Golden (18 page)

He shrugs. “I probably should have left and moved on. Traveled, forgotten about it, let it go. But I kept staying and hoping, and eventually I opened this place and . . . that was it. Here I am.” He spreads his hands out, then drops them to his sides like that's it. That's all there is to his story.

It's the saddest thing I've ever seen, and it's all I can do not to tell him everything I think right then and there, but fear holds me back. What if I'm wrong? What if I get his hopes up only to have them come crashing right back down?

The jingle of the bell above the door and Kat's voice keep me from having to decide.

“Parker! Good, you're here.” She brushes past me, hardly registering Josh standing there. Her eyes search the walls. “Where's the painting? I need to see it.”

“Kat—” I hope the tone I say it with is enough for her to understand that she needs to stop right now.

She does, and seems to suddenly notice that Josh is standing there looking from one of us to the other like he's waiting for an explanation of what the heck is going on. She looks him over carefully, her eyes wandering down the length of his arms. “Oh my God. Did she just tell you? Did she tell you what she thinks about the painting?”

“Kat.”
This time I say it through gritted teeth, and since I know it's not enough, I grab her by the elbow and give her my best smile. “I need to talk to you. Outside. Now.” I don't give her a chance to argue. Instead, I yank on her arm and
usher us out the front door of the café, leaving an understandably confused-looking Josh inside.

“What are you
doing
?” I can barely contain my anger at her. “Why would you
say
that to him right now?”

“Why
wouldn't
I?” She shakes my hand off her arm. “Parker, I read the journal. She was totally in love with him, and he was with her, and they screwed it up. Don't you think he'd want to know if there's even the smallest chance that you're right?”

I glance inside, but Josh is nowhere to be seen. I don't blame him. “No,” I say. “I don't think he'd believe me. As far as he's concerned, she's gone. It's a closed chapter of his life. I don't want to open it up with any false hope until I know for sure. I think he had enough of that the first time around.”

“Are you
kidding
me? It's not a closed chapter of his life. He never got over her. That's why he is the way he is.” Kat looks from me through the window of the café and back again. I don't say anything, and I don't move.

“Fine,” she says finally. “But just so you know, you're ruining the picture I had in my mind of how this whole thing is going to go down.”

“Really?” I laugh. “What did you have pictured?”

“Never mind. Can you follow me to my house? We have to figure out how we're gonna do this thing.”

“Right. Let me just—” I stop short at what I see. “Is Trevor Collins sitting in your car?”

“Yeah.” Kat dismisses the question with a wave of her hand. “Long story. I'll explain when we get there.”

“Did you . . .” I don't want to finish the question.

“Yeah.” She takes a step back. “I showed him the journal. He's coming with us. Meet me at my house, okay?”

She turns before I can argue, and when she gets in her car, Trevor Collins waves at me through the windshield. And now I know. I've lost my chance.

“On Going Unnoticed”

—1928

I drive angry. When the light up ahead turns yellow, I hit the gas instead of slowing down, and by the time I fly through the intersection, it's definitely red. I don't care. I almost want to just keep going, right out of town. If it wasn't for the fact that Kat still has the journal, I might. Just go and take the trip by myself and forget about the fact that my best friend not only did the one thing I asked her not to by showing Trevor the journal, but she's also done a thing I didn't think I
needed
to ask her not to do. She had no right to show Trevor the journal. Or invite him on our trip. And now, all of a sudden, this . . . thing with him. I know I've said over and over I'm not interested, and I didn't think I was. Not really. But still.
I didn't expect her to make him her end-of-the-year fling. I thought she knew me better than that. Now I just feel like
I
should've known better.

I hit the gas again, hard. I don't know how I let this happen. How I let a real chance with him pass me right by. Especially now, with the end of school so close. I thought I liked the idea of possibility always floating there between us, but it's going to disappear soon, with graduation. I'll leave for school in the fall, and he'll head off to snowboard around the world, and the possibility that was there will dissolve into nothing without ever having a chance.

The next light is already red, and though I'm almost mad enough to sail right through the empty intersection, I slow down and come to a complete stop. And in that pause, when I finally take a breath, I know how I let this happen. I know exactly how. I did what I always do—deny and avoid and chicken out because I was scared of what might come next if I actually took a chance. A knot of regret tightens in my stomach, and frustration at myself and my continual inability to just
do
things. To just take risks or chances. Maybe if I had the words
CARPE DIEM
tattooed on my wrist I'd be different. Or
WWKD
—What Would Kat Do? That'd be a good one.

Ugh. It's too much to think about on top of the journal and Julianna, so I try not to. Instead, I turn the music up loud enough to drown everything out and drive the rest of the way to her house trying to sing along, even though I don't know the words to the song. By the time I pull into Kat's driveway, I've almost managed to focus all of my anger on the part about her showing him the journal and inviting him
on our trip instead of on the other stuff that I don't want to think about right now, because being mad instead of hurt makes me feel a little stronger when I get out of the car.

Unfortunately, that strength lasts exactly the two seconds it takes for me to see Kat and Trevor in her living room window. They're sitting next to each other on the beige sofa. Close. She's smiling and talking away, and he's smiling too, eating up every second of it, I can tell. I know how her particular brand of charm works, and I'm sure he's just as helpless against it as every other male who comes into contact with her. I feel my jaw tighten, and have to fight the strong urge to just go home and leave them to their impulsive hook-up. But there's the journal I need to get back, at the very least.

It's this fact that forces my feet up the stairs of her front porch. I try to relax my face and concentrate on acting breezy and unaffected by Kat or Trevor or what might happen between the two of them. It'll be easy, I tell myself. I don't care anyway. He's a bad idea that I've said no to more than once. One who, if we actually went through with this trip, I'd be spending three days with, in a car, watching fall for my best friend.

My own tragic, unrequited love story.

I waver at the top stair. This plan gets worse every time I think about it, and with every second that passes, I'm more sure I can't go through with it. The conviction I felt after seeing the painting seems distant all of a sudden—like some dreamy, romantic notion that shouldn't have been more than a fleeting thought. Believing in anything more than that is likely a huge mistake—just like taking the journal and
getting so caught up in it that I've ignored everything about my real life, including my speech.

The reality of it smacks me in the chest and spreads out heavy over my shoulders. The scholarship dinner, the night that could impact my whole future, is in four days, and I haven't written a single word of the speech that literally everything I've worked for depends on. I don't know what I was thinking. Taking a trip right now is not even a possibility for me, and that's what I need to tell Kat, as soon as I walk through the door.

“Hey,” she chirps, when I open it. She jumps up from the couch in what seems like a suspiciously quick way to me, and I try to ignore all of the reasons my mind throws out as to why.

“Hey,” I answer back. Grudgingly. I don't look at Trevor, not because I don't want to, but because now it feels like I can't without being completely transparent. I can feel disappointment etched onto my face.

I keep my eyes steady on Kat. “Listen. I was thinking on the way over here—this whole trip thing is a bad idea.” I pause, and she gives Trevor a look. “It's stupid to think Julianna could still be alive somewhere. Or that she did that painting. Or that we could actually find her. I don't know what I was thinking. I got all excited reading her journal and—it was just . . . I
wasn't
thinking.”

I pause again to give them a chance to agree, but they don't. I clear my throat. “And there's no way I could possibly go, anyway. I haven't even started my speech.”

I can see Kat's trying to hide a smile, and the effort of it
makes her look like she's about to burst.
“What?”
I ask, and it comes out sounding as frustrated as I feel.

“Really? You have to write your speech? Is that the best you can do? What you just said there?”

“I don't
need
to do any better than that,” I snap. “It's important.” Trevor shifts on the sofa and I soften my tone, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. “And I'd never get away with it anyway. It was a stupid idea. I'm embarrassed that I even came up with it in the first place.” I glance in his direction, but keep my eyes on the floor, because that wasn't the only stupid idea I've had in the last few days.

Trevor nods slowly, taking a step toward me. “Hm. That's too bad, Frost. Because we found something in the art supply closet that might change your mind.” This gets me. I look up at him. He smiles, and grabs something from behind the couch, stands up, and holds it behind his back. Then he moves in closer to me than he was before. “Something you might wanna see.”

I step back, cheeks flaring up, but I don't look away from his blue eyes. There's something in them that really does make me want to see. “What are you talking about?” I ask. Curiosity has trumped my awkwardness. “What did you find?”

Kat doesn't wait for him to answer but jumps in, and her words tumble out in one ecstatic rush. “Okay. After I left the library I read the whole journal during second, and with all that stuff about art in there, it got me thinking that there might be something left of hers in the art supply closet because everyone knows Mr. Potter is a serious hoarder, so I asked Trevor for the keys and he wanted to know why, so I
told him the whole thing and he offered to help. And then we found this.”

Trevor pulls a canvas out from behind his back and puts it on display in his hands. “Voilà. A Julianna Farnetti original. Signed and dated. From before the crash.”

I blink once, twice, three times. Then I let my eyes trail over the familiar lines of the Minarets and the sky behind them. It's almost the same painting as in the cafe, but less complex, without the sharp emotion or sophistication of the other one. Like an earlier draft. I stare at the blank space in the sky where the stars outline the constellation Orion in the painting in Kismet. This was before everything. Before she met him. Before she had to make a choice that didn't feel right and lied to do what she thought was. Before the sadness of
Acquainted with the Night
. I swallow hard and bring my eyes down to the bottom corner. Her signature is there in this one, scrawled out in the same swirly, hopeful hand as it is on the front of her journal, which Kat is now holding up next to it.

“Can you
believe
it?” Kat can barely contain herself. “What are the
chances
? That's why I wanted to see the painting so bad when I got there today—to compare them—but you yanked me out of there like a crazy person.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I didn't want you to say anything to Josh yet.” I can't take my eyes off the painting. “This is amazing, I—” I simultaneously forgive her and feel like the world's worst friend for jumping to the worst possible conclusion about her and Trevor and what they were doing together. “I am an idiot.”

“Actually,” Trevor says, handing it to me, “I think you might be kind of a genius for putting it all together.” He smiles when he says it, and I melt a little inside.

Kat jumps in front of him again. “So like I was saying. It's her. It has to be her. It's fate, and they're supposed to be together, like you said. Like in all your sappy-ass movies.”

The doubt and worry from a few moments ago try to hold on, but everything in me wants to agree and run with this idea. I look down at the painting in my hands. “I don't know . . .”