Wicked Charm(43)

"Yes. But Willow, you're the one who actually did save Beau. You taught  him that it's okay to believe in another person. I guess I'm saying that  I'm glad he didn't listen to me."

I watch Charlotte's face, but it's impassive, as though she's talking about the damn blue sky.

"And what about you?" I ask. "Are you better for it?"

"I don't know about that. But what I do know is that my brother is  happy, and that makes me think it might, just might be worth it to  believe in people again."

Slowly and steadily she's making a change. Though I see the wall erected  around her, it's becoming more transparent. Her talking openly and  honestly with me here and now is proof.         

     



 

"You gave Beau a reason again," she says.

"A reason for what?"

She smiles, and this time it's not cunning or wicked or harsh. It's open and beautiful and real.

"Everything."

She stands and begins walking back to the house. No explanation. No goodbye.

I want her to say more. I want her to open up. I wish she'd look at me  again the way she just did. I wish she knew that she doesn't have to be  alone in this world.

"I keep picturing Jorie's wild hair!" I blurt.

Charlotte pauses, back still to me, but I know she's listening.

"I've been thinking of her laugh, her companionship. It's not so much  her I miss, though there is a little of that, but more the idea of  friendship. She was rotten, that one, but that doesn't mean all friends  are."

Charlotte still doesn't move.

"Know what, though?" I say. "Your hair is wild, too, and so is your  grin. Maybe all this time I was looking for a best friend in the wrong  place."

This time Charlotte does turn around. She has an open look, as though  someone has scraped away years and layers and buckets full of masked  expressions.

She says only one word, but its meaning is worth a million sentences.

"Maybe."

She walks away, through the cabin door. I wonder if she knows that she'll end up coming out the other side and into my life.

The door doesn't even have time to close before Beau emerges. His feet  carry him straight to me, though admittedly quite slowly, cautious of  his healing stomach.

I weave around fallen pinecones and discarded swaths of moss to meet him halfway.

He says hello by kissing me and kissing me until I can hardly breathe, and I think I like this type of silence more than words.

"Come with me," he says against my lips.

We take a pebbled dirt path, not too far, until it meets the forest. The  trees above us sway melodically. Acorns tap, tap, tap on the ground as  they fall. Wings flutter and soar. And all the while, the swamp babbles  as though telling us a story or welcoming us home.

We settle into a good spot.

"Will you stay here now?" I ask.

It's a question that's been bothering me. Technically he and Charlotte  still have ten days until their eighteenth birthdays. Could they  possibly be put in foster homes? I wonder if Georgia law would allow an  almost-eighteen-year-old to be considered a legal adult.

"Yes. No one is interested in messing with us. With Jorie gone, we're  cleared of any wrongdoing, and the swamp is safe. We'll turn eighteen  and then nineteen and forty and sixty and no matter what age, I'll never  want to leave," Beau says, leaning into me and smelling deliciously  like soap and marsh.

I never want him to leave, either.

"How about this," I say "we'll both stay here as long as possible."

Beau laughs. "I might be able to agree to that."

A pinecone falls from the tree above, and I watch it roll off into the water.

"How are you doing with losing Jorie?" he asks.

It's hard to bridge the gap between the friend I had and the murderer she became.

"I wonder if I could have done more, somehow saved all those girls," I  say. "I miss the Jorie I thought she was, but maybe with time, it'll get  easier. I'm convinced something good has to come from this."

Beau watches me, understanding clearly visible in his stare.

"I think you're right that change will come," he says.

Neither one of us wants any of the deaths-the girls, his grandpa, Jorie-to be in vain.

"I feel it, too, you know … the guilt." He sighs and it takes him a moment  to find his voice. "It all started with me hurting one girl's heart,  but I've decided to be better. More open. Considerate. Thoughtful."

I take his warm hand in mine. I lost a friend. He lost a family member. I gained perspective. I think he did, too.

"What happened with Pax and Grant?"

Both of us suspected them, a little in part because of Grant's jealousy  and Pax's quietness. I owe them an apology, even if they don't realize  that I'd questioned their innocence. And next time I see them, I plan to  straighten it out, clear the slate. Maybe even help Grant learn how to  talk to girls so that he can get one to stay longer than ten seconds. I  smile at the thought.

"We talked," Beau says. "I apologized for not putting more trust in my  friendships with them. Now Grant can see that my life isn't something to  be jealous of. I told them that I lost my parents, but I'm not ready to  tell them how just yet. It's something, right? I suppose I should tell  you that I'm sorry, too."         

     



 

"For what?"

"For not opening up easily. I'm trying, though."

"I know that."

Maybe he doesn't have an open door to his heart, and maybe that's okay.

"What about the cabin?" I ask.

"Though my grandpa is gone, the house is willed to us-Charlotte and me. You know what this means?" he asks.

I do. It means that he gets to stay my neighbor. It means that he doesn't have to lose everything.

"That you can be in the place you love without worry," I say.

I lean against his chest, gently placing one of his arms around my  waist. Beau's lips are featherlight on my temple. Above us, cotton-ball  clouds blot an expanse of steely blue sky.

I think about how his cabin will feel with the absence of his grandpa.  It's a drastic change for him, one that can't come easily, one that's  bound to have a few hiccups. I take a deep breath and gauge my next  words.

"Are you doing okay with missing your grandpa?"

He hasn't had a lot of time to grieve his passing.

"It's hard," he whispers.

His fists clench, and he stares off at the trees and leaves and  nothingness. And then he does a funny thing. He exhales and grins.

"Before I forget, I'm supposed to deliver a message," he says.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Think you could tell Old Lady Bell that my grandpa never stopped loving her?"

I smile. "I could do that. Believe it or not, she might not mind hearing  those words." Then, on a more serious note. "You know you still have  me, right? No matter what."

A crow perched above us caws.

"I know."

"You're free, Beau. You suffered another loss, and you survived it. You  don't have to live in fear of caring-that's the best part. Without  caring, you never truly live."

I'm far from a place of understanding his pain, but his bravery is right here, in plain sight.

He stares off into the distance, only his profile visible. I admire his  features, my gaze tracing the strength in his jaw, his shoulders, his  body.

"Look at me."

Slowly, he does.

"I'm not going anywhere. You can trust in me, in us. I choose you, Beau.  Though you're a little bit wicked, you are also thoughtful and kind  and, damn it, I love you."

He stills. And then he smiles the biggest smile I've ever seen in all my life.

"You love me?" he asks.

"So what?" I say. "You love me, too."

He pulls me tighter against him.

"You love me," I continue, "even though you don't have to and even  though you haven't said it, and especially even though you never  actually wanted to. You still love me."

I don't care that I'm transparent. I don't care that I've left my heart out on the swampy soil.

"You are completely in love with me, Beau Cadwell, and the feeling is mutual."

He doesn't deny it. Instead, he kisses me.

He kisses me like the sun kisses the sky every morning. Like the forest kisses the shadows. Like murky waters kiss the dirt.

"Willow," he whispers, "I do love you."

I relish the taste of his lips. I press against them again and again until the sun breaks right through the leaves.

"Is that the first time you've told a girl that you love her?"

"It might be the first time," he says.

"By ‘might be,' do you mean ‘is'?"

"Perhaps. But probably not."

"Or you could be lying right now."

"Or maybe not."

"You are."

"No way to know for sure."

I grin. "Are you feeding me your damn riddles again?"

"Did you honestly think I'd ever stop?"

"I sure hope not."

The sun drips rays over us, and I lean my head toward the sky, letting it warm my face.

"Look at us, Beau," I say as his fingers curl around mine. "The swamp fits us. We fit us."