Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
CHARLIE
Spotted:
Reformed rakes make the best husbands.
There. I said it.
How is it already Wednesday morning?
I’ve been dreading today since Alice showed up. In less than an hour, she’ll be gone, but that isn’t my only problem. Any day that starts with a mountain man aiming a can of bear spray at you is destined to be bad for a lot of reasons.
“Don’t shoot,” I mumble in a sleepy daze, curled up on his porch like it’s a bed. “I come in peace.”
Dean Myers lowers his bear spray and calls back through the open cabin door to his wife. “False alarm. It isn’t an angry bear bent on destruction. It’s just Charlie.”
Raven pops up in the front window, still wearing her pajamas and holding a frying pan like a baseball bat. Lowering her weapon, she scowls down at me like I’ve ruined her entire morning, but she also looks concerned.
“You scared me to death,” she hisses through the glass. “ To death. Vengeance will be mine.”
But then her husband helps me to my feet, ushers me inside, and Raven pours me a cup of coffee. Which is basically the opposite of vengeance.
This place is the perfect woodland getaway, the best spot to hide and not get found. Part of me still can’t believe Raven lives here, in Dean’s cozy cabin on the edge of the wilderness resort. If there weren’t Halloween bats still hanging from the ceiling—in May—I’d think she was just hiding out here too.
They lead me to their couch, and I sit slumped in a heap. Looking pathetic and nursing my coffee while their black cat, Grizz, bats at my shoelaces. Raven and Dean share a concerned glance, but he’s the one who speaks first.
“Girl trouble?”
I groan. Pitifully.
Then I surrender and tell them everything. No secrets kept. No dignity spared.
“Sorry I crashed on your porch—I was hiding from Alice. And her ex. They’re still in love, apparently, but I knew no one would find me here.”
It took forever to walk to their cabin last night. The long hiking trail that connects the wilderness resort to the rest of town is an epic trek on a good day. At 3 a.m. with no flashlight, it’s basically like traveling to Mordor. But with extra bugs.
“I tried to tell Alice how I felt last night—she’s leaving today—but her ex showed up before I could finish. I guess he wanted to profess his undying love for her too. I should’ve known she’d pick him.”
Raven winces, cradling her own cup of coffee. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that, Charlie.”
Dean nods. “No one should ever have to listen to the girl they like getting back together with someone else.”
Well…
“I mean, I didn’t stick around to hear it happen. He showed up, and I bolted. I couldn’t listen to that.”
Raven and Dean share another concerned glance. They have a whole conversation with their eyes, and this time, Raven is the one who goes first. “You should call her and make sure. Or send a text. If you didn’t hear them, what if you’re wrong? What if they didn’t get back together?”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I left my phone at home.”
I was halfway here before I realized I’d left it on the workbench in my art shed, and there was no way I was going back. Not if there was a chance I’d see Jason and Alice re-falling in love. I was in such a hurry to get out of there, I didn’t even grab my skateboard.
This time, Raven and Dean don’t bother looking at each other. He just grabs the keys to his truck and kisses her cheek.
“It’s your day off,” he tells her, “and I owe him. This will be like the time he helped me track you down in Virginia—but with way less running.”
She nods before stealing my coffee and pulling me to my feet, shoving me toward the door. I don’t want to go. Halfway across the living room, I dig in my heels.
“It’s no use. She’s too good for me. She’s never going to pick me.”
Dean rests his hands on my shoulders and channels all the older-brother energy he can muster. They must have some kind of universal playbook because it works like a charm.
“But what if she does like you?” he says. “What if she picked you a long time ago?”
What if…
Finding out the opposite is going to break my heart, but I’m already heartbroken. What’s a little extra pain? It’s not like I have anything left to lose.
“If she says no, Raven will meet us downtown for pie. Our treat.”
“You can be as pathetic as you want,” Raven adds. “We won’t even make fun of you.”
I can be as pathetic as I want, and Raven won’t make fun of me? Sold . Not knowing is going to hurt worse anyway. If Alice is going to walk out the door, I might as well let her close it behind her. Finish this once and for all.
We head outside, but someone’s already on the front porch waiting for me. I’ve been found, and Lydia Sharp doesn’t look happy to see me—not even if she’s the one who came looking.
“Charlie Roscoe, I’m going to murder you.”
ALICE
“Next stop, home sweet home.”
That should be a comforting thought, but it isn’t. Emma’s voice is bright as we pile in the back of my dad’s rental car. But all her words make me feel is dread.
Where’s Charlie?
He never came back after he disappeared again last night. Lydia didn’t even know where he was when she hugged me goodbye this morning. She just pressed a Ziplock bag into my hands, told me the gift was Charlie’s idea, and then she apologized he wasn’t there. What else could she do?
I cradle the Fishbowl of Destiny bag in my lap—the sweetest gift I’ve ever received—and try to keep myself together. My sisters are no help. They couldn’t read the room if their lives depended on it.
“I’m actually going to miss this place,” Emma sighs, and Nicki nods, looking calm and content for the first time in months as she digs out her phone. Shoving it at me, she gestures to something on the screen.
“Have you seen this?” she asks.
I haven’t, but it looks like a forum for people with her eye condition. Nicki has clicked on one of the posts, and she zooms out of the magnification mode on her phone so I can read it out loud. “My roommate’s sister is in town, and she has Stargardt’s. What can I do to make her more comfortable? What helps you the most on a daily basis?”
Below the question, people have responded with dozens of suggestions. Everything from dimmer switches to warmer-toned lightbulbs to making sure you wait for them before crossing the road. All the stuff he’s been doing for Nicki since she got here.
“We can’t prove it’s him,” Emma says, “but it feels like too much of a coincidence, doesn’t it? Guess I was wrong about him.”
She’s admitting she was wrong? Impossible. But Emma is serious, her expression genuine.
I glance at the post again, and I don’t have to wonder who it’s from. Charlie did the sweetest possible thing for my sister, and the proof is right there. One glance at the username on that question, and I can’t help but smile.
BigBlytheEnergy
Nicki leans closer, nudging my shoulder. “Marry him,” she whispers. “You two clearly like each other, and my husband would’ve never done anything half this nice— marry him .”
It’s the “you two clearly like each other” part that destroys me. She says that, and my smile fades. Charlie disappeared hours ago. If that isn’t proof he actually doesn’t like me, I don’t know what is.
“You two should at least stay in touch,” Emma agrees. “If you do, it’s only a matter of time before you end up together.”
I wish.
Things between Charlie and me are more complicated than that, more depressing, and I frown. Up front, my parents are watching me in the rearview mirror, and one of them whispers to the other. It sounds like you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink .
Unfair.
If I could make things work out with Charlie, I would. But you can’t force someone to like you. He didn’t even stick around to say goodbye—he disappeared. How much could he possibly care?
My sisters still don’t notice my bad mood. They’re too excited about the journey ahead. They convinced our parents to let us take the mountain shuttle and the Old Western bus back to Texas together while my parents fly home alone. It’s supposed to be some kind of epic sister bonding trip, but I’m too upset about leaving.
Desperate to distract myself, I open the Ziplock bag from Charlie and the Sharps, digging through some of the fishbowl prompts they made me. So many of my favorite tropes and micro tropes are included, but there’s nothing secret or fated. Nothing that proves maybe he liked me after all.
Then my fingers snag on something different buried deep inside the bag. Something that’s much larger than a scrap of paper.
When I pull it out, it’s a cardboard packet that’s half the size of my palm. It’s been taped shut within an inch of its life, and it takes me forever to pry it open. A small glass Christmas ornament is waiting inside. The most adorable bundle of carrots with their green leafy tops draped to the side.
How that man can make vegetables look cute, I’ll never understand.
The ornament is so delicate and intricate, it takes my breath away. I cradle the carrots in my palm, admiring them, the hope in my chest as fragile as the ornament itself. Did he really make something this perfect for me?
I recognize the ornament right away. At least, I think I do. The colors remind me of the piece he was working on a few nights ago—after my family showed up, and I had that break down in his art shed. He’d been out there for hours working on it, and the fact that he did all that just for me—to surprise me—warms my heart.
Does this mean what I think it means?
A million different feelings bubble in my chest, wonder and awe mixed with so much uncertainty. It takes a second to realize there’s something else in that cardboard pouch: a handwritten note.
Unfolding the paper, I read it out loud to my sisters.
Don’t forget me.
—Blythe
“ Stop the car ,” we shout in perfect unison. A united front for the first time in months.
Because when a Kilpatrick girl knows, a Kilpatrick girl knows .