Chapter 19 #2
I rubbed my hand against my chest, as if I could soothe the ache inside. “I’m not expecting anything from you, Chelsea,” I said, my voice low.
Her smile was so sad I reached my hand up and cupped her face once again, wanting to tell her everything in my heart. But I knew I’d only scare her off.
Chelsea’s eyes welled. “I just don’t know how to get close to people, Seamus. I told you that the first night on the ridge. I told you that last night, before we… before everything.”
A bird called from the trees up ahead, and when I looked up, I saw the first rays of pink lighting up the space between the branches. My chest ached, old pain mingling with new. I slipped my hand into hers, as much to anchor myself with her as to tell her I was here, too.
“Come on,” I said. “We’re almost there.”
When we crested the hill, Chelsea took in a breath, her eyes wide. “Wow.”
The peak of the hill was a rocky promontory that offered 360-degree views.
Behind us was the Quince Valley, and the hills beyond.
But where we were looking, east, the hills rolled down into a rich swath of farmland, bracketed by the Quince continuing to our left, and to our right, the thick forest of a state park.
All of it was lit up in oranges and pinks.
Instantly, my palms began to sweat, as this new pain in my chest slipped into something older and more familiar. Deeper, and more bruised. I shouldn’t have come up here. I thought the good of being with Chelsea would cancel out the bad of what had happened, but my blood ran cold with it now.
All I could feel was cold water, shunting over me.
“Seamus, are you okay?” Chelsea had turned from the view and was looking at me, concern draped across her features.
I swallowed down the lurching feeling in my stomach. I could lie. I could tell her I was just tired from last night.
But what was it she’d just said? We can be honest. I had to be honest.
That was why I’d suggested this walk, wasn’t it?
I took a breath, squinting out at the first slice of the sun inching above the horizon. “I last saw my brother alive at sunrise. In the Quince.”
Chelsea pressed a hand to my arm. “I didn’t know you were with him when it happened.”
“He was trying to save me.” I licked my dry lips. “We were fishing, and I caught something. It was big, and pulled me so hard I fell in. Neither of us had our lifejackets done up—young boys being stupid. He tried to grab me from the boat but…”
I shrugged, like this was just something that happened, but my heart thudded with the memory. I heard Kevin calling my name, felt the pressure in my lungs, the panic rippling through me. Felt his hand grabbing mine, placing it on the hull of the canoe.
“It happened because of me.”
I held my breath, waiting for her to shift uncomfortably, now that she knew it was my fault my brother was gone. But she just looked out into the bright golden orb sliding over the horizon now, her eyes glossy with tears.
“Shit, Chelsea, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry!” she laugh-sobbed, then shook her head. “You don’t…” She faltered.
It was too much. I’d shared too much.
“How could that have been your fault?” she asked after a moment. “Sometimes bad things just happen, Seamus. People die. They die right next to you, in plain sight, taunting you with the possibility that you might have been able to do something to stop it.”
I swallowed hard. I knew she was talking about herself now too, and that there was no way in hell I’d ever think she could have saved her Mom. Could I apply that same grace to myself?
Chelsea closed her eyes, and my heart ached at how beautiful she looked in the glow of the sunrise.
Her hair, wild and untamed. The scar running across her face—it looked like the Quince.
As harsh and beautiful. I looked back out at the river where I’d lost Kevin, seeing the familiar shape of it differently.
Like something new. Like some weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“I used to paint the sun on the river,” she said, her eyes following my gaze. “I did it in the mornings before anyone else got up. I liked how the colors of the water got all mixed up, hiding inside the pinks and oranges and reds.”
“Why did you stop? Really? You said before that it made your heart… what was the word?”
“Full,” she said softly.
She glanced to where we could see the very top of her family’s resort, and behind it, the apartment building she’d grown up in and lived in still. Then she rested her arms on her knees and seemed to hesitate, looking down at the rock under us.
“I was always too scared to show my work. Everyone wanted me to put it on display, but that wasn’t me. It was like how I didn’t talk for the longest time—I felt like people wanted me to do it for them. But I did put on an art show once. Just once, when I was twelve.”
She picked up a rock, examining it as if it was some precious jewel.
Then she closed her hand over it. “I only invited my dad, like a test run. It was summer, the busy season, so Mom was working all the time and we were all home from school. But Dad was around. And I knew he wouldn’t force me to make everyone else see it. ”
She looked up at me for a moment, as if wondering if I was still paying attention. I said nothing, just waited for her to continue.
“I spent days making all the pieces. Charcoal sketches. Watercolors. All things I knew he would like. I made him promise not to tell anyone, just to bring himself there.”
She pointed to a dip in the trees behind the apartment. “It was hidden enough that I knew no one would stumble on it. I tied strings to the trees and clothespins to the string and I hung them all up. And then I went out there and waited. And waited.”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“He never came. After an hour or so, I went home to find him, but he was on the phone with Mom. He was distracted; he told me to leave so he could talk to her in private. So I did. I went back to the clearing and sat there, next to my stupid paintings and drawings.”
She looked back out at the sun, now fully above the horizon. “It wasn’t a nice day like this. It was cloudy. And when it started to rain, I just let it wreck everything. I let it soak all the drawings, made the colors run, until there were just streaked, blurry wet pages hanging from the strings.”
My heart ached for Chelsea. For the little girl I’d seen at the table, her drawings spread out around her. She hadn’t hidden them from me then.
“I never showed anyone anything after that. And after a while, I just stopped making them. My heart… it felt full when I made art. It was my happy place, when it was just for me. But after that, I couldn’t do it.”
I felt like an ass for giving her that sketchbook now. “I’m sorry,” I said. Because what else was there to say?
She’d shrugged, just like I had after telling her about Kevin. But it was tight. False. “I never told anyone that,” she said. “Not even Mom. And she was the one I told everything to.”
When she met my eyes next, she looked so scared. Like she’d betrayed her mom by talking to me. Or maybe just that something bad would happen.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “Ever.”
She nodded, looking back out into the golden light.
Then I swallowed. “Chelsea last night… when you said only your mom knew you and really loved you…”
She went pale. Shaky.
Fuck. I love you too. I see all of you and I love you. But I didn’t say that. I swallowed again. “Your siblings, they love you too. Your dad.”
She gave a small smile, but I could see the relief on her face. Then she sobered. “Seamus, I can’t… I don’t know.”
I shook my head, even as my chest seemed to collapse in on itself. I could never tell her. She was like a caged animal. Anything I said would only scare her more. “It’s okay, Chelsea. There’s nothing you need to say.”
She let out a shaky breath, then reached for my hand. “I should go.”
I nodded. “Right.”
We got up and made our way back down the mountain. There were no more words after that.