Chapter 40: Chapter 40

His car wasn't in the driveway.

It had been missing from its spot the five other times I'd driven by after school in the last week. The only difference in the scenery this time that had me pulling onto the side of the road across the street was the sight of a new car in its place.

"He there?" Katrina asked. She had exams in her AP classes to study for, so she was accompanying me in the form of my phone's speaker. It was sitting on the dashboard, nestled into a small alcove right behind my steering wheel.

"No...I mean there's a car. But it's not his."

"What kind?"

"Hell if I know," I said, but I was still stretching over the passenger's side seat anyway, trying to glimpse at a brand. "The logo looks like a bird. A Bentley?"

"Maybe a Chrysler."

"Aston Martin's look like birds too."

"Mini Cooper's are also—"

The sound I made next cut her off. It was a noise of pure panic. I'd meant to voice something that let Katrina know what I'd seen, but all that came out instead was a stream of obscenities as I yanked the lever of my seat and propelled myself backward. The force of my head hitting the backseat so quickly left me lying there for a minute.

"Carson?" Katrina asked frantically. "What is it? What happened?"

I remained where I was, eyes fixated above me. "The curtain upstairs. I didn't see someone standing there until they closed them."

"Oh, boy."

"I feel like a stalker, oh my God."

I inched up a bit, watching the window upstairs in the shadow of where I was lying. After confirming that the curtain was shut, I picked my seat back up. My hands fumbled for the gear shift.

"Well," said Katrina. "At least you know he's there."

"That's good and all, but I'm getting the hell out of here."

"What? Now's your chance!"

I had shoved the gear into drive but didn't release it. My foot remained on the break. "What if he saw me?"

"So, what if he did? He can't hide. You know he's there now."

I sighed loudly, pushing the gear back into park. When I withdrew my hand, I cast a fleeting look at the window before I dropped my head onto the steering wheel. "This was so not how I planned this."

Katrina's only response was a light laugh.

I picked my head back up, my eyes landing on the driveway. "I wonder whose car that is."

"Beats me."

"What happened to his?"

"Repair shop?" Katrina guessed.

"That would explain why he's been gone from school..."

"But, why would he go missing for so long when he has another car to use?" The phone went silent as Katrina and I were struck with the same thought. "You don't think...he has someone over...?"

I was staring at the car, but as she spoke, my eyes began to narrow.

At this point, I wasn't entirely sure if it was fair of me to feel jealous. After everything that's happened and everything that I'd learned, staring up at Jesse's house hit differently in my heart than it had ever before. While I wanted to feel resentful, all I could really feel was contentment. He deserved to know the truth, and if he really did have someone over, then he could decide what he wanted to do with the new information once he knew it.

Just like I did.

"I think I'm going to try my luck," I said, shutting off my car.

There was a small clatter on Katrina's end. A second later, I could hear her voice through the speaker much more clearly than before. "You're going to knock?"

"Yeah." I pulled my phone from the dashboard. "I'll let you know how it goes."

"Alright. Good luck, Carson."

"Thanks, Kat."

And with that, I was alone. I kept a watchful eye on the windows of the house as I opened the door of my car and stepped outside. The house itself seemed much larger just then. Nervousness crept in, but before the self-doubt could stop me in my tracks, I shut the door and began to walk across the street.

Small details of the mystery car came more into focus as I neared it. It turned out to be an Aston Martin after all. The silver paint was as glossy as it looked from a distance, absent of any dirt or cracks. I might've assumed it was a new car, were it not for the small air freshener shaped like a tree dangling from the rear view mirror inside.

A pink tree.

I swallowed.

Approaching the door, my senses began to grow sensitive to any possible noise coming from inside. I stalled for a second, listening intently.

When nothing met my ears right away, I quickly jammed a finger into the doorbell. The action itself sent my heart rate spiking to new heights, but I knew treating it as if ripping off a band aid was the only way I would've been able to go through with it.

But the anxiety only welled up even more when I wasn't met with a response right away.

I rang the bell again.

Nothing.

I slowly backed up, my eyes sweeping across the windows on the first floor before I started to watch for the ones upstairs.

I had seen someone, didn't I? The curtains had definitely moved. There was no possible way I could've imagined it.

A few more steps down the pathway granted me another perfect view of the house. I stood there for a minute, trying to match what I remembered of the inside of the house with what I was seeing from the exterior. That was the living room. The stairs curved up and led in the opposite direction. Jesse's room didn't overlook the front, it was the back—

The door opened.

My head whipped around. The movement as well as a sudden gust of wind blew tendrils of hair in my eyes, but when I brushed them away, I didn't see Jesse at the door, but a girl instead.

A woman.

My lips parted, eyes widening a bit. "I..."

The woman and I stared at each other as my sentence died off.

She set a hand on the door, long cream-colored nails tapping at the wood. "Are you here for Jesse?" she asked.

I had been about to say no, purely because the sight of this woman—this beautiful woman, with her heart shaped face and sleek black hair—left me feeling so intimidated and small. There didn't seem to be any traces of distaste in her gaze, but there was a feeling of superiority in the way she stood. It made me almost want to mumble apologies and stumble back to my car.

But I wasn't going to get anywhere by running away now.

I clenched my fist and forced myself to remain where I was. "I am," I said to her.

She waited a bit, lingering at the door until her eyes narrowed at me. But it was only when she opened the door wider and walked through that I realized she hadn't been regarding me in judgement, but in curiosity. Her eyes were searching mine as she walked, up until she stood right before me in the sunlight. And it was at that moment, as the light hit her face, that I noticed the dark shade of blue in her eyes.

"Are you Carson?" she asked quietly.

I nodded mutely.

She didn't say anything to that. Behind her, the door opened even wider, revealing a man peering through, looking both agitated and confused.

"Who is it?" he asked, gruffly.

The woman didn't respond to him. Her eyes stayed on me, a familiar smile lighting up her face. "I'm Florence. I'm Jesse's mom."

Oh. I'd deduced that seconds before, but after hearing it from her, it seemed to confirm it all over again in my mind. My eyes left hers and settled on the man behind her—Jesse's dad.

"That's Beau, there." She looked at him. "Say hi, hun."

"Hi," the man said.

Florence took a few steps toward him, lowering her voice ever so slightly. "This is Carson. You remember Carson, don't you?"

The man looked at me, back at Florence, and then another time at me before recognition fell over his face. The rough demeanor he'd first walked out with seemed to melt away. "You're Jesse's girl?"

That single sentence seemed to rock right through me. I could feel the blood pumping in my ears as I prepared myself to say no, no I'm not. But as Florence and Beau stared at me, I felt the spotlight shining at my feet and I just couldn't help but wonder why Jesse's didn't tell them that him and I haven't spoken in over a week now. Why didn't he tell them how we fared in what Kale had done?

"It's a bit complicated," I finally managed.

"You can say that again," Beau said from the door. "Strange kid."

Florence shot him a look. "Jesse is not strange."

"Always had a girl over before this one." As Beau was speaking, he was moving away from the door, disappearing further and further inside the house. "Thank God he finally settled for one! Don't need any more of them breaking more of your vases, Flora!"

My eyes widened at that last part, but I managed to hide it well when Florence turned back to me. "I really did like that vase," she murmured.

"Shame," I said.

"Anyway." She smiled again, gesturing to the house. "Would you like to come in?"

"Oh, I shouldn't. I was just hoping to run into Jesse. I haven't been able to track him down, and if he's not here..."

"He was definitely here this morning. He leaves early for school and doesn't come back until late."

Unless my recon skills were lacking, there was no way he had been at school. I'd searched for him everywhere all week—his locker, his lunch hour, and even out by the parking lot where his car never was. Where could he possibly disappear to for an entire day—for a week—if it wasn't at school?

My shoulders sagged, defeat tasting a lot more bitter than I expected. Unless I lingered around in a bush until sundown, there was no way I would be able catch him—

"Do you want me to find him for you?"

Florence had never looked like such a perfect image of hope until that moment. That was, until, I considered the fact that Jesse had no reason to disclose his actual location to his parents.

"I don't want to be an imposition," I protested.

"It's not a problem." She was pulling out her phone as she spoke, tapping at the screen. "He tells me everything."

My eyebrows rose. I didn't doubt that he did. I'd believed all this time that he'd only talked to his mother about me one time, but it must have been more than a few times if her and his father knew my name so well.

Not a few seconds after Florence tapped at her screen, her phone dinged with a notification. She smiled. "He's gone to the beach. By Kimora Pier, he says."

I made no reaction to the words, too overcome with the memories of when I'd last been there.

"Do you know where that is?"

It's kind of hard not to remember where I committed my first real act of vandalism.

"Yeah, I do."

* * *

The drive to the beach took a little less than half an hour. The traffic wasn't so bad until I reached the winding roads of the coastline, but even for a Friday afternoon, the congestion wasn't as bad as it normally was.

Driving down the beach, the worry I'd felt earlier, about Jesse lying about where he was made a second appearance. The unease seemed to double as I approached the familiar parking lot I'd been in all that time ago.

But any bouts of nervousness snuffed out when I saw it.

A lone, black Camaro parked under the shade of a single tree.

I pulled into the parking lot, coming to a stop right beside it. As I shut off my car and stepped out, I watched the Camaro warily. Sneaking a look inside, all I could see was a half-empty bookbag. Textbooks were thrown haphazardly on the passenger seat. A paper was lying over the center console, a pencil beside it, eraser shavings scattered like confetti over the sheet. But no sign of the boy it all belonged to.

I glanced up, looking around me.

The crowds usually kept to the north side of the beach, where all the shops and hotels were. The south side tended to be lonely due to the tides behaving too aggressively for children to be around. It was why, if there ever were parties thrown, it was usually in this area. And it also explained why, when I approached the line where the concrete ended and the sand began, I only saw people my age and older wandering around.

But from where I stood, none of them were Jesse.

I brought my hand up over my eyes, shielding myself from the rays of sunlight beaming down as I scanned the area. A family was off to my left. A boy and a girl sat in the sand ahead of me. Small groups of friends walked by me, but none of them were him.

I couldn't help but wonder if the bush strategy from earlier would have yielded better results.

But then the sight of black hair in the distance staggered that thought.

I took a few steps forward, tilting my head at the lone figure standing on the pier. He was turned away, head down, pressed against the railing behind him. There wasn't any possible way to discern any details in his face, but I was already moving toward him anyway, knowing deep down that it couldn't have been anyone else.

After a short backtrack onto the parking lot and up the path by the public restrooms, I made my way up a short set of stairs that led me right to him.

Jesse's eyes were on his phone, fingers tapping at the screen. Strands of hair billowed around his face, the wind wafting in the scent of brine from the currents of the ocean.

I slowed to a stop when I was a few feet away, hesitant in disrupting the image of him standing there.

But all too soon, his eyes dropped from his phone, skirting along the floor where I stood and rising slowly to meet mine.

Everything that had happened since I'd last seen him hung like a boulder lodged in my throat. Kale, Farrah, the party—but all that I could manage was a small sigh at the mere sight of him. He looked so calm and cool as he stood there, but I could see the same memories swarming me do the same to him as well.

I wasn't quite sure where to start.

"You're hard to track down," I said.

"I must have been." I'd anticipated talking to him many times throughout the week, but it didn't occur to me until hearing his voice how much I'd missed it. "Especially if it took you this long to find me."

"I had help."

"I know." He glanced down at the dark screen of his phone one more time before he slipped it into his pocket. "My mom told me you went by."

I expected as much. "She took me by surprise."

"They came back a few days ago. Took me by surprise, too."

A warm silence fell. Finding comfort in the atmosphere thus far, I moved closer to him, my hands finding the railing a small distance away.

"Is this where you've been all this time?" I asked quietly.

"I've been around." He'd glanced away, peering over at the fisherman sitting at the end of the pier. The sound of laughter filled the air, as well as the crashing of the waves just below us. "What about you?" he asked, still turned away. "Pretty sure you haven't spent this long looking for me."

I pursed my lips, unsure if I wanted to reveal how adamant I'd been in finding him. But then I realized it didn't matter. "I have, actually."

"What would Kale think?"

That brought me up short, but I didn't hesitate with an answer. "I don't care what he thinks. He was a mistake."

"You don't just make out with mistakes."

My mind wanted to get on the defensive, but I knew better. Losing my temper didn't fare well for either us last time, and I wasn't about to let it diminish the reason I'd come at all. "I didn't come here to fight with you, Jesse."

"Then why did you? You had a lot to say before."

"That's because I didn't know anything before."

"But now you do?"

"Yes. I do."

He shifted against the railing, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well it's obviously more than what I know."

I tasted the words in my mouth before I said them, still unsure about where to begin. "Kale and Farrah..." I started, my voice growing steady by the second. "The party, the kiss—they planned it. They drugged you so that it was easier to put on a show for me."

He looked confused. "Drugged?"

"That's what Katrina overheard them saying," I said. "It's the truth."

"I mean..." He let out a dry, humorless laugh. "It sounds a bit extreme."

"I thought so too until I confronted him."

He'd been looking away still, but at my words, he turned back to me. "You're telling me you went to talk to this asshole alone again?"

I bristled. "I wanted to know the truth. And besides, I wasn't completely alone."

"You could've asked me!"

"You knew about as much as I did!"

"We could've figured it out together!"

That might've been true. It really only took Katrina chasing me down to piece together the fact that there were inconsistencies in the story. If I'd managed to catch up to Jesse that day, we might've been able to see that something wasn't adding up.

But I'd been so wrapped up in the doubt I'd been protecting myself with.

And aside from Jesse's disappearance, I had also been sick.

However, none of it changed the fact that I had already tried to figure it out with him long before. "I tried asking you about Farrah so many times—"

"And I lied," he cut me off. "I get it, okay?"

"I just wanted you to tell me the truth."

He pushed away from the railing, his chest rising and falling deeply, blue eyes staring out to the water. And then he turned, hands finding the railing right beside me. He lowered his head, hair falling over his eyes. "I didn't want to lose you," he finally said. "It always felt like I was on the verge of it, and I didn't want some stupid mistake that I hardly even remembered to ruin it all. Especially not with how I felt."

My hand ached to reach for his, but I remained where I was. "I'm sorry."

His eyes met mine for a second before they dropped to the small space between our hands. And like me, he didn't move to close the distance either. "So am I," he said.

Laughter echoed around us once again. We both looked down to the source. Below the pier, there were some people setting up blankets to watch the sunset. A group of people were gathered down by the water, splashing at each other.

"Why did he do it?" Jesse asked. "Did he ever tell you?"

"At first, he told me you stole his girlfriend a few years back."

Jesse laughed. "You'd think he'd be more mad at the cheating girlfriend than the guy she cheated with."

My eyes remained on the ground.

Jesse's voice was softer when he spoke again. "But do I look as stupid as I must sound? Because as much as I want to kill him...I just can't find it in me to hate you."

"I wouldn't blame you." When he went quiet, I looked at him. "I really am sorry."

"I know."

That defensive tic from earlier returned. "I wouldn't classify what you saw as me cheating, though," I sputtered out. "He'd never done anything like that before. He completely blindsided me."

Jesse was looking at me now. "This fucking guy cornered you?"

"You're not exactly innocent here, Jesse."

"Your point?"

"I'm not defending him! But you did the same thing without asking either."

"I was an asshole. Point still stands."

"We both know he's a dick," I said. "No need to remind me."

Jesse looked back out to the ocean, looking lost in his thoughts. "You said at first? Did he give you another reason?"

I remembered that day so clearly in my head, like a scene playing out from a movie. My thoughts before and after I'd confronted him circled around me. "I think he was lonely," I said. "He thought him and me might be alike. He started taking the game he was playing too seriously."

"Was that the plan? Leave me for him?"

I nodded slowly.

Jesse scoffed. "He's clearly not lacking in imagination."

"Well, whatever it is he's lacking, he makes up for it in manipulation and self-loathing." I could still hear the last words I'd said to him. "He'll have a blast in college."

"I'm sure he will."

A long while went by, the two us standing there in a comfortable silence. The sun was beginning it's slow descent into the water, painting the sky in gradients of orange, yellow, and purple.

"What now?" Jesse asked.

We both observed the scene ahead of us: the waves gathering and spilling onto the land, the tide receding and returning with more urgency than before.

"I don't know," I said.

And I really didn't.

I'd imagined hundreds of scenarios during my search for Jesse. It was all I could do to prepare myself for whatever might happen. I'd imagined he'd turn me away, dismissing what I'd learned as the excuses of the girl who regretted what she'd done. In another scenario, I imagined he'd welcome me back with open arms with no care for the repercussions. But I always knew none of that had been close to what was likely to happen.

As Jesse and I stood there, staring out to where the sky met the ocean in the distance, I knew this was the only scenario that could've played out.

I'd always known that there was a word for the way my heart stuttered around him. I'd felt it long ago already. But it still felt like there were more conversations to be had before him and I could talk as we always had. And as unsure as our future was, I don't think I was ready to tell him how he made me feel quite yet.

The sun touched the ocean in the distance—a picturesque sight, but I looked at Jesse instead.

Despite my own warnings, I felt like I might've said it just then anyway.

Until his hand finally touched mine.

I felt his skin on mine like a light caressing the walls of a dark room. And as my hand curled with his, I felt the reassurance there. The patience he'd always had with me. As the sun began to slip away, one last resounding thought echoed in my head.

We had all the time in the world now.

〰️

and that literally marks the end

(⌣_⌣")

at least until the epilogue, lol

since day 1, this story has gone hundreds of directions in my head. there's scenes i've left in from years ago where i believed it would go in a completely different way, only to change my mind mid-way. but despite the indecision that nearly made me close my account to start fresh, i always knew this was how i intended to finish it.

for everyone who has stuck with this story from the beginning and even to the ones who have recently began reading, you have no idea how grateful i am. i never believed i was worthy of calling myself a writer when i was 13, but you all made sure to make me feel like one, even now years later, and i'll always remember it.

thank you for reading.

- anna

💖