Every Little Piece (28 page)

I pull into Seth’s family home and turn the key. The engine stills. All my memories of Seth and me at his house roll toward me. I can’t believe so much happened to him that one fatal night, and I knew nothing. Maybe at Justine’s party if I’d only seen past his angry words to the hurt beneath. Maybe…but then I refuse to think like that. It’s a habit I’ve picked up the past year that’s going to be hard to break. Enough stalling. I have to tell him the real truth. Not his false truth that he believes is etched in stone.

I knock at the door and his mom opens it immediately. “Haley!” She hugs me. “It’s so good to see you.”

She studies my face and must know that not all is well. Maybe we can chat another time. “Is Seth here?” My voice sound breathless from nerves or fear I’m not sure.

“No, he’s not.”

“He’s not staying here?” I question.

She shakes her head. “He stopped by once. He didn’t tell me where he’s staying…” Her words trail off, and I see her hurt. Everyone is hurting from that night.

“I’m sorry. I’d stay and talk but I have to find him.”

“Go then. Go. He needs you.”

I rush back to the car, my mind racing. Where would he go? Katie. She might know. I drive back, careful to focus on the road and not speed. The Seaside Inn looms in front of me, my home and safe haven for the past year, and my last hope to find Seth. I’m so thankful for it, even if I used it to hide from the real world.

I slam the door and race through the back door into the kitchen. Tom looks at me with surprise, but I don’t try and explain.

“Is Katie here?”

He motions toward the seating area.

“Thanks.”

She’s taking an order and I sit at the bar, impatient. I curl the edges of the paper placemat at the counter. She smiles and points out her favorites on the menu. She’s a natural at this. Way better than me. Her contagious smile affects everyone close to her. She catches my eye and holds up a finger. She rushes through the rest of the order and then heads my way.

“Haley?” she asks, tentatively, knowledge lurking in her eyes.

“What? You know something. What is it?”

Her face falls and she whispers, “He’s gone. There was something he had to do.” Her words keep gushing out, but that’s all I need to hear.

I stumble away and back through the kitchen. I check my phone but he hasn’t texted back. Part of me knows he won’t. Out in the back parking lot I slump against the wall, broken once more.

He’s gone.

I stand on the edge. The horizon stretches endlessly, like I should have the whole future ahead of me. That anything is possible. It’s funny I ended up here, at Raker’s Bluff, the one place seated in my memories.

Someone once said that wishes come true here. That the wind carries the wishes away to whoever oversees this kind of thing. I’ve never made a wish. I was happy. I didn’t want to use someone else’s wish for my own selfish desires like getting an A on a chem. test or my parents not finding out that I snuck out to a party. Not when there might be someone who desperately needed help.

Like I do today. I have more than one wish. For the first time, my heart beats with the sound of many wishes. I thought about this long and hard on the drive over here, but I still don’t know which one to speak and release into the breeze.

I wish Seth would change his mind and turn around to find me.

I wish that when I wake up tomorrow it would be last year at this time before the party, before everything.

I wish to have my friends back or that I’d died in their place.

I close my eyes and let the breeze tug at my body. I wish peace for Seth. That he would know love and happiness. That somehow from all this he’ll learn the truth and be set free, too.

I try to be noble but as I think these thoughts, a part of me crumples on the inside. My legs shake and I drop to my knees. I’m such a liar. All that bullshit sounds good. The first tear splashes onto the ground. I didn’t think I had any left.

Wishes can go to hell. The deepest part of me that aches and cries out can’t be fixed by a mythical wish. And I know that truth. That one simple truth. That I’m too late.

He’s gone.

A new wish flutters about, a butterfly with wings of hope, rising from the ashes of my life. I’ve been given a gift. One I never expected to receive. Through the revelation that someone has been arrested and thrown in jail for what happened, I have another chance. It won’t be easy, but I’ll try. For Kama. For Brin. For my family. And for me.

Fear presses down this rising hope, refusing to set it free. What if I speak it and it doesn’t come true? I’ll shatter. Into a million pieces. Too many pieces to put back together.

The words come, and I whisper, “I want to live. Really live.”

I sit and watch Haley, wondering what she knows, if she knows the truth. She stands on the edge of the cliff, her arms wrapped around herself. I want more than anything to be the one comforting her, touching her.

My heart aches for the year we lost because I was a coward. She’s been living with guilt. If I’d gone to the police, this past year would’ve been so different. I don’t expect her to forgive me or want me in her life. That’s too much to ask.

But she needs to know the truth.

For some reason I can’t get myself to open the car door. She mesmerizes me, the wind teasing her hair, her shirt clinging to her body. I try and memorize this image so I can remember her this way. She shakes and drops to her knees.

My hand goes to the door. I try and still my beating heart and lift the handle. The door swings open and the cooler ocean breeze rushes in. I’m on my feet. I walk toward her, my footsteps muffled by the patches of grass and the wind. Ten feet away I stop. She’s crying.

“Haley,” I whisper.

She perks up and listens. I try and say her name but my voice won’t work. Slowly, she stands and turns. Her eyes are wide like two bright moons in the night sky. Tracks run down her cheeks and even though she’s rumpled and her eyes are rimmed with red, she takes my breath away.

I love her. I never stopped.

My body reacts and wants to be close to her, wants to feel her pressed up against me. I ache for her. Every little piece of me. All we can do is stare. She licks her lips, and I stare.

“Seth?”

I nod, my body shaking. There’s so much to talk about but words don’t come. We both stand and stare, drinking each other in. A hunger is in her eyes that I haven’t seen for a long time. Loose hair catches on her mouth and she doesn’t move to tuck it behind her ears. Then all of a sudden a sob escapes her and she’s running to me.

It only takes me a couple seconds to react and I’m running toward her. We crash in the middle. She jumps up and wraps her legs around me. Then she’s kissing me. She crushes her lips against mine and kisses me like there’s no tomorrow. She slides down until her feet land on the ground. Her fingers dig into my hair and then she’s holding me against her like she never wants me to leave.

We stagger back, losing our balance, but not wanting to let go of each other. And I can’t pull my mouth away from hers. I didn’t expect this and I’m scared to know why. Is this goodbye? Through the haze of desire I remember why I’m here. For truth. I break our kiss and see the hurt in her eyes.

“I have to talk to you,” I gasp out.

I’m so embarrassed. I attacked the guy without any warning. And now he’s backing off from me. I overstepped. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I just acted. Then I remember the news.

“Oh my God, I have to talk to you.” I’m breathless from our kiss, and all I want to do is kiss him again, but he has to know.

He steps closer and grabs my hand, but I talk first. “You’re not at fault. I know you think you are and you ran and you blamed yourself this whole time but it’s not true, not any of it.”

He tilts his head, a smile tugging at his lips.

My words tumble out. “Someone confessed.”

He grabs the back of my head and pulls me back into a kiss. I try and tell him that it wasn’t him, that they arrested the guy, but my words come out garbled. I push him away.

“It wasn’t you.”

His face breaks out in a smile. “I know.”

“How?”

“I turned myself in at the police station. They told me.” He pulls a fine out of his back pocket. “I just got a fine for hitting a parked police car, even though there’s no real proof it was me. I confessed and they accepted.” He pulls me toward the edge of the bluff. “I stayed to tell you the truth. I didn’t want you feeling guilty.”

Then it’s as if he remembers the entire last year and pulls away from me. Immediately I miss his warmth. It hits me that this is goodbye. He’s still leaving.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have attacked you like that.”

“I didn’t mind so much.” Seth smiles and his eyes are on my lips.

We turn and stare out at the ocean. I clasp my hands together to keep them from fiddling. Before he leaves I’m going to tell him everything I wanted to last year. “I’m sorry I spent more time with my friends and not enough time with you. I wasn’t trying to lead you on or play with your head.”

“Haley, it’s okay.”

“No. I need to tell you. I joked so much because I was afraid you didn’t want to be serious. Graduation came and I thought about our future and I was afraid that in the fall you’d lose interest. That we were just some high school romance. I didn’t know how to read you.”

He shakes his head. “With everything going on with my parents, I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t think you wanted more. I guess we should’ve talked a lot more than we did. About us. About the future.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence engulfs us. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He plays with a tuft of grass, deep in thought.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, “if it’s too late for us.” It breaks my heart into little pieces to say these words but if he needs to start fresh somewhere then I need to let him go.

He looks at me, his eyes soft and gentle. “I’m sorry I ran. I never should’ve left you alone. I thought I was protecting you, but I couldn’t face the truth and be in your life, knowing what I’d done.”

“What you thought you did. You shouldn’t have run, but I made a lot of mistakes too. I shut myself off from everyone. In a way, I ran too.”