Secrets and Lies(4)

It was almost a good thing that Sydney hadn’t shown up tonight, or she might have slipped and finally told her about the photo. She’d thought about telling her many times, of course, but what would be the point? Sydney and Guinness had practically been dating; she would hate Tenley for that photo. Besides, there had been no more notes, no more threats. Until now.

Tenley quickened her pace. When she was little, she used to take this walk with her dad all the time, oohing and aahing over Dune Way’s grand, majestic beachfront houses. Her dad would always admire Caitlin’s house: one of the smallest ones on the strip, but the closest to the water. “I’ll take that one,” he loved to joke.

Now Tenley lived on the strip, and not in one of the smaller houses like the Thomases’, but in her stepdad’s house at the very end, the largest and grandest of them all. When she took this walk home, retracing the steps she and her dad had taken so many times, she could almost hear him talking to her.

But tonight she heard no traces of her dad’s voice as she walked along the beach. Instead, all she could hear was the ocean, its waves clapping against the sand like a taunt. I took Caitlin, I took Caitlin. She’d never noticed just how dark this section of the beach was. Beads of sweat gathered on the back of her neck as she walked even faster.

Out of nowhere, her toe hit something hard. She lurched forward, losing her balance.

“Whoa!” someone yelled. She didn’t have time to wonder who it was. She was too busy wheeling her arms through the air, trying desperately to right herself. But it was a lost cause. She toppled over, landing in the sand with a muffled thud.

“Oh, crap,” the voice said. “Tenley?”

Tenley pulled herself up to sitting, pain reverberating down her spine. A guy was sitting a few feet away, looking up at her through strands of shaggy blond hair. Tenley recognized him instantly. Tim Holland, the boy Caitlin had just started seeing before the crash.

“Are you all right?” Tim asked. “You tripped over my board. I didn’t even hear you coming.” He nodded toward a surfboard lying in the sand by her feet.

“I’m fine.” Tenley wiped some sand off her arms. “Though, in the future, you might want to think about getting warning cones for your surfboard.” She frowned. “Wait, you were surfing now? In the dark?”

Tim laughed. “Even I’m not that nuts. No, I was surfing earlier and then I sat down and…” He looked around, as if noticing for the first time that night had fallen. “I must have lost track of time.”

Tenley shifted a little, ignoring the bruise she could already feel blooming on her hip. “So Abby’s party tonight wasn’t your thing?”

“Nah.” Tim dug his hand into the sand, letting it fall through his fingers. “I knew everyone would be talking about Caitlin, and I just don’t need all that pity, people acting like they understand what it feels like when they obviously don’t, you know?”

“Oh, do I. I was ready to clock Abby Wilkins right in her long horse face by the end of the night.”

Tim burst out laughing. “That’s part of the reason I’ve been skipping school so much. You probably have more self-control than I do when it comes to clocking people.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Tenley said with a small grin. “So what have you been doing with all your newfound free time?”

Tim shrugged. “Surfing mostly. And thinking.”

“About her.” It slipped out before Tenley could yank it back. The pain on Tim’s face was unmistakable. It gave Tenley a surprising pang in the pit of her stomach. She’d dated plenty of guys over the years, and she was pretty sure not a single one had ever looked so… raw over her. “I understand,” she added softly. “I think about her, too. All the time.”

Tim gave her a half smile. She’d forgotten how good-looking he was, when you got past the whole board-shorts-and-hemp-necklace thing. “I just keep waiting for it to get better,” he said.

Tenley looked down, rubbing at a faint ink stain on her jeans. She wanted to say something—anything—but her mouth felt as if it were filled with wet sand.

“The worst part,” Tim continued, “is how I never know when it will hit. Like I’ll actually be doing something seminormal, feeling okay, and then bam: Something makes me think of her and I just lose it. The other day I had to sprint out of English class because Miss Harbor was reading a passage aloud from Romeo and Juliet and it reminded me of how Caitlin had said she was excited to read it.” He let out a thin laugh. “Such a stupid, meaningless memory, but there I was, bolting out of the room.”

“Physics class,” Tenley found herself responding. “Newton’s laws of motion. It hit me how Caitlin would have helped me understand it and… suddenly I just had to get out of there. I went home sick for the first time in like ten years.” She blinked. She hadn’t told anyone that until now. Her mom still believed she’d come down with a twenty-four-hour bug.

Tim was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes I feel like I have no right to miss her this much. I barely spent any time with her until this summer.”

“What does that matter?” Tenley blurted out. Until she moved back to Echo Bay, she’d barely spent any time with Caitlin in the last four years. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. She put a hand on Tim’s arm. “You’re allowed to miss her.”

Tim met her gaze. She could smell the salty scent of the ocean on him, mixed with something soft and citrusy. For a second they just looked at each other. Tenley’s hand was still on his arm, and it struck her how little space there was between them. She pulled away with a cough.

“I should probably get going,” she said. “Unless I want my mom to send out a search team.” As if on cue, her phone rang, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” blasting through the night air.

Tim gave her an amused look. “Madonna?”

“It’s in honor of Cait,” Tenley informed him. “It was our favorite song when we were kids.” She looked down to see her mom’s name flashing across the screen. “She is too predictable,” she groaned.

“At least you know she cares, right?” Tim offered.

Tenley made a sour face. “Personally, I prefer the noncaring Trudy Reed.” Ever since Caitlin’s funeral, Tenley’s usually hands-off mom suddenly had both hands on her—insisting they go on long walks and eat family dinners and discuss every minute of Tenley’s day in torturous detail. The last time Tenley had seen Trudy in this kind of full-on Alpha Mom mode was after her dad died. “At least that mom let me breathe without asking permission.”

Her phone continued to ring, and she pressed the ignore button, silencing it. She’d be home soon enough; her mom could launch her tell-me-every-second-of-your-night offensive then. She dropped her phone back into her purse and stood up.

“You sure you can’t stick around for a bit?” Tim asked. “I mean, I love the seagulls and all, but they’re not exactly the best conversationalists.”

“You think I’m better company than a seagull?” Tenley put a hand to her chest, pretending to swoon. “I’m honored. But if you don’t want a SWAT team surrounding us in approximately four and a half minutes, I should get home.”

Tim laughed. “Your mom can’t be that crazy.”

“You would think.… Okay, I’m off. See you at school. The next time you deign to show up, that is.”

“Who knows when that will be,” Tim said. “But hey… if you ever need to talk to someone, hunt me down, okay?”

“Ditto,” Tenley replied. She gave him a quick wave before taking off down the beach. As she walked, she kept replaying their conversation in her head. It surprised her how nice it had been to talk to someone who really got it. It was different with Emerson and Marta; they’d had years with Caitlin, all of high school. Tenley was the one who’d only just gotten her back. Sometimes it made the loss feel even more unfair.

She was practically jogging by the time she reached Dune Way. As she hurried along the pavement, she kept her eyes on the rocky shoreline to her left, ignoring the houses to her right. It was still hard for her to see Caitlin’s house. She wondered if it would ever get easier. It never had with her old house. Sometimes she drove ten minutes out of her way just to avoid passing the yellow house they’d lived in when her dad was alive.

She’d just cleared Caitlin’s house when she heard a car rev in the distance behind her. Her pulse sped up as she glanced over her shoulder. The street was dark and empty, no cars in sight. The noise must have carried in on the wind. Still, she picked up her speed, the text from earlier seared in her mind. New game, girls.

She’d thought this was all behind her now: the running, the fear, the jumping at every noise. She was supposed to be safe again.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a car zoomed loudly onto the street behind her. Tenley spun around, her heart leaping into her throat. She was instantly blinded, a wall of white shimmering across her vision. She could hear the screech of tire against pavement as the car sped toward her, but she couldn’t see a thing.