Chapter Two
Now
I didn’t realize how suffocating it would be, to see her face everywhere.
I kept my head down as I weaved my way through the mess hall, and by the time I made it outside and onto the deck overlooking the lake, I was practically gasping for air.
My mother’s photos were hanging on every surface—childhood moments on the tire swing, my grandfather hugging her beneath the hand-carved Dread’s Cove sign, and even a few snaps of her ill-fated wedding to my dad. In all of them, she seemed caught in a laugh; the same way she’d been her whole life.
But I’d felt her eyes watching me since I’d gotten in last night. She was blaming me for waiting so long to return. For not being here when she’d died.
Welcome Back Weekend was supposed to be fun, allegedly, even with my mother’s funeral now happening tomorrow.
While I knew this was how she’d want to be remembered, I couldn’t find any sort of peace.
Instead, all I felt was grief and shame.
And a sense of foreboding that I couldn’t shake, living on my skin like a parasite.
Thankfully, there was no one else outside, and I hoped the oppressive heat would be a deterrent for anyone considering following me.
As I looked out over the water, I took a sip of wine that was so big I almost choked.
The off-brand Riesling was cheap, too sweet, and not at all cold enough, but I was preparing for four straight days of schmoozing and being schmoozed, so I was already on my second glass.
The sky was cotton-candy pink, right before sunset. As a kid, this was always my favorite time of day. I’d stand on this very same porch and watch the sun dip behind the mountains. Standing here tonight felt like stepping into a time machine, if only for a few moments.
Behind me, I heard the squeak of the screen door. I tensed, afraid it was another reporter, foaming at the mouth for an interview I would have to not-so-politely decline. But it was only Wes again, coming to check on me for the third time in the last hour.
“How you holding up?”
I shrugged, resigned, knowing he’d stand next to me, regardless of whether I told him I was fine. I’d already tried.
“I’d be better if Chelsea hadn’t skimped on the good wine.” I swished some around in my mouth and grimaced, mostly to be dramatic.
In another life, a different summer, Wes would have laughed at this. Bumped his hip into mine, pulled me close. Instead: “Go easy on her, okay? She hasn’t exactly been having a good time.”
My skin burned like he’d slapped me, though I guess I deserved it. Not that Chelsea had yet given me an opportunity to go easy on her; she’d been ignoring me since I’d arrived.
“Dinner’s starting soon,” he said after a beat of silence. I could feel him studying me. “Do you want me to get you another drink, and then you can come inside? You don’t have to sit up at the front table. You can hang with me and Rig in the back. Lay low for a bit.”
He was trying—far harder than I deserved from him—so I made myself look him in the eye.
He stood almost two heads taller than me, like he had since his growth spurt when we were twelve.
In the years I’d been away, he’d let his dark blond hair grow long, almost to his shoulders.
Tonight, he wore a button-down, something I’d seen only a handful of times before.
But his hair was loose and tangled, like he’d just gotten out of the water and couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.
It’s you and me, we used to say to each other, back when we were together. But that wasn’t true anymore. It hadn’t been in a long, long time. I’d made sure of it.
“Greer?” he asked.
I flinched, realizing I’d been staring. God, it was weird, being back here.
In so many ways, Dread’s Cove really was stuck in a time machine—the shape of the lake, the mountains beyond, the sunset, and the squeaky doors—and all of us were, too.
I didn’t know what to make of it, standing halfway between the past and now.
“I’m honestly surprised you’re letting anyone else in the kitchen tonight,” I said, a smile that was only a little bit forced stretching across my face. If he was willing to try, then I could, too.
Wes huffed a surprised laugh at my teasing, but I could see he was pleased. “You know I allow myself one night off per summer.” For a fleeting second, his grin turned bashful. “Your first official day back in five years seemed like the best excuse for it.”
My fingers tightened around my wineglass, though I hoped he didn’t notice. I’m sorry, I thought about saying. I missed you. I hate me, too. But I settled on: “I’ll see you inside in a second, okay?”
He lingered for a long moment as I looked back out across the water.
The years of silence and distance had made things strained between us, and I wondered what he knew about who I’d become.
How different I was, how the past had molded me into something practically unrecognizable.
I felt all of his questions, unspoken—thousands of them, built on almost two decades of friendship that had been snuffed out, practically overnight.
I wondered if he could really want that friendship back. I wondered if I was capable of giving it to him.
I was still wondering when I heard the door again, and I was back to being alone.
My solitude was short-lived. Two women I didn’t know stumbled out a minute or so later; they both had telltale press badges hanging around their necks.
Reporters. I wanted to run away and hide myself, though it didn’t seem like they were looking for me.
They stood at the other end of the deck nursing sweaty wineglasses, their heads pushed together conspiratorially.
“What’s the deal with the daughter?” the one on the left asked before open-throating what was left of her drink. “A little snooty, right? So your grandfather was a senator in the seventies, give me a break.”
“Well, apparently, she was friends with the dead girl,” the other one said. “They shared a cabin.”
My whole body tensed.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted to come back, either.
That summer was a fiasco, from start to finish,” the first woman said.
“I can’t imagine actually letting your child come here, after what happened.
That psycho running around in the woods, luring campers away?
I know everyone loved Anita, but she was clearly inept—” Just as she said the words, we locked eyes.
She snapped her mouth shut almost comically fast.
I raised a hand in a two-fingered wave, not having the gall to say something mean. Though if they didn’t go inside soon, I knew it was more than possible that I would retch into the lake. Or push one of them in.
They disappeared at lightning speed, mumbling something about refills and our condolences. I said nothing as I watched them go, just dug my nails so hard into the wooden railing that I thought they might get stuck that way.
I made myself take a few deep breaths, then went to find Wes and Rig inside. Tucked back by the kitchen, I might be able to avoid prying eyes, at least until my heart rate settled.
I kept a bland smile on my face and dropped down between them, letting my head fall against Rig’s shoulder. He put an arm around me immediately, and I felt fractionally better.
“How you holding up?” he asked, patting me gently on the back. I bit back the urge to make a joke about how similar he and Wes had always been. Not that either of them ever took it as an offense; two men, with a twenty-five-year age difference, living the same life on the same timeline.
“I’m ready for this to be over.” It was going to be a long four days.
But eventually, the reporters would be gone, the memorial would be over, and I would be so distracted by my endless to-do list, by the piles of paperwork and conversations with lawyers, that I wouldn’t be able to wallow in this ferocious sadness.
One hour at a time. I could manage that.
Then, when everyone was gone, I could figure out what the hell I was going to do with Dread’s Cove and the rest of my life.
If I was going to stay or go.
Rig squeezed me tighter to him, and tears stung the backs of my eyes.
Do not cry, I told myself. I knew the rest of the staff, and especially our donors, were politely unsure about my return.
Those bitchy reporters had been right: I hadn’t been back in years.
In every photo that had been posted of the reconstruction over the past half decade, every social media post, I’d been absent. People had noticed.
And now that the circumstances had abruptly changed—the circumstances being that my mother’s heart had stopped, and I was now solely responsible for one hundred acres of land in North Georgia—the media was champing at the bit, wondering what the famous Anita Olsen’s prodigal daughter was going to do next.
“Where’s Aunt Val?” I asked, desperate for a more innocuous topic.
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, searching my face for any sign that I might be about to shatter. Val had been running herself ragged all day—stepping in to help Chelsea in my mother’s stead—and we’d barely had time to hug each other.
Rig scrunched his eyebrows together, scratched at his salt-and-pepper stubble. He looked more weathered than I remembered. “You know it’s impossible to keep track of that woman,” he said, half chastising, half amused.
A genuine smile tugged at my lips. They’d gotten married the summer before the fire, in a small ceremony down by the lake, and the memory was still one of my very favorites.
“I’m glad you’re back, ladybug,” he said, his voice gruff and serious again. “Val is, too. And Chels…”
I couldn’t help the laugh I snorted as he trailed off, harsh as it sounded.
“She’ll come around,” he promised, squeezing my shoulder. “She might not say it, but she’s happier than any of us to see you.”
Bullshit, I thought. But before I had the chance to disagree with him, the lights changed, the room quieted, and Chelsea floated her way onto the stage.
The dress she wore was white and gauzy, and her hair was in her signature braids that she’d tried and failed to teach me how to do more than once when we were kids.
Even I could admit that she looked the part.
She seemed strong and confident and so reminiscent of my mother that my chest tightened.
It was physically painful to remember how close we’d been, for so long.
My oldest and greatest friend. My sister, really.
But just like Wes, she felt more like a stranger to me now.
And unlike Wes, she wanted absolutely fuck all to do with me this weekend.
Seeing her up there without my mom was terrible enough that my eyes finally betrayed me, and one lone tear snaked its way down my face. I brushed it away. I could not let myself break. Not yet.
Chelsea thanked everyone for our endless support of Dread’s Cove as we ushered in a new generation of world changers, a new generation of kids who would get to experience the best summer camp in the world.
She beamed and applauded us, saying that we were the ones who had made this weekend possible, that we were the ones who were allowing something beautiful to grow from such tragedy.
How lucky these children were, thanks to the generous donations from all of us in this room tonight.
How lucky they were, at long last, to see this place restored to its former glory.
Though I clapped along with everyone else, I disagreed. Instead, I wondered if the kids were lucky at all.
If, like we were, they’d just be lucky to make it out of this summer alive.