Chapter 31
Present Day
“Are you okay?” West’s low voice is halfway to panic as he unbuckles his seat belt and leans over the console to check me for injuries. He runs his hand over my forehead and down my neck, where it settles.
“I think so. Just a little out of breath.”
Curls fall across his brow as he leans closer, looking disturbed beyond belief. His hand stays heavy on my neck, like he’s afraid that if he moves it, I’ll disappear.
“I swear I’m fine. The airbags didn’t even deploy.”
“Are you sure? You could be in shock.” He holds my chin between his fingers and gently turns my head left and right.
“Hey.” I rest my hand on his cheek until his eyes meet mine. “If anyone here is in shock, it’s not me.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, and he almost looks like he’s in pain.
Just when I’m starting to worry, he opens them again and blows out a breath, shaking off his alarm and entering problem-solving mode.
The rain is still coming down heavily, and the truck is stuck in a ditch.
The front end hit a saguaro, which I’m pretty sure is a crime, but it seems like a bad time to mention it.
From inside the vehicle, it’s hard to tell how badly the truck has been damaged.
West braves the storm to check it out and comes back a few minutes later, soaked from head to toe. “We have two flat tires, but other than that, the damage looks cosmetic. I’ll call a tow truck.”
The operator tells him that because of the storm and our location, it might be a few hours before someone can come out to help us.
West decides to change one of the flats out for his spare and see if he can flag down someone who will lend us another just long enough to get the truck to the nearest repair shop.
“Can I help?” I ask.
“Do you know how to change a flat tire?”
“I can’t even remember the last time I drove a car.”
“New Yorkers.” He shakes his head. “Hang out in here. Hopefully it won’t take long.”
I pick up Drought off the floor. “At least I have something new to read. Or I can use it to defend myself against the next coyote.”
Confusion flickers in West’s brow. “What do you mean?”
“Your book is a brick.”
He frowns.
“That’s not an insult. It feels substantial and oh so very serious. I know that’s important to you lit-fic guys.” I recklessly inch closer to our unspoken past.
“You haven’t read it?”
“It was stolen goods, West. What was I to do?”
“No. I’m talking about before. I thought…” He shakes his head. “I thought there was a chance that you already had.”
“No. Um, not yet.”
“What about the first one?”
I wish he hadn’t asked. It’s a unique kind of embarrassment to find out in real time that a person you thought has read your book hasn’t bothered. “I mean, I kind of hated you.” The past tense slips out.
He laughs harshly. “Believe me, I know. But you met me at our spot, Mars. And when I tried to tell you about Drought, you seemed like you already knew.”
I blink in surprise at the way he characterizes that chance encounter when I first got to campus for the festival. “I ran into you at our spot. I needed privacy for a phone call, and it was the first quiet place that came to mind.”
As West’s eyes flicker in comprehension, I can’t recall a time I’ve ever regretted the truth more.
His crestfallen expression presses on an old bruise in my chest, one that never quite healed.
“Yeah. Of course.” He opens the door, and rain whooshes inside the car.
“That makes sense. I’ll change the tire now. ”
I watch him duck out of the car, and I’m more confused than ever—about his book and our spot and what one has to do with the other.
I glance at the clock. The day is half-gone, our panel starting impossibly soon. The weekend is nearly over, and for reasons I don’t understand, my throat swells around tears I don’t want to shed. With nothing else to do and no excuse not to, I open the cover of Drought.
I exhale a soft sigh as my fingers absent-mindedly trace the pages. It’s a beautiful book, with endpapers the color of rust and a tiny fairy illustration hanging from the g. It strikes me as unusually whimsical.
I turn to the dedication page.
If you’re reading this, you know who you are
Thank you for changing my life
I’m sorry
Every nerve ending in my body heightens, and I mentally scold myself. There’s no need to freak out over an anonymous dedication. It could mean anything. It could be directed toward anyone.
The sharp twinge behind my ribs calls me a liar.
I swallow my fear and turn to the first page.
A career in books has made me a speed-reader, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as quickly as I tear through the pages of Drought. I read with my heart in my throat, and I can’t deny the truth for long.
This book isn’t just dedicated to me. It’s about me.
It’s a love story. For some reason, I didn’t think it would be.
I’ve been writing the same type of story for more than a decade now, and I assumed that West’s book would be a continuation of his college work.
Stories about coming of age and complicated families.
Feelings of resentment and fear. Life in a small town.
And to be fair, this book has all of that. But mostly, it’s a love story.
The main character is a young man who has spent nearly his whole life trying to leave his small desert town, only to end up back there over and over again through some inexplicable combination of fate or magic or despair, each time coming face-to-face with the woman he’s been in love with for years.
Every time, they meet at the same spot. Their spot.
Her name is Luna, and she’s me in all the ways that Fox Caldwell is West. We have similar features: brown eyes, honey-blond hair, a smattering of freckles across our nose.
We’re not identical, though, and I have to wonder if West thought the similarities were too obvious and tweaked a feature or two at the last minute.
I imagine him sitting in his chair at two a.m. the night before copy edits were due, frantically trying to scrub me from the page. Inserting comments that would annoy everyone on the editorial team. Make her hair longer! Add a tooth gap! Grant me plausible deniability!
It’s an easy scene to sketch, because I did the same thing. After I turned in my final edits for Torched, I called Whitney in a panic and told her I simply had to remove the excessive references to Fox being tall. (That’ll fool ’em!)
I choke on my own laughter when I find out that Luna’s arms are covered in fairy tattoos. (Fairies because I wrote a fae book. I suppose he wasn’t aiming for subtlety after all.)
My shock increases with every page. It’s like reading West’s and my history, our memories and inside jokes splashed on the page, cloaked in beautiful prose and disguised as fiction. It’s overwhelming. My skin overheats. I pull off West’s sweater.
When he returns to the car more than an hour later, hair dripping like a black labradoodle, my heart is pounding like I’m the one who changed the tires in the pouring rain.
“No luck finding a second spare. I think our best option is calling for backup. The rain’s slowed down a lot. Should be safe to drive again.”
His attention snags on the open book on my lap.
I’ve nearly reached the midpoint of Drought, and my thoughts run unchecked.
I feel everything all at once. I don’t know how to reconcile the discordant emotions in my body.
I’m stunned and confused and heartsick all over again.
My fingers curl around the edges of the book.
“What did you do?” I whisper, gazing up at his profile.
He stares out the windshield, his numb expression completely at odds with the bubbling outrage I’m trying to contain. He sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What do you want me to say, Mars?”
“I don’t know. Try something and see what happens.”
He gestures to the book. “It’s all in there.”
“When?” I demand.
He looks at me sideways, brow furrowed. “Always?”
I scowl at his nonanswer. “When did you write this?”
“I worked on it for a while,” he hedges.
“For fuck’s sake, West. Before or after Martha’s Vineyard?”
“Does it matter?”
Maybe not. It’s infuriating either way. I latch on to that feeling and sink in, because it’s right at the surface, and it’s easy to understand. “Yes.”
His teeth clench around the answer. “After.”
I close the book slowly and lean toward West. When he finally looks at me, apprehension bleeds around all his exposed edges. I press the book into his chest. “You know what, West? Fuck you.”