Chapter Twenty-Three
Now
Margo wasn’t happy when I finished my confession. She locked herself in her room, and even as I pounded on the door, I knew we wouldn’t be getting anywhere else this afternoon.
The rest of the day passed slowly, as I oscillated between wanting to go back to the cabin and make her talk to me and attempting to forget that she was there.
I understood why she was angry. I’d kept a pivotal piece of that summer from her.
But she’d kept things from me, too. I’d never known that Steph had supposedly run directly from the Barn to my mother’s cabin that night.
Maybe if I had, if we’d compared notes a long time ago, we could have put the pieces together sooner.
Maybe it wouldn’t have taken us this long to realize that someone must have hurt her on purpose.
But, I reminded myself, I’d been the one who’d tried to reach out to her back then. She’d ignored me. And now, she was ignoring me again.
Our relationship felt like a scab that had healed wrong, that wouldn’t stop bleeding. It hurt to pick at, but it was impossible not to. It was festering, with years’ worth of rot and regret beneath it.
—
After the sun went down, camp was finally quiet and still. The kitchen lights were on in the mess hall when I walked in, and I moved to turn them off when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I spun around, hand over my heart, but it was only Wes.
He smiled, wiped his hands on the ancient red apron he always wore that somehow had yet to disintegrate. I remembered when he got it for Christmas from his parents, the year we turned thirteen.
I tried to smile back, though I’m sure I looked disturbed.
“Need something to eat?” he asked, throwing a dish towel over his shoulder. “I’m just getting the scones prepped for tomorrow. But I can whip you something up if you’re still hungry.”
“I’m good,” I said, even as my stomach growled in protest. I was so flustered and distracted, I couldn’t even remember if I’d eaten dinner.
He leaned against the counter, brushing some of the flour off his nose.
“Come on, I heard that. How about a sandwich? I’ve got some of that brioche you love.
Chels was just in here, I made her one.” He glanced at the door, then back to me with a slight frown.
“Did you not see her when you came in? She literally just left.”
I couldn’t help but think about what Nadine had told me as we’d watched them hold hands in the water. God, I was so stupid. I forced out a laugh that sounded like nails scraping metal. “No, thankfully. I think she’s still pissed at me. I’m guessing she told you about the whole interview thing.”
His shrug was unbothered. “Yeah, she told me. But you know how she is. A textbook overreactor. She’ll be fine. Y’all will be back to normal in a few weeks, I’m sure.”
I hesitated. I didn’t feel like getting into it right now, telling him that I hadn’t decided if I was staying.
But standing here with him in the mess hall, talking about making a late-night snack, seeing the glow of the moon on the lake through the wide back windows, I wanted to agree with him. To say yes, of course I was staying.
Because who would ever leave a place like this?
“You’re probably right,” I said at last.
Wes grinned, pleased, and I felt that familiar tug of relief to see him again. I’d missed his optimism. It was hard for me to believe that he could stand here with me like this, as if no time had passed, and as if I hadn’t hurt him, too.
He’d tried so hard, in the months after the fire, to make me feel better. To beckon me home.
While Chelsea had responded to my abrupt departure in anger, Wes had responded with patience. Kindness. Which had been so much worse. Just let me know when you’re ready to come back, he’d texted me. I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.
He’d send me updates now and then, some laced with questions. They’re starting work on rebuilding the rec center. I don’t think we need two rock walls, do you?
He never outright asked, but I understood what he was doing: He was trying to get me to admit, one way or another, what my plans were. If my new life in the city—with Trevor—was simply a hiatus, a temporary distraction while I grieved Steph and sorted out my feelings.
Or if it was permanent. If the life we’d planned for me was no longer the plan at all.
Eventually, Wes stopped trying. He sent me his very last message exactly one year later; one year after the fire, and Stephanie’s death. It had been something official. An email, rather than text. At that point, Trevor and I had broken up a few months earlier, and I was barely functional.
I hadn’t even opened it. I couldn’t.
I told myself that by ignoring him, I was doing him a favor. Stomping out any last hope he may have had. Because I wasn’t coming back.
My head was jumbled with too many memories as I looked at him now—the good, the bad, the years here, the years away.
“Well, I’m going to head to bed,” I said abruptly. “Good luck with the scones.”
“Wait,” he said, putting a warm hand on my arm. His fingers were rough with calluses. I thought he might insist on making me that sandwich, or—God forbid—tell me about Chelsea. I tensed, but he only asked, “Are you sure you’re safe, all by yourself with Margo?”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard about what happened to Black Bass.”
Damn it, Val. It took me a moment too long to understand what he was getting at. “Wait, you think it was Margo?”
“Don’t act like you forgot what she was like that morning. After the fire. Pretty sure killers was the nicest word she used for any of us.”
He wasn’t wrong, and I ground my teeth rather than admitting it out loud. “So you think she’s back to…do what, exactly?”
“I just think you should be careful with her. You know how she can be. Always…angling for something. I’m sure the only reason she came this weekend was to try and sabotage things.”
I studied him. “Where is this coming from?”
He scratched a spot on his neck, leaving a dusting of flour on his chin. “Margo always rubbed me the wrong way. I never understood why she even came that summer. She didn’t seem to like anything about the Cove. I had the sense she was only here to keep tabs on Steph.”
“Keep tabs?”
“Yeah, you know. Like make sure she didn’t stray too far. Any time Steph showed interest in anyone besides her, it was like she went full guard dog. Maybe this is out of line, but…” He trailed off.
“But what, Wes?”
“She always seemed…dangerous. Unhinged.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “She’s not your friend. You should remember that. You don’t really know her.”
It was like Chelsea all over again yesterday morning, treating me like I was a naive child. “Okay. Got it.”
The front door opened, and I jumped.
“Sorry, ladybug,” Rig said sheepishly, holding up his hands. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
He nodded at Wes and moved past us to the tea station. “Our stove’s been acting funny. Just ran over here to grab some tea for your aunt.” He grabbed a to-go cup from the stack and held it under the hot water spigot.
My jaw clenched at the images that danced across my mind—me, Val, and my mom, drinking chamomile as we looked out over the water. Something we’d done a thousand times.
Rig and I hadn’t spoken much today, not since the interview. I didn’t know what to say; if I should apologize or poke the bear even more. At first I’d felt bad, being dishonest with him about why we were interviewing him. But now, I didn’t know how to feel.
I couldn’t stop thinking of the bus tickets in the envelope. His handwriting on Winona’s box.
My head swiveled at the sound of beeping, coming from somewhere deep in the kitchen. “Well, that’s my cue,” Wes said. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow. Good night, Greer.”
Wes disappeared through the swinging doors, leaving me and Rig in a much more uncomfortable position now that we were alone.
He was trying to decide what to say, same as me.
He made a show of swirling the tea bag in the cup, busying himself unnecessarily so that he had something to do with his hands.
“Trevor was looking for you earlier. Did he find you?”
“Yep,” I lied. Making things right with Wes was one thing. But Trevor—well, Trevor I planned to stay away from.
“And you’re feeling all settled at the cabin, then? Need anything?”
I shook my head, about to tell him that everything was fine, but then I remembered. “No, but I was wondering about my mom’s Bible. Do you have any idea where it ended up?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “It wasn’t on the bedside table? I swear I left it there for you.”
I shook my head.
“That’s odd. All right, then, I’ll have a look around. See if it ended up in the office, maybe, in the shuffle of things.”
It seemed unlikely, that my mom’s Bible would have accidentally made it to the other side of camp. I was already preparing myself for the worst; it was gone. I made myself smile anyway, not wanting to make Rig feel even worse. “Thank you. You’re probably right.”
Almost absently, my hand found my mom’s necklace. “I did find this,” I told him, just for something to say. “A few of the letters are missing, but I thought I might try to get them replaced at some point. I think they might have diamonds.”
Rig stared at the golden chain between my fingers. “You found that where?” His voice was gruff, more intense than a moment before.
I took an involuntary step back, surprised. Rig’s expression was hard and strange.
“I found it in my mom’s bedside drawer,” I said slowly, coolly, wanting my own words to be notably casual, in stark contrast to his. “It was the only thing in there.”
Rig stood as still as a statue, eyes locked on my mother’s broken name around my throat. The moment stretched out, long and painful, until he finally broke the silence. “Sorry, sorry. It just—was like looking at a ghost for a second.”
And then my heart splintered for the hundredth time today.
Rig had always been one of my mom’s closest friends.
They’d practically grown up together, meeting as kids when Rig was a camper.
When Chelsea and I were preteens, we’d gone through a brief Parent Trap phase where we’d decided they should get married.
We were close as sisters, our parents got along so well—they were both single, and had been for so long.
To our still-developing brains, it made all the sense in the world.
When my mom had figured out what we’d been up to, she’d been livid. Because of that, I’d been scared, even as an adult, to ask her why she’d never tried something with Rig. Their lives were already so stitched together, it just made sense. Like Wes and I had been, before I changed my mind.
I’d always wondered, though, if it had been simply a case of the wrong timing.
The way Rig was looking at the necklace between my fingers, with such a devastating sadness, now seemed like confirmation of that.
I wondered if that was why I’d never seen this piece of jewelry before.
If it was an artifact of what almost happened between him and my mother, once upon a time, that she’d needed to hide safely away.
For both of their protection. It made something in my chest seize up, at the brokenness on his face that he was trying so hard to keep from me.
“Anyway. Let me walk you back, ladybug.”
“I’ve got her.” We both turned to see Trevor, standing in the doorway.