. “For now, can we just sit here until you can’t anymore?”
“Of course.”
Unlike our lake parting, today’s disappearance was peaceful. It helped to know it was coming, but thankfully, it didn’t happen right away. We had a bit more time to sit in the quiet library corner—eerily dark in the early-afternoon light.
It was hauntingly close to the high school scene he’d described earlier.
We had no textbooks to pretend to study, no shushing librarian keeping watch.
Instead, we laughed and scrolled through silly memes and cat pictures after all.
I thrilled a little as we got to live out that good memory together.
Resurrecting it before it vanished along with him.