Chapter Seventeen
Now
I was looking for the best way to make my escape when Wes’s older sister, Nadine, materialized in front of me, crying into my shirt before I had a chance to register that she was at least seven months pregnant.
“This must be so hard for you,” she said, keeping her hand tight on my arm.
“I’m so, so sorry about Anita. She was so young.
My parents are devastated they couldn’t be here, but Dad can’t travel after the surgery…
but anyway, how are you? Are you all right?
Wes told me you’ve been…” She trailed off, clearly about to out herself as having gossiped about me with her brother.
“He said you’ve really been going through it. ”
Though Nadine had grown up at Dread’s Cove, she was far different from Wes. No one ever assumed she’d stick around long-term: She had big plans, college and traveling and a career, not to mention wanting a husband and kids by the time she turned thirty.
She’d succeeded in all of the above, though her crowning achievement was getting married on the Dread’s Cove lawn.
That had been a year and a half before the fire, back when Wes and I were still together.
I remembered it vividly; he’d stood as a groomsman, absurdly cute in his blue linen suit, and he’d given me a long, heavy smile as Nadine and Luke had said their vows.
“I’m dealing with it,” I said, voice hoarse.
“Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
I had no idea what she could possibly offer me, but her smile seemed genuine, so I made myself nod.
“Do you want to touch her?” She waggled her eyes in a way that was supposed to be enticing, but I had to fight hard not to cringe.
“Oh, gosh, that’s okay—” I began, but she’d already pulled my hand to her bump.
“I’m due in August,” she explained proudly. “We’re naming her Anita, of course. Annie for short.”
I gasped at this casual announcement, but she was still talking, smiling at the two of our hands feeling the baby kick. I clutched the broken Annie around my neck, missing my mom for the thousandth time today.
“You know, it just made me so sad, when Sawyer was born, thinking about how he might not ever get the chance to be a camper here one day. It was hard there, for a while, when they weren’t sure if it would ever come together.
But thank goodness for your mother. She was a powerhouse, and an angel. She really, really was.”
She waved at someone over my shoulder, and I spun around, worrying she was soliciting a photographer. Nadine laughed and patted me on the arm. “Just Wes and Chelsea, scaredy cat.”
I gave her a tentative smile that I was sure looked haggard, needing to get out of this conversation as quickly as possible. I liked Nadine, I did, but I couldn’t force myself to be friendly and chipper right now. I was overwhelmed, overstimulated, and desperate for a cold shower and a nap.
And the longer I stayed out here, the more likely it was that I’d have to start fending off questions from reporters. I didn’t trust myself not to start screaming at someone if they asked the wrong thing.
“What do you think about all that, anyway?” Nadine asked, tipping her chin in the direction of the water.
I followed her gaze to Chelsea and Wes, not understanding. “About what?”
“About the two of them? I gotta say, I was not expecting it. Honestly, I always assumed you and Wes would find your way back to each other—”
She stopped talking abruptly, surely due to the look on my face. “What is it?”
I didn’t answer her. Instead, I looked at the pair of them again, standing at the lakeshore.
Wes was up to his ankles, shoes dangling in one hand, while Chelsea stood about two feet back from him.
They weren’t doing anything particularly intimate; they weren’t even touching.
But I saw exactly what she meant, when he glanced back at her: The warmth.
The comfort. A certain kind of closeness that I hadn’t noticed, until now.
A closeness that I thought I’d felt between us, back in my mother’s cabin. When he’d let me wrap my arms around him and whispered into my hair. I love you, Greer.
“It’s, um, really good to see you, Nadine. I’m going to get something to drink, all right?”
Holy shit. Wes and Chelsea. Together. It made sense, in so many ways.
In others, though, it was mildly horrifying.
He was Wes. He had always been my Wes. And like Nadine had said, we’d always belonged to each other.
Even if that was a hold I didn’t want to have over him; a hold I didn’t want him to have over me.
I was a complete hypocrite. I knew this, but it didn’t stop the acid burning in my throat. I’d dumped him half a decade ago, for God’s sake, then almost immediately started things up with one of our friends. I couldn’t exactly be mad at him for doing the same thing to me.
My gut twisted as I thought about him leaving Chelsea’s bed this morning, wiping her tears, then searching for me this afternoon, like I was the next checkbox on his to-do list. I felt the sting of humiliation and a harsh wave of betrayal that threatened to overtake me.
As I watched him grab Chelsea’s hand, pull her forward into the water—saw her smile, laugh with abandon—I felt more alone than I thought possible.
Even more so now, I clung to what I’d learned from my dad. Steph may have been gone, but she was still here, too. And if there was something to be found that could help her—that could keep her close—I would find it.
I would.
—
The morning after my mother’s funeral, I woke with a headache, as I so often did these days. A grief hangover.
Last night had passed in a strange, dreamlike blur. At some point, I must have eaten dinner. Spoken to Rig and Val. Taken a shower.
I threw some shorts and a tank top on, knowing it would be hot and humid already, despite the early hour. As quietly as possible, I tiptoed down the stairs, listening for any signs of life.
Margo appeared in the hallway a moment later, stopping short when she saw me. I spied her old faithful tucked under her arm—Pet Sematary by Stephen King. I almost smiled at the memory. That summer, she’d read it cover to cover at least four times.
“I take mine black,” she instructed me as I pulled out the coffee carafe, setting the book on the counter and crossing her hands delicately under her chin.
“Good for you.” I turned my back on her to pull the creamer out of the fridge.
“Spicy in the mornings, aren’t you? Some things never change.”
“I’m not spicy,” I said, fighting to sound nonchalant. “I’m also not your employee. You’re more than capable of pouring your own coffee—or do some things never change for you, either?”
I looked over my shoulder at her, and the glint in her eye was so wild and so Margo that I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. My lip twitched; hers did, too.
“Touché, Little G,” she said, reaching for the carafe.
If we were keeping score, I may have just earned a point.
I held out my own mug toward her, and she hesitated for a millisecond before pouring me a cup.
I sat down next to her at the breakfast bar. “I learned something interesting yesterday,” I began.
“I knew it,” she said, a clear note of triumph in her voice. I blinked at her. “They’re dating, aren’t they? Baby and the Chef.”
“Oh, um—I mean, yeah, apparently,” I said, taken aback. “But how did you know?”
She smirked at me. “I saw them all cozied up by the water yesterday. And I mean, it was sort of inevitable, wasn’t it? Especially with you not being around.”
“What was inevitable?”
“Be so serious right now. She was obsessed with him that summer. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
I gaped at her. Had Chelsea been obsessed with Wes? I’d always thought her strange insistence that I get back together with him was just her trying to micromanage me, like she did with the campers.
I’d never once considered that there was something else there. That maybe it wasn’t about me at all, but Wes.
“No,” I said after a beat, feeling almost dizzy with surprise. “I guess I didn’t.”
Margo clicked her tongue and made like she was going to head back to her room. I grabbed her arm, stopping her.
“No, wait. That wasn’t what I wanted to tell you.” I took a deep breath. “I talked to my dad, and he remembers her. Steph’s mom. Her name was Winona Hayes, and she was best friends with my mother.”
Margo leaned closer, eyes round and wide. “What? And you’d never heard of her before?”
“No, never.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
I nodded slowly. “Just that she left, in the middle of the night. And it—well, it seemed like that was the beginning of the end, for my dad. He said that my mom was never the same after losing her.”
I thought about how I’d felt in the aftermath of Steph’s death. How it had changed and twisted me. And these torturous past two weeks.
I wondered if that’s what it had been like, when Winona left. If my mother had just been too sad, too damaged by losing such a big piece of herself.
It hurt, knowing I’d never known anything about this person who had been so important to her. It made me feel impossibly far away from her, because now, I could never ask.
Margo tapped her nails on the countertop, lost in thought.
“What is it?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” The corner of her mouth had turned up just slightly. “Our first stop today in our official investigation of Winona Hayes: an interview with the one and only Thomas Riggins, a Dread’s Cove original.”
I gripped my coffee mug in both hands. “Do you really think he needs to be part of this? He’s kind of dealing with a lot right now.”
“He was friends with your mom back then, too, right? Which means he’s gotta know Winona Hayes. He probably knows more than anyone else here. Maybe he knows where she went.” She gave me a knowing look. “Or maybe he’s even hiding something.”
I shook my head, quickly and aggressively, needing to cut this off at the head. “No, Rig isn’t hiding anything.”
Margo didn’t flinch. “Are you sure? How much do you really know about him?”