Mallory,” Mom called from the kitchen. “Lunch is ready.”
I joined her at the kitchen table, eating grilled cheese and drinking soda. We ate in silence, not really looking at each other. She didn’t start clearing the dishes when she finished, just sat with her hands folded on top of the table. “Are you sure?” she asked.
I put down my sandwich. “I’m sure.”
Dad came into the kitchen and said, “Smells good.” He grabbed his grilled cheese off the pan on the stovetop and backed out of the kitchen. “I’ve got some phone calls to make.”
“He’s happy,” I said.
Truth was, Dad had been smiling for days. Ever since I asked him if he knew anything about what happened to a boy named Jack Danvers.
“Never heard of him,” he’d said at first.
“He was a boy who disappeared in the woods and . . .” I thought of the makeshift cross. “Danvers Jack, maybe?”
His pen froze an inch from the paper he’d been writing on. “What do you know about Danvers Jack?” he’d asked.
“He wandered off during initiation,” I said. “So they say. And they never found his body. Some people say he haunts the woods.” I thought of Reid telling me how he thought he could feel something out there. “They say they can feel him.”
Dad’s face cracked—first down, then up. And then he was laughing. “Haunting the woods, huh? Is that what he’s been up to?” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, and laughed some more.
“Dad?”
“Danvers Jack wandered off, that’s for sure. Couldn’t stand the idea of being trapped anywhere. Of anyone telling him what to do. We’d been marched into this ravine and left there for the night. Tradition, as I’m sure you know.” He grinned at me. I guess he didn’t realize how well I knew that ravine. “Anyway, about an hour in, someone noticed he was missing. Everyone panicked. He didn’t show up back at the dorm or anything, but when we walked into first period, he was sitting at his desk, smiling at us. Became a bit of an urban legend, I guess. Or, like you said, a warning.” He smirked.
“Stay with the group,” I said. And Dad smiled, like we shared a secret. I leaned forward and said, “I didn’t.”
And then he was laughing again. “Of course you didn’t.”
“Maybe in twenty years, someone will name a dorm after me too.”
“Name a dorm after you? Oh, Danvers. Other way around, Mallory. Danvers Jack isn’t his name. He was named after the dorm. We had several Jacks that year. He was the Jack who lived in the Danvers dorm. So when they were trying to find out who went missing, someone said ‘Danvers Jack.’ And it stuck. He was my roommate.” And then he started laughing again.
And then so was I, because all this time Reid didn’t realize he’d been learning about his own father. Didn’t realize how close he’d always been to him. Didn’t realize it was him he felt standing at the edge of the woods. Dad said, “And here I thought he was gone for good.”
Jack Carlson, gone but not forgotten.
“You don’t have to do this,” Mom said. “This isn’t about Dad. Or me.”
“I know.” I picked up our plates and took them to the sink. “It’s for me,” I said. Then I slid on a pair of flip-flops and said, “I’ll be back soon.”
Then I let myself out the back door and the high gate, walked down the alley and across the road, where no green car waited, and I let myself into Colleen’s backyard. Her window was closed this time. And anyway, it’s not like she could’ve gotten up to open it herself.
I knocked on the back door. Her mom opened it and let me in, though she didn’t look even remotely pleased to see me. I wasn’t sure if that was a new thing or not. I never saw her after Brian died, since Colleen had been grounded and our parents weren’t exactly friends, so I wasn’t sure if the new anti-Mallory attitude had started back then or if it wasn’t until after her daughter left home and almost got killed for me. Either way, I didn’t blame her.
She ignored the fact that I was standing in the kitchen with her. It looked like she was fixing a tray to bring to Colleen’s room. “Can I take it to her?” I asked.
She waved her hands at it, which I guess was as much civility as she could muster at the moment. I picked up the tray and walked to Colleen’s room.
Colleen smiled when she saw me and turned off the television across from her bed. “Room service. What’s the occasion?”
“Ha freaking ha,” I said, and set it on the dresser so I could put the lap table over her legs. She still had a bandage on her head, but that would heal soon. Her left ankle was in a short cast, and she wiggled her blue toenails at me. “My mom did it for me. It’s kinda nice having everyone waiting on me. Except when I have to pee. Then it sucks.”
Her right leg was in a full cast. She’d had surgery. She’d walk fine after physical therapy, the doctors promised. But there would be scars. I was there with her in the hospital when they’d told her. I saw her face drop for a minute, and then she flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Bad-ass chicks have scars. Right, doc?”
That poor doctor, who looked like he was barely out of med school, never stood a chance. He blushed and looked away. “Yeah, scars are cool,” he’d said. And that’s when I knew that Colleen would be fine.
I placed her lunch on the table and said, “So, I need to tell you something.”
She took a monstrous bite out of an apple and said, “Go on.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m going back to Monroe.”
Colleen swallowed the chunk of apple and pounded on her chest, like it wasn’t going down on its own.
“You’re what?”
“On Monday. I’m going back.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “Dylan’s gone, you know. His mom is gone.”
“I know,” I said. Which was all there was to say, really. I didn’t try to explain that I wanted to move forward—that I didn’t want to see the house where he had lived, or the streets that he had walked on. I wanted to focus on the future, whatever comes next, like Reid did.
Colleen took another bite and watched me from the corner of her eye. “You better not be ditching me for some boy,” she said.
I rolled my eyes and grinned. Like that was even a possibility. “I’m not,” I said. “I promise I’m not.”
And I wasn’t. That day, two weeks earlier, when I stood on the ridge and saw all the paths out of the woods, all the paths I could choose, I saw Colleen in every one.
“I’m mad at you,” she said.
“I know,” I said. And then I sat beside her while she ate. Colleen and me, we were forever. Moving away wouldn’t change that. “Thanksgiving break is only a month away,” I said.
“By the way,” she said as she chewed, “I like Reid for you.”
“Maybe in the next life, huh?”
Colleen passed me the apple. I took a bite and she said, “I’m pretty sure we only get the one.”
I rested my head on her shoulder as she ate. And I thought of Krista and Taryn and Bree, who were God knows where. Detention center, or homebound, awaiting trial. Awaiting their fates. I used to think Bree was pathetic for wanting to be part of something, no matter what the cost. But with my head on Colleen’s shoulder, I thought I understood.
Mom helped me pack the next day. I dragged my suitcase down the hall and paused in front of my grandma’s old room. “Do you ever sense her?” I asked.
Mom jerked her head, like she was unprepared for the question, then shrugged. “Sometimes,” she said. “Like if I’m thinking of something we did together. I think the memory keeps her alive.”
I nodded and brushed my hand over my shoulder, where the handprint used to be. It had scabbed over. Faded to a faint pink. I could only see the marks if I looked closely. It would be gone soon.
“I’m ready,” I said.
This time, my parents drove me all the way up to Monroe. They helped me unload the car and move into Bree’s old room, which felt odd, like her presence was left behind. She had left that feeling in my old room, though, too. My old room had been converted to storage, full of things that would soon be forgotten.
Dad patted me on the shoulder and Mom said, “We’re staying at the hotel overnight, and heading back really early.” Then she pulled me into a hug and said, “Good-bye, Mallory love. Be good.”
It was the same thing she’d said to me when she left me at the train station. But this time I wasn’t mad. This time I hugged her back, because it felt possible.
I waited until after lights out. People knew I was back. It was the latest secret up for distribution. Though it wasn’t a very good one. Nearly everyone knew. Reid had to have known I was back. I didn’t know what it meant that he ignored it.
I snuck out my window—Bree’s window—and ran across the quad. I knocked on a window on the first floor, and some guy from the soccer team opened the window and flinched. “Let me in?” I said. “I need to see someone.”
He looked confused, still half asleep, but he reached a hand down and helped me into his room. “Thanks,” I said. And as I left his room, I could imagine all the rumors running through school the next day. The whispers, the secrets. None of them important.
I tiptoed up the flight of stairs and stood outside Reid’s door. And I froze.
For some reason, I was thinking of that night on the beach with Colleen, after the fight with Danielle, after we slept on the cold sand. I was thinking of the next morning, of her shaking me awake and the sky looking pink behind her. “Come on,” she’d said.
“What?” I’d asked, squinting against the new light.
“Let’s go swimming.”
And then I was awake. “This is when sharks eat,” I’d said. “No thanks.”
“There aren’t sharks here. Get up!”
“Ever see Jaws? There are so sharks here.” Then I’d rolled back onto my side.
“Fine. There are sharks. Two. Maybe three. In that whole goddamn ocean. What are the chances?” She’d tilted her head to the side and pulled on my arm, and I knew she knew she’d won.
I looked at the scratch Danielle had left on my arm. “This’ll sting.”
“Only for a second,” she’d said, and I knew she was right. “Unless the sharks smell your blood,” she added. “But don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” Then she smiled and showed me her nonexistent arm muscles.
“Well, in that case . . .” I let her pull me up and we ran for the ocean.
And I thought that this moment, in front of Reid’s door, felt exactly like that, except I was facing it on my own. Like racing toward uncertainty. Like anything could happen. Anything at all.
I raised my closed fist and knocked gently.
Nothing.
I was about to knock again when the door creaked open. Reid rested against the door frame, the door still mostly closed, blinking back against the light from the hall. He stared at me, his mouth slightly open, his hair god-awful perfect, and shifted his weight to the other foot.
I stared back. And I reminded myself that I was capable of absolutely anything. That I was capable of this. I looked right into his eyes and I said, “I’m sorry.”
He let out a long breath, and he opened the door.
I took a step inside.
I thought again of swimming in the ocean that summer morning. We dove under the first wave, and Colleen had been right. It stung. But just for a moment. And then my head was above water again and I sucked in air and I looked around for Colleen. She was swimming toward me, laughing. The swell from a wave moved around us, and she reached out a hand for me.
And I thought forgiveness felt exactly like that. Like salt water and a moving current and a hand, reaching out for me.
Reid’s fingers brushed mine.
I closed my fingers around his hand and held onto him. For this moment. And the next.