Lena pulled back gently, the way she did when something was on her mind, and stared up at me. Like she was looking at me for the first time.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I—” She bit her lower lip nervously, and took a deep breath. “It’s just, there’s something I want to tell you.”
I tried to read her thoughts, her face, anything. Because I was starting to feel like it was the week before Christmas break all over again, and we were standing in the hall at Jackson, instead of in the field at Greenbrier. My arms were still around her waist, and I had to resist the urge to hold her tighter, to make sure she couldn’t get away.
“What is it? You can tell me anything.”
She put her hands on my chest. “In case something happens tonight, I wanted you to know—”
She looked into my eyes, and I heard it as clearly as if she had whispered it in my ear, except it meant more than it ever could have if she had spoken the words aloud. She said them in the only way that had ever mattered between us. The way we had found each other from the beginning. The way we always found our way back.
I love you, Ethan.
For a second, I didn’t know what to say, because “I love you” didn’t seem like enough. It didn’t say everything I wanted to say—that she had saved me from this town, from my life, my dad. From myself. How can three words say all that? They can’t, but I said them anyway, because I meant them.
I love you, too, L. I think I always have.
She settled back into me, resting her head on my shoulder, and I felt her hair warm against my chin. And I felt something else. That part of her I thought I would never be able to reach, the part she kept closed off to the world. I felt it open up, just long enough to let me in. She was giving me a piece of herself, the only piece that was really hers. I wanted to remember this feeling, this moment, like a snapshot I could go back to whenever I wanted.
I wanted it to stay this way forever.
Which, it turns out, was exactly five more minutes.
Lollipop Girl
Lena and I were still swaying to the music when Link elbowed his way through the crowd. “Hey, man, I’ve been lookin’ for you everywhere.” Link bent over and put his hands on his knees for a second, trying to catch his breath.
“Where’s the fire?”
Link looked worried, which was unusual for a guy who spent most of his time trying to figure out how to hook up and hide from his mom at the same time. “It’s your dad. He’s up on the balcony a the Fallen Soldiers, in his pajamas.”
According to the South Carolina Visitor’s Guide, the Fallen Soldiers was a Civil War Museum. But really it was just Gaylon Evans’ old house, which was full of his Civil War memorabilia. Gaylon left his house and his collection to his daughter, Vera, who was so desperate to become a member of the DAR she let Mrs. Lincoln and her cronies restore the house and turn it into Gatlin’s one and only museum.
“Great.” Embarrassing me in our house wasn’t enough. Now my dad had decided to venture out. Link looked confused. He probably expected me to be surprised that my dad was wandering around in his pajamas. He had no idea this was an everyday occurrence. I realized how little Link actually knew about my life these days, considering he was my best friend—my only friend.
“Ethan, he’s out on the balcony, like he’s gonna jump.”
I couldn’t move. I heard what he was saying, but I couldn’t react. Lately, I was ashamed of my dad. But I still loved him, crazy or not, and I couldn’t lose him. He was the only parent I had left.
Ethan, are you okay?
I looked at Lena, at those big green eyes full of concern. Tonight I could lose her, too. I could lose them both.
“Ethan, did you hear me?”
Ethan, you have to go. It’s going to be okay.
“Come on, man!” Link was pulling me. The rock star was gone. Now he was just my best friend, trying to save me from myself. But I couldn’t leave Lena.
I’m not going to leave you here. Not by yourself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Larkin coming toward us. He had untangled himself from Emily for a minute. “Larkin!”
“Yeah, what’s up?” He seemed to sense something was going on, and actually looked concerned, for a guy whose general expression was disinterest.
“I need you to take Lena back to the house.”
“Why?”
“Just promise you’ll take her back to the house.”
“Ethan, I’ll be fine. Just go!” Lena was pushing me toward Link. She looked as scared as I felt. But I didn’t move.
“Yeah, man. I’ll take her back right now.”
Link gave me a final jerk, and we were tearing through the crowd. Because we both knew I might be a few minutes away from being a guy with two dead parents.
We ran through the overgrown fields of Ravenwood, toward the road and the Fallen Soldiers. The air was already thick with smoke from the mortar, compliments of the Battle of Honey Hill, and every few seconds you could hear a round of rifle fire. The evening campaign was in full force. We were getting close to the edge of Ravenwood Plantation, where Ravenwood ended and Greenbrier began. I could see the yellow ropes that marked the Safe Zone, glowing in the darkness.
What if we were too late?
The Fallen Soldiers was dark. Link and I took the steps two at a time, trying to get up the four flights as quickly as possible. When we got to the third landing, instinctively, I stopped. Link sensed it, the same way he sensed when I was going to pass him the ball when I was trying to run out the clock, and stopped alongside me. “He’s up here.”
But I couldn’t move. Link read my face. He knew what I was afraid of. He had stood next to me at my mom’s funeral, passing out all those white carnations for folks to put on her coffin, while my dad and I stared at the grave like we were dead, too.
“What if… what if he’s already jumped?”
“No way. I left Rid with him. She’d never let that happen.” The floor felt like it dropped out from under me.
If she used her power on you, and she told you to jump off a cliff—you’d jump.
I pushed past Link, up the stairs, and scanned the hallway. All the doors were shut, except one. Moonlight spilled onto the perfectly stained pine floorboards.
“He’s in there,” Link said, but I already knew that.
When I entered the room, it was like going back in time. The DAR had really done their job in here. There was a huge stone fireplace at one end, with a long wooden mantel, lined with tapered wax candles, dripping as they burned. The eyes of fallen Confederates stared back from the sepia portraits hanging on the wall, and across from the fireplace was an antique four-poster bed. But something was out of place, disrupting the authenticity. It was a smell, musky and sweet. Too sweet. A mix of danger and innocence, even though Ridley was anything but innocent.
Ridley was standing next to the open balcony doors, her blond hair twisting in the wind. The doors were thrown open, and the dusty, billowy drapes were blowing into the room, like they had been forced inside by a rush of air. Like he had already jumped.
“I found him,” Link called to Ridley, catching his breath again.