CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“It feels like forever,” I whined. “How much longer?”
“You know exactly how far Lincoln City is because I made you write the return directions.” Penn gestured to the ancient truck stereo. “You trying to drown out this fine music with your road bullying?”
“This song is the worst, and you know it.” I lobbed a smirk that went entirely too soft.
I couldn’t remember having any dreams since coming to Sacred.
But last night, I’d done the next best thing and fallen asleep wishing for Penn.
Replaying the moment he vanished from the library, wearing it out like a new Spotify hit.
Maybe the watch had decided to grant wishes and deliver him to me before I’d even started breakfast. I didn’t share this theory with him, though.
Penn might’ve called it a sign of danger, and I refused to hear it.
“I don’t want you to leave too soon and miss the beach,” I said instead.
“The way you drive, we’ll be there in no time.”
My foot dueled with the gas pedal to prove his point, a smile blooming in places where soft things never grew.
Lately I’d been keeping a different list—mentally this time—in case Penn ever wondered why I would’ve picked him too .
. . before. This latest entry was dedicated to the way he took every bit of my greedy, sarcastic delinquency and gave it right back in a way that left me lighter.
The kind of guy who returned things better than he found them.
My list only grew during the rest of the two-hour drive as he sang (badly, beautifully) to old hits and told dad jokes (terrible, perfect).
By the time we were down to a quarter mile left, I found the ocean in the air. I rolled down my window to welcome the balmy coolness. I hadn’t seen salt water since leaving LA. Unlike with the woodpecker, I would see my first Oregon coastline with Penn.
Lincoln City claimed seven miles of beach and bayfront, and glass floats could be found anywhere along that stretch.
Penn’s memories were tied to a certain area, though.
He directed me west until our view met sand and deep blue, and I slowed the truck with my passenger just short of pressing his nose through the side window.
I was about to suggest we hit the beach and follow wherever it led when he gave a sudden jerk.
My features dropped. “No. Tell me you’re not leaving already.”
“Not that. It’s Mo’s,” he said, and I strained my neck to see what he was talking about. “That restaurant up ahead.”
The gray-and-blue sign on the waterfront joint matched his memory. The thought of a younger Penn eating fish-and-chips there with his family glowed inside my chest. “Should we go in?”
He gestured to a cluster of empty parking spots along the access road. “This is good for now. We’re in the right place,” he said as I cut the engine. “There should be an old pier next to the restaurant.” He craned his neck again, pointing.
Freed from the truck, the wind sloughed across my face with a bite I could appreciate.
Penn winced at my denim shorts. “You sure you’re warm enough?”
I tucked my hands into the cuffs of my oversize NYU sweatshirt. Grier had decked out Ana and me in violet five minutes after receiving her acceptance letter. “Watch me show up to a ski lift in a pair of cutoffs. It’s my LA armor.”
He laughed, but his expression kept my feet still. “What about your arm? The cut?”
This time I didn’t lift my sleeve, but I noted the fresh bandage and the dull sense of displeasure around the spot. “Better, I think. I made cheeseburgers last night after you suggested I up my iron.”
He nodded appreciatively. “Look at you actually listening to my advice.”
“I listen to everything you say. There’s a notebook in the truck to prove it.”
“Almost everything,” he muttered. Wild blue eyes stared at my other arm where the watch was hidden away.
He was right; I hadn’t listened to his pleas for me to remove the watch and let him go.
I lifted my chin. “If I’d gone along with that, you wouldn’t be with me on this beach.
There’s a lot of things we wouldn’t have done.
” He wouldn’t have kissed me. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep inside the fogged oasis of his arms.
“Sylvie, when I say shit like that, it’s never because I don’t want to be here with you.” His voice drifted into a gentler rasp. “I want to be everywhere with you.”
I swallowed a lump as we entered the rustic, L-shaped pier.
As far as we could see, craggy gray driftwood was scattered between the rocky seagrass border and the shoreline.
Treetops and distant mountain caps shot up behind us, competing for real estate.
While all of that was nature-perfect, the salt of everything burned inside my throat.
And Del’s vision drifted over us both. It’s not your time.
I said it then. The hard words. The reminder we both needed. “You and I—we won’t get everywhere. I hate that.”
“I know.” He dragged his gaze from the railing. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you how I felt. It’s not fair—”
“Don’t, okay?” I warned. “You don’t have enough time here to waste it being sorry. Besides, life isn’t fair.” And some days, I wondered if it was even good. I reached out a desperate hand but jerked it back into place when Penn’s features morphed, twisting.
I’d learned to stop being surprised by the rough shape his memories took when they came.
Before he explained anything, he moved quickly; I followed without question.
We jutted around the short pier and onto sand the color of brown sugar.
I gave him space as we set off, dodging rocks and splintered logs.
One corner of my mind reminded me to look out for treasure.
Tía Viv had said Finders Keepers globes might stick out from buried sand but were usually tucked into driftwood crevices or dense clumps of grass. Look for color. Look for beauty in the browns and grays. Look for light, she’d said, sounding so much like herself.
“Back there, you remembered something big,” I said when I sensed a break in his pace.
“Really big. And more stuff is close. It’s like things are coming in faster here. Easier.”
A thrill rose, spinning through my chest. Had the watch been leading us to this place all along? The end of a quest? Would these waves bring all of him to shore just to wash the whole of him away?
“Tell me. Please.” My voice only toyed with sound. I had worked to find him, to help set him free. But now I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about Penn’s real life.
His chin tipped. “On the pier. You said life’s not fair.”
“It’s fucking not.” I didn’t want to care about him. To need him. The picture he made against the sand didn’t help. He was breezy style and acres of golden skin, made for places like this. Made to be shown off—touched. My head on that chest, that hand pushed into the small of my back.
He rasped a dry, knowing laugh. “That wasn’t the first time I heard that here. I remember my mom.”
“Penn,” I said, trying to forget about my cares for the hundredth time. “I’m sorry. That must hurt as much as it helps.” The image of a mother grieving this boy had always been unfocused. But not now.
“I look a lot like her,” Penn said. “She has wavy brown hair and blue eyes. Joanie—that’s her name.
And my grandfather—Patrick—that’s her dad.
I can’t picture much about my own dad. Something’s still in the way.
” His mouth waxed soft and wide, his bottom lip trembling before he gave a strong blink.
“He moved out and filed for divorce.” Penn exhaled audibly, and a trio of seagulls squawked over the melody.
“Grandpa and Mom brought me here after he took off. I ate chowder and fried shrimp at Mo’s. ”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” He paused, shifting his head as if more details were locking into his memory. “I was having a rough time with it—I guess that’s expected. My dad said he had to get away to ‘find himself.’ He moved across the country and promised he’d send for me when he could.”
I read the hardened set of his jaw, the hands fisted at his sides. “Let me guess. He was terrible at keeping promises.”
“And calendars. The calls dropped down to almost nothing. He . . . God, he missed my birthday,” Penn added, and a light flicked on behind his eyes. “That’s why Mom brought me here. A birthday trip.”
“What month?”
“Not sure. It was warm, so maybe spring or summer. I’d shut down big time, and I wasn’t talking to them.
Finally, up here at Mo’s, I boiled over.
I told Mom it wasn’t fair of Dad to leave her and me like that.
To act like that. It wasn’t fucking fair.
” He trekked along the sand again, and this was the first time I noticed that he didn’t leave any footprints.
A shiver ran down my spine. “No, it wasn’t.”
“My mom said the same, along with a bunch of other stuff. Life wasn’t always fair.” Three more steps, then five. “But it could be worse. Life was still good.”
Goose bumps skipped along my arms, and my hand dropped over my left wrist. My thoughts from the dock minutes before matched Penn’s now. Perfectly. Had time pieced them together? I stomped down dangerous questions and even more treacherous feelings that would scare him more than I could risk.
The truth didn’t change, though; time had pieced us together. For weeks, I’d been wearing golden links around my wrist. But a harsher truth said we would have to break the link connecting two lives.
But not yet, I begged. Not yet.
“We need to find a float,” he said. “It could be a missing piece.” Penn walked along, craning his neck around tiny driftwood hideaways.
Behind rocks. A few beachgoers seemed to be doing the same, and I wanted to out-search them.
I looked hard beyond his limits, lifting planks, reaching into deep hollows.
I came up empty, but his face said otherwise.
“After Mo’s, Mom and Grandpa took me right here for a Finders Keepers search.”
“Did you find one?”