Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mia
Betty clung to me the entire ride up to Agate Harbors. I sat in the middle seat next to her. Bower drove, slower this time, with Gill in the passenger seat. It was a quiet ride, a country-music station playing softly in the speakers.
I tried not to look too often in the rearview mirror. Every time I did, Bower’s eyes met mine, and I had to quickly look away, warmth filling my cheeks. We hadn’t talked since he’d told me to leave.
He hadn’t called or anything since. Not that I expected him to. If Betty hadn’t shown up here today, I wasn’t sure I would have ever seen him again. After this summer, I hadn’t planned on ever returning to Agate Harbors.
A wave of dread came over me as we drove under the resort’s sign. I was returning to the place I couldn’t get away from fast enough a month and a half ago. Everything I’d felt driving home that day surged through my body. The loss, the disappointment, the anger.
As soon as Betty was comfortable back at home, I would leave. How was I going to get back to the Cities? I didn’t have a car. Damnit. I hadn’t thought this through at all. Maybe I could use the same car service that Ruby had called all those weeks ago to take me back.
Anxiety shot through me as I visualized my empty bank account. I was still living with my parents, but I didn’t have the money for a four-hour car service. Calling my parents or Ruby was out of the question. They’d ask too many questions.
Slow down, Mia. One thing at a time.
Bower pulled his car up to the lodge, and Chloe ran outside, a tiny infant strapped to her chest.
“Is she okay?” Chloe pulled open the door, looking into the car. “Thank God. Betty! What were you thinking?”
Betty grumbled something, letting Chloe help her out of the car. She let go of my hand, and I extended my fingers after four hours of my joints being bent. Ouch.
“I found a printout of a bus ticket receipt,” Chloe whispered to Bower. I saw him squeeze the steering wheel tight, his jaw clenching. She corralled Betty into the house, Gill following close behind.
Bower exited the car, slamming the door behind himself. He stood with his back to the car for a minute. His shoulders rose and fell with every deep inhale and exhale. He was trying to calm himself.
I watched him through the passenger door, still open after Chloe had gathered Betty, and I let my legs dangle out of the car, sitting on the seat sideways.
What did someone do in this situation? Betty was home.
The man who was unwilling to fight for our relationship stood with his back to me, refusing to acknowledge my presence.
I pulled out my phone and started searching for bus routes. If Betty could do it, so could I. There had to be something leaving tonight, at the latest tomorrow morning. I would find a way to spring for a motel room for the night.
“Mia.” Bower’s voice stopped my swiping thumb.
I slowly raised my head to look at him. He stood there, his fists clenched at his sides as if he was holding something in, trying to restrain himself. From what, I had no idea.
“Come have an orange Popsicle with my grandma. You promised.”
Fuck. I had promised her. I slid off the leather seat, my feet hitting the ground. I tucked my phone away, making sure I didn’t close out of the local bus line I found. One Popsicle and I was on my way. Maybe Gill or Chloe could drive me to the bus station.
Bower opened the door to the cabin, holding it for me. I walked into a Popsicle party of sorts—Betty, Gill, and Chloe all holding one in their hands, none of them orange.
“Betty insisted,” Gill said by way of explanation.
I walked over to the freezer and pulled it open. I picked out one that I knew was orange and ripped open the paper. Orange flavor filled my mouth, but it didn’t taste as sweet as it had this summer. It tasted like tart memories—like everything I wanted to forget.
Chloe flittered about the cabin, picking up dishes and sweeping crumbs off surfaces. All the while she had a baby strapped to her chest and a Popsicle stick poking out of her mouth. She disappeared back into the bedrooms, continuing to tidy.
“Mia,” Gill started, “I wanted to thank you for helping us deal with this difficult situation. I don’t know why or how Betty found you, but I’m glad she did because once you called, I knew she was safe.”
“It was no problem, really, Gill. I was happ—”
“Oh my god!” Chloe yelled from Gill and Betty’s bedroom. The baby strapped to her chest let out a squeal at her sudden outburst.
Gill, Bower, and I stood up, rushing to the bedroom. Chloe stood next to the bed, cradling her baby against her body, bouncing her up and down to soothe her. I looked around the room, searching for something that would startle Chloe.
On every flat hard surface, tiny rock cairns stood.
Most of them were stacks of three, others stacks of four or five.
The two windowsills, the nightstands, and dressers were all full.
The corner of the room between the wall and the nightstand contained ripped-open envelopes lined with bubble wrap, presumably empty.
Crinkled envelopes were shoved between the space, stacked, and placed on top of each other, filling the gap between the floor and the top of the nightstand.
“When did she have time to do this?” Gill asked.
Chloe pulled an empty brown envelope and tossed it to the ground. She pulled out envelope after envelope, the pile at her feet getting bigger, envelopes falling down the mountain of envelopes she made and landing in front of me.
I picked one up, curious what it was. I looked at the return address in the corner. Some sort of military base in the Middle East. And it was addressed to…me. Here at Agate Harbors.
What in the world? I picked up another envelope that had fallen to my feet.
It was addressed the same way. Another, the same.
Another, still the same. I started looking at the postdate.
Each envelope I picked up had a different date stamped.
Some from seven, eight years ago. Others were more recent.
I crouched down so that the windowsill was at eye level.
At the tiny cairn erected there. The rocks looked eerily like the ones Betty had pulled from her pockets.
All unique, like they were from completely different areas of the world.
I picked a white one off the top of a cairn, careful not to disturb the ones beneath.
I turned my body so I was facing Bower. I could feel him standing behind me, watching me. “You,” I whispered.
“I thought you’d gotten them.” Bower gestured to the empty packages that now lay on the floor around the room. “Obviously you didn’t.”
I walked up close to him. I could feel his breath against my forehead as I looked down at the rock in my hand. “I thought you never wrote or called…all those years,” I whispered. “I thought you forgot about me.”
“I never did,” Bower said. His hand cupped my jaw, pulling my face up to meet his. His body radiated heat. The magnetic pull between us snapped my body against his.
“You sent me rocks?” I asked.
“For eight years, so you wouldn’t forget me, wouldn’t forget about us.”
“I never could,” I whispered, looking down at my hand holding the white rock I’d plucked off the top of the cairn Betty had built.
Bower looked down too, our foreheads meeting. His hand, next to mine, unfurled and revealed the red agate I’d tossed beneath his door months ago, my last goodbye. He’d kept it. He let the red agate fall into my palm and bounce on top of the small rock already in my hand.
He put his hand on top of mine, our palms meeting, rocks between our hands. Then his head tilted up, my head following as we stared at each other. “I was wrong to push you away, Mia. I need you; Agate Harbors needs you.”
I looked back down at our hands, our fingers intertwined.
“I’m getting help,” Bower said, his voice trembling. “Chloe pointed me toward some veteran organizations.”
He looked at Chloe for confirmation. She nodded, watching us.
“I was going to reach out to you after you got settled into your first couple weeks of school.”
I looked up at Bower. I knew him. I’d known him for over a decade. His eyes were full of hope, longing. Begging me to give him a chance.
I glanced around the room and at all the tiny cairns built around it. There had to be hundreds of rocks here. How many packages had he sent me? He’d never forgotten about me. All these years thinking he had…
Betty had put them away. Maybe she’d known what she was doing at first, trying to protect me from the hurt of our relationship ending that summer, but then she had put them away subconsciously. Who knew with how much she’d slipped over these past years.
Then I remembered—she’d told me a few weeks ago that she had something for me back at the cabin.
It must have been the packages she’d wanted me to see.
If I had gone with her and seen, maybe all of this would have never had happened.
Bower and I could’ve already been well on our way to our happy ending.
But life didn’t work like that. When I had met Bower, it had been when we were young, naive.
Young love was ignorant of the future, ignoring all the roadblocks ahead.
It was bliss. We’d experienced that together, that euphoria of finding someone who understood you completely.
We’d never thought ahead, of what might happen in the future.
We hadn’t known what we were doing. My mother had warned me. Young love was supposed to be something that left you heartbroken. Something you lost. Something tragic that you could never forget.
That wasn’t what I had experienced. I’d never forgotten Bower, but he’d never broken my heart, not truly.
He had held it for me all those years. Keeping it safe.
Now it was my turn to return the favor, keep his heart safe with mine.
He was holding it out for me, offering it to me.
I’d be a fool not to take it. It was everything I’d ever wanted.
I leaned in toward him, our noses brushing.
Bower grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me close to him.
Our lips swept against one another before I opened my mouth, inviting him in.
He took the invitation, crushing his lips onto mine, pulling my body against his.
Our heads tilted sideways, our mouths opening, deepening the kiss.
This was it. Young love didn’t have to end—it could grow into something beautiful and real.
Gill cleared his throat. I opened my eyes, surprised by the sudden interruption. I had forgotten there were other people in the room. Chloe squeaked, her hand covering her mouth, excitement glittering in her eyes.
“I’d like to reiterate the job offer I made last month,” Gill said, and I let out a tearful laugh. “Agate Harbors would love to have you.”
Bower gave me a peck before sliding his lips along my jaw, his mouth meeting my ear.
“Stay,” he whispered. “The summer never has to end.”