Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
It had been one of the best nights of Celia’s life.
For hours, she and Landon had sat beside the bonfire, surrounded by other high school seniors they both liked and didn’t, watching the ocean draw closer and closer.
The water whispered its dark secrets against the cliffside behind them.
They drank two beers each, which felt like a lot but didn’t compare at all to what the other students had, then got up and sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” all the way through, dancing in the dark as the others drifted away from the party and returned home.
The morning was swiftly upon them, and their first class of the day was hours away.
But after a difficult day of school and Celia’s fears about the newspaper and a long shift at the Bluebell Cove Inn, she wanted to unleash.
She wanted to feel free, like her peers did.
If only my mother hadn’t died, she let herself think for the first time all evening, then felt her smile melt off her face.
Landon threw his arm loosely around her shoulders and guffawed, his eyes in slits. “Everyone’s gone!” he cried, acting a little tipsier than she knew he was.
Suddenly glum, Celia threw herself on the sand, watching the last of the embers flicker out. Surrounding them were what looked to be twenty-plus beer cans and empty bags of potato chips. Exhaustion shrouded her vision.
“Doesn’t it seem like nobody cares about anything anymore?” Celia said, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Landon sat down beside her. His face was heavy with embarrassment, maybe from having touched her that way—gently, exuberantly, as though he wanted more.
Did he want more? Celia put her face in her hands, trying to project herself a year down the line, when she’d be in Washington, DC, studying for the career that was bound to change her life and countless others.
She felt a stab of guilt, thinking of her little sisters and of Landon.
It wasn’t that she ever wanted to abandon them.
Was it possible to hold both realities at once?
To love people all over the world? Oh, her thoughts were moving so quickly.
It felt as though she were floating off the sand.
“Landon,” she breathed to her thighs, unable to look up at him. “What do you want out of your life?”
Landon was quiet for a moment, but she could feel the heaviness of his thoughts. As ever, he took her seriously, eager to delve deep into conversations that mattered to the idealistic teens who didn’t know enough about the real world to question their dreams.
“I’m sort of like you,” Landon said. “I don’t want to give up on any of this.”
Celia pulled her head up and looked at him. “On what?”
“On the world.” Landon swallowed so that his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I want to believe that our children and our children’s children will learn from the mistakes we’re making right now.
I want to be instrumental in figuring out how to repair some of those mistakes.
How to clean up some of the messes our parents and their parents made. ”
Celia felt a wave of optimism, then crushed it with all she could think to say.
“I don’t want kids. I’ve basically had to raise Wren and Juliet, and it’s too much.
They need someone to watch them, care for them, make their lunches, and tell them to brush their teeth, like, all the time.
I mean, look at my mother. She was so unhappy.
And sometimes I wonder…” She trailed off, wondering what it was she really wondered.
Had their mother really loved them? Celia remembered the volatile arguments between her parents and her mother’s tired, glossy, unseeing eyes.
Landon arched his eyebrow. Celia rarely spoke about her mother, and he knew she was intrigued by it, eager to learn more about the darkness brewing in the Bluebell Cove Inn.
Celia got up and brushed the sand from her legs, her cheeks burning.
Before Landon could ask her for more details, she said, “Let’s clean up and get back.
” Her watch said it was three in the morning.
If her father heard her coming in, he’d wipe the floor with her.
After a little more than twenty minutes, they’d cleaned up the beach and hauled the bags of trash up the hill to the dumpster outside the local diner.
Dim light glowed along the water, advertising a sunrise that would yank them into a new day.
Again, Celia began to think about her work as the brand-new editor of the Bluebell Cove High School newspaper, and her eyes smarted with fear.
Suddenly overwhelmed, she stopped short and blinked at Landon. “I don’t know what to do.”
Landon’s face went blank. “What are you talking about?”
“For the first newspaper issue. Or any issue for that matter.” Celia crammed the rest of the trash into the dumpster and wiped her hands on her jeans.
“I thought that when I got the editor position, ideas would just pour out of me. That’s how it always happened before.
But it isn’t that way this time.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
“I thought that this would be my first step in the right direction. The thing that would get me to DC, on the path to my career. But maybe it’s the end of the road?
I mean, Bethany wants to be an editor so bad.
She’ll sniff out my weakness, right? She’ll find a way to end me? ”
Landon was quiet, so quiet that Celia was frightened he agreed with her.
He scrunched his face. But before he could say anything, there was a rustling through the trees beside them.
Celia froze with surprise and yanked around to watch as the son of the wealthiest man of Bluebell Cove appeared between the shadows.
Hanson Smith was the captain of the football team, the basketball team, and the baseball team, the so-called “prince” of their town.
Although Celia was careful to hate Hanson for everything he stood for, she couldn’t discount how handsome he was.
He looked like a blond Tom Cruise, but taller and broader, with a nose slightly crooked from a football accident their sophomore year.
Hanson was alone, which was a rarity. Usually, he was surrounded by his other football cronies, or whichever girls were after him at any one time.
Celia had seen him at the bonfire, but he’d been far away from them, hunched on a big rock, domineering his area of the beach.
When Celia had hit a particularly high note on “Bohemian Rhapsody,” she’d accidentally caught his eye, and a shiver of embarrassment had run down her spine.
He’s just the braindead rich kid, she’d reminded herself.
He probably doesn’t know who Queen is. What a loser.
She’d sung louder, daring him to say that she and Landon were uncool.
But it was strange to find him here, coming up behind them in the woods surrounding the cove. It almost seemed as though he’d been following them.
Landon looked petrified, although when he caught Celia looking at him, he quickly fixed his face.
“Yo,” Hanson said, sliding his fingers through his curls. “What were you doing down there?”
Celia realized he was referring to the beach and why they’d taken so long to leave the party. “We cleaned up,” she said, her heart fluttering like a rabbit’s. “Everyone trashed the beach.”
Hanson surprised her by not making fun of her. “Cool,” he said. “People are idiots.”
Landon and Celia glanced at one another.
“It’s almost five,” Celia said. “We’re going home.” She didn’t want to give Hanson space to make fun of them, ridicule them, or find reasons to make their lives worse at school.
“Yeah,” Hanson said. “My dad will kill me if he catches me out this late.”
Landon tugged at his ear. “I don’t need sleep. I mean, not as much as other people.”
It felt like a strange brag. Celia swallowed and turned toward Bluebell Cove, watching in amazement as Landon and Hanson fell into step beside her.
Celia had the strangest sense that the boys wanted to make sure she got home safely, as though they were competing with each other to be beside her.
But after years of being ignored at school by everyone save for Landon and sometimes Bethany, Celia squashed the idea.
Birds began to twitter in the trees lining the sidewalk, calling out to the gorgeous September morning. Celia shivered, wishing she had a thicker coat. Pretty soon, she’d need to wake her sisters. She’d need to check on Wren’s and Juliet’s homework assignments and deal with Ivy’s sour mood.
But when they rounded the corner to find the Bluebell Cove Inn and the house beside it in which she lived with her father and sisters, they saw a dark shadow on the front porch.
Celia’s stomach tightened into knots. It was her father, cross-armed and domineering, glaring down at her.
Celia had half a mind to turn on her heel and run back to the beach or to the highway, where she could stick out her thumb and hitchhike to her future.
“Shoot,” Landon breathed, stalling. Celia knew that Landon was just as frightened of her father as she was, if not more. Her father was half convinced they were dating, which made things worse for Landon. James was possessive. He always had been, even back when Celia’s mother was alive.
James Harper stormed down the steps and bolted across the lawn.
Celia had never seen him move so swiftly, not even the time last summer when Wren had tumbled from the swing set and broken her arm.
Rage beamed from his eyes. But he didn’t dare speak loud enough to wake the neighbors.
His reputation was important to him, above all else.
“Celia Harper,” he rasped, reaching for her wrist. It was clear he was going to yank her back to the house and throw her inside.
It was clear he didn’t care if he hurt her a little.
He was an approaching storm. Celia winced and prepared herself.
But that was when Hanson Smith stepped between Celia and her father, glaring. At nearly six foot one with more inches on the way, Hanson was every bit as tall as James, and a shadow was cast across his face. James churned his molars but made no move to duck around Hanson and grab Celia.
“I imagine you’ll want to get off my property before I call your parents,” James said icily to Hanson.
“And I imagine you’ll want to let Celia into the house so she can get ready for school,” Hanson shot back darkly, his voice deep and sinister and much older than his seventeen or eighteen years.
“I imagine you won’t want to cause problems for yourself.
My father always said that only cowards lose control of their emotions. ”
Celia wondered how Hanson had learned to speak to adults like that.
She guessed it was because of his parents, the wealthiest in Bluebell Cove, who looked down upon everyone else in town.
But why, then, was Hanson standing up for Celia?
Why was he saving her if he didn’t care about anyone but himself?
Was it an exercise for him? No better than a spring across the football field?
To Celia’s surprise, her father hung back, put his hands on his hips, and nudged his head back toward the house. “Go on, Celia. Your sisters are waiting for you.”
Celia didn’t dare look at Landon or Hanson before whipping up the lawn and into the house.
Inside, the air was warm and still, and she felt a sob crawl up her throat and escape.
When she entered the room she shared with Ivy, her knees knocked together with fear, and she took off her clothes, hurried to the bathroom, and showered.
Although she hadn’t slept a wink, she wasn’t tired in the least. She scrubbed her hair of the smell of bonfire, made a list in her mind of things she needed to do today, and hurried to get her sisters out of bed.
Downstairs, her father left a note on the kitchen table.
You’re grounded for a week, it said. She crumpled it up and threw it in the trash, then turned to make eggs and toast for her sisters.
Juliet flicked the radio on, and Celia, Juliet, and Wren danced around to Britney Spears, Celia swinging her spatula through the air as the eggs sizzled.
Only Ivy kept to herself, writing in her journal, her hair hiding her face.
When Wren and Juliet were busy scream-crying the lyrics to the next song, Ivy set her eyes on Celia’s and asked, “Where were you last night?”
Celia gave Ivy a look meant to convey how adult she was and how childish Ivy was acting. “It’s a senior thing,” she said. “For the newspaper.”
“Uh-huh,” Ivy said, sarcasm laced through her tone. She got up, reached for her bag, and left for school without the rest of them, leaving Celia to scramble through cleanup and get Wren and Juliet out the door.
When Celia got to school, fatigue had caught up with her, as had a sense of joie de vivre and excitement.
What had happened that morning with Hanson and Landon now seemed like a strange dream.
For the first time, she felt as though she was living, as though the story of her life was opening up.
Landon caught up with her in the hallway, smiled his goofy smile, and asked, “You good?” He searched her face.
“James was cool about it.” Celia tossed her hair.
“A miracle,” Landon said.
“Totally.” Celia opened her locker and watched as a folded-up piece of paper fell to the floor.
Someone had slotted a note through the grates, a secret note meant for her.
Landon was usually the only person who left her notes (or Bethany, if they happened to be friends that week).
Just then, Landon was talking about their upcoming newspaper meeting and didn’t notice.
She slipped the note in her pocket, her heart banging. She had a hunch about who it was from.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted her hunch to be right.
It wasn’t until fourth period, after lunch, that she dared to open it.
In a bathroom stall, listening as a group of juniors gossiped and cackled by the sinks, she unfolded the notebook paper and read the most masculine scrawl she’d ever seen: I’ve never heard someone sing Bohemian Rhapsody as well as you.
Sorry about this morning. My anger sometimes gets the best of me.
I hope you didn’t have too many problems. We should talk more.
It wasn’t signed, obviously. But Celia’s heart pounded in her ears, and she sat on the toilet seat and shook with a mix of fear and pleasure.
For once, her entire focus wasn’t on next year, on Washington, DC, and everything awaiting her outside Bluebell Cove.
For once, she was curious about what was going to happen to her right here, in the small town where her parents had met and fallen in love and had four Harper daughters.
What had gotten into her?