Ripple

Chapter Eight

I turn off my car and stare out the windshield at the behemoth of a house in front of me, unable to move. Cole lives in the biggest house on Maple Falls Road, just a few houses down from Sienna.

I’ve been here a few times, but the elegance of it still impresses me. It’s painted a beautiful muted green with gray stone accents along the front and huge rock pillars that soar up to the colossal roofline. The house must be eight thousand square feet or more, and it holds half of our school when he throws a party. I try to remember the last time I’ve heard gossip about his parties, and I can’t seem to think of it. Which can’t be right, because he used to throw parties every other month.

The front door is really two doors, both of them fourteen feet tall with lead-glass inserts. An enormous wing of garage doors stretches out to the left, while the rest of the house sprawls across manicured lawns. A big pond, complete with a waterfall, sits near the lighted front walk.

Reluctantly, I get out of my car and head to the front door to continue work on our English project. Sienna’s shiny blue coupe is parked in front of one of the garage doors, like it hasn’t occurred to her she could be in anyone’s way.

Dread churns in my stomach. I haven’t spent a second with Sienna outside of school since the funeral. The last moments of our friendship occurred just down the street. I step up onto the porch and then stop. I can hear the whisper of the Pacific. This house has a gigantic deck with a beautiful view, the best in Cedar Cove.

Unable to stall any longer, I reach up and hit the doorbell. Pretty, elegant chimes ring out inside.

Cole swings the door open, smiling as if he’s happy to see me. He runs a hand through his tousled brown hair as he motions me to follow him into the house. He’s wearing a thick, emerald green sweater and loose blue jeans. He’s not wearing shoes or even socks, and something about that feels surprisingly intimate.

The entryway is soaring, probably thirty feet tall. A chandelier dripping with crystals hangs high overhead and pristine, polished hardwood floors, inlaid with intricate designs, head in every direction.

I follow Cole around a corner and into an enormous industrialsize kitchen, with dozens of cherry cabinets and granite countertops. Beyond it, floor-to-ceiling windows cover an expanse of at least thirty or forty feet. And then there’s the view. Cole’s house is perched on a knoll overlooking the rolling sand dunes and the living, breathing ocean. It looks so close I could reach out and touch it. The breaking waves are a couple hundred yards away, nothing more.

This is going to be hard. The sun sets in ten minutes. And as soon as it does, the sea may as well be calling my name—screaming it straight into my ear. We’re going to have to get through all of this quickly.

I turn away from the shore and back to the kitchen. Sienna is sitting at one end of the big center island, twisting a strand of hair around her pen.

She looks up and gives me a hard look, as if she’s waiting for me to insult her. But I can’t muster the words. She rolls her eyes when I fail to come up with anything to say and looks back down at her notes.

“Do you want something to drink? A soda or bottle of water or anything?” Cole asks.

I shake my head and sit down on a stool, the furthest one from Sienna. Cole sits between us. I dig my bent note cards out of my pocket and pile them in front of me. Cole’s are already sitting on the countertop, perfectly flat.

Sienna scowls. “You better not lose any of those. I worked really hard on them.”

“Whatever,” I say.

She pauses a second, like she wants to fire back, but then she just rolls her eyes. “Okay, so, thanks to that stupid fire drill, we’re out of time. If we don’t figure this out tonight, we’re screwed.” She gives me a long, lingering look, like I’m responsible for a stupid fire drill. Like I wanted to spend twenty-five minutes standing in the parking lot this afternoon while the fire crew figured out that some genius pulled the fire alarm as a prank and there was no fire at all.

“As moderator, I figure I’ll introduce the book,” Sienna says, holding a pink pen in her hand. There’s a page of loopy, girlie handwriting in front of her. “I’ll talk about the history of it, the popularity, the television show, et cetera, leading into the diverging commentary from both sides: those who see it as trash, diluting the quality of our literature, and those who see it as a satirical portrayal of the upper class.” She flips a page in her notebook. God save us, there’s another whole page filled with her writing. “The introduction should take three or four minutes, and then we’ll start the actual debate.”

I nod, my stomach growing heavy. I know without turning around that the sun is little more than a sliver on the horizon. The light in the room has a buttery, warm quality to it.

“You guys have reviewed your note cards, right?”

“Yes, Sienna.” I want to remind her that up until Steven died, I was her only competition for valedictorian. After that night, I spent two weeks away from school, and I made no attempt to make up the homework. I got B’s that quarter. The only time I’ve ever had less than a 4.0. That one blemish is enough to keep me a step behind Sienna’s flawless record.

It should have been her, falling apart when he died. And yet instead, it turned into fuel. Instead of melting down, she became empty and mechanical. “Excellent. So, you’re going first since your standpoint is positive, and then Cole will obliterate your argument. . . .”

Sienna keeps talking, but her voice becomes little more than a hum in my ears. The sun has set, and it feels as if invisible lines have been lashed around me, as if the ocean is reeling me in. This is the closest I’ve been to the ocean at dusk in two years. I clench my hands in my lap and impatiently tap my feet against the hardwood floors, eager to give into the urge to leave this place and walk across the dunes.

My irritation grows as Sienna drones on. This is a debate, not rocket science. I grit my teeth and force myself to listen to her. But try as I might to ignore the sea, it’s nearly impossible. It’s like the tide is actually lapping at my back, begging me to turn around.

It takes us another ten excruciating minutes to run through how the debate will work. With each passing moment, everything inside me coils tighter. And then, finally, we’re done.

I stifle the urge to run full-speed out of the house and into my car.

Cole walks Sienna and me to the door, and I taste the freedom, can almost feel the water of my lake washing over my skin. We step across the threshold and part ways, not bothering to say good-bye to each other. I’m just sitting down in my seat when Sienna’s tires squeal and she rips out of the driveway, disappearing through the iron gates. I guess I wasn’t the only one ready to go.

I shiver against the cold as I turn the key. But then . . . nothing. Instead of the car sputtering to life, all I hear is a series of clicks. A lump forms in my throat in an instant.

No, please, this can’t happen. . . .

I close my eyes and turn the key again, holding my breath, but still, the car refuses to start.

Seriously, this can’t be happening. I have to get up into the mountains. I have to get to my lake. I have to swim.

Tears spring forward and I can’t stop them. If I can’t get to the lake . . . if I can’t swim, and it gets worse and worse . . . would I buckle? Would I swim in the ocean?

No, no, that won’t happen. I won’t let it. I’ll get the car fixed if I have to sell a kidney to do it.

But no matter what I tell myself, panic swells in my chest. The tears come faster and faster. They spill over my eyes and trail down my cheeks, dropping off at my chin. I put both hands on the wheel and bury my face in my arms. My body racks with the sobs, shakes with them,

I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

A tapping on the window makes me jump, and I look up to see Cole standing there. I can’t make out his expression through the tears.

“Go away,” I say, my voice bloated and raspy.

He tries the door, but it’s locked. I close my eyes and try to wipe the tears away, hoping that by the time I open them, he’ll have just disappeared.

For a second, I think I got my wish, because he stops tapping on the window. But then I hear the passenger door squeak open, and I hear him slide into the seat beside me.

I close my eyes tighter. “Please, just go away,” I say. Why is he here? Why, after two years, does he give a damn?

I feel his hand on my arm and I jerk away. I don’t deserve comfort. Not after what I did. Or could do again.

Cole tries again, placing his hand on my shoulder. This time I don’t pull away. The heat of his fingertips burns through my jacket. It’s been so long since anyone has touched me. The weight of his hand feels like a thousand pounds; it’s so unnatural and unfamiliar. But it’s a good weight.

“Are you okay?”

I raise my head and glare at him, then try to wipe the tears that still brim in my eyes. “Do I look okay to you?”

“You haven’t looked okay since Steven died.”

I turn away again and rest my forehead on the steering wheel. I can’t believe he just said that, so simply. No one ever cares if I’m okay. “Everyone thinks I killed him.”

“I don’t.”

For some reason his admission just makes the tears come anew. I purse my eyes tightly, willing them to stop, to disappear. “Why?”

“Because I saw the way you looked at him. You would have done anything to save him.”

For a second, I let the tears fall without wiping them away. I take in deep, unsteady breaths, my eyes shut, concentrating on the feeling of his hand on my shoulder.

It seems as if eternity passes in silence, with Cole’s steady, unwavering presence beside me. None of them know how much they hurt me, but now he does. I turn away from him, finally getting myself under control. Thanks to the fogged-over windows, it now feels like we’re the only two souls left on earth.

“So . . . has it just been one of those days, or what? You’re not the type to break down like this.”

I swallow and turn back to him. I don’t have the energy required to guard my emotions right now; I just look right into his hazel eyes—more green than brown—and try to keep my lips from quivering all over again.

I . . . I just . . .” I choke back the words I want to say, the words that would surely pour out if only I uncorked them. “I can’t afford to fix it, and my grandmother doesn’t have a car so I drive us everywhere and . . .” I let my voice trail off, because I sound pathetic to be so worked up about a car.

He stares at me for a long, pointed moment. He doesn’t believe me, and I know he wants to say so. “Maybe I can fix it,” he says, his voice soft. “I’m not the mechanic Steven was, but I helped him enough to pick up a thing or two.”

I blink rapidly, keeping the tears from swallowing me whole all over again. “Thank you.”

Cole sighs. The sound stretches out and lingers there. “All right. I’ll open the garage door and we can push it inside.”

I nod and look at him again, grateful he isn’t pushing for something I can’t give. “Thank you.”

He nods, his eyes still on mine. Then he pulls away and climbs out of the car, taking all of the air with him as he shuts the door.

I stop myself from calling out after him. Two years of not talking to anyone, and now everything wants to burst out at the first possible chance. But I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t be that person. I can’t invite him in.

I wipe the fog off the window and watch as Cole punches a series of numbers into a keypad. The door slides up, and he jogs back over to me, motions for me to unroll the window. “Put it in neutral and I’ll push you over there.”

I nod and do as he says. A moment later, I’m rolling into the garage. I should look ghastly in the bright lights, my eyes like sandpaper, my nose still sniffly. But I know the truth. I know I probably look just as pretty as ever. The curse of being a siren means I will always be beautiful. Even when I don’t feel it.

Cole shouts at me to pop the hood, so I reach down and hit the lever. It takes him only a second to unhook the latch and get it open. “Go ahead and turn the key,” he says.

I twist the key in the ignition, and just like before, I hear nothing but clicks.

I can’t see Cole, but he’s moving around, looking at things. “Okay, that’s good.”

I let go of the key and it’s silent once again.

He comes around to my side of the car, wiping his hands on a paper towel. I roll down the window but don’t get out. Somehow, having the door between us makes it feel safer. He looks at me with soft, concerned eyes, as if I’m fragile. “I think it might be the battery. Did you leave the lights on?”

I shake my head.

“Why don’t you leave it here, and I’ll drop you off at home? I can try and figure out what it is.”

The panic grows inside my chest. It’s instantaneous, like a dozen balloons trying to expand inside my lungs. “No, I can’t. I need my car. You don’t understand—”

“Hey. Calm down, okay?”

His voice, so soothing, makes me choke down the hysteria. He rests one hand on the windowsill and fishes a set of keys out of his jeans with the other. “Why don’t you take my car, and I’ll see if I can’t get yours fixed? We can swap them back tomorrow.”

I stare at the keys dangling in front of me. “I can’t take your car. It’s worth more than—”

“Take it,” he says, jingling them again.

I should say no. I should tell him that I’ll stay here and help him fix my car. But if I stay, we’ll talk, and talking can lead to me telling him things. Whatever happens, the important thing is to avoid being tempted by the nearby ocean.

If I take his car, I can at least swim tonight. That will buy me one more day before the agony sets in.

I reach out and take the keys, slipping my finger into the key ring. “Are you sure?”

He nods. “Not a big deal.”

I stare at the keys for a long moment. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I look up at him, and the fluorescent lights in the garage seem to be making a halo around his head.

“Because I know you didn’t . . .” He swallows. “I know you didn’t kill him.”

My heart twists in my chest, the hollowness growing. I have the overwhelming urge to tell him he’s wrong. I did kill Steven.

I get out of the car and follow him to the other end of the garage, until we’re standing in front of his shiny SUV. “Just be nice to her, okay?”

And then before I can stop him, he wraps his arms around me, and we’re hugging. I stiffen for a moment but then give in to the temptation and rest my cheek against his shoulder, letting him hold me as I breathe in the warm, masculine scent. He smells like the woods, like one of the big cedars or a Christmas tree. “Get some rest,” he whispers.

I climb into the car and back out into the darkness. He clicks the door shut. I’m frozen for a long moment, staring at him. Just before he disappears, he gives me a wave. By the time I finally wave back, the door is already shut.

I shift into gear and leave him behind, rolling down the smooth drive. When I get to the end of his street, I turn right, heading for the mountains.