Ripple (21 page)

Not surprisingly, Sienna’s getting a total kick out of all the attention. And I’m so relieved to be this far from the shore that I can’t stop smiling either. I have to stop myself from saying thank you to Erik about a thousand times.

I don’t know what I would have done if my date had been anyone else. How I would have avoided eating dinner right on top of the ocean. Just thinking about it nearly sends me into full-on panic. But then I force myself back to the reality of Erik and the black-andwhite-checkered table in front of us, and all I feel is relief.

Patrick pulls a Trivial Pursuit question out of the giant box on the table. “In what month does the Kentucky Derby take place?”

“May!” Sienna shouts.

Kristi gives her a look.

“What? My parents go every year. My turn!” She picks up a card, then scowls. “Well this is lame,” she says. “What decade saw names first begin to appear on the back of NFL—”

“The fifties,” Erik answers without pause. “It was the 1950s.”

I think Cole just rolled his eyes, but I can’t tell from here.

“Impressive,” she says, shoving the card into the end of the box.

Before Erik can respond, the waitress walks up and gives us a stack of menus. As the others choose their drinks, I turn to Erik. “You like sports?”

He shrugs. “What guy doesn’t?”

“Huh. I didn’t realize you were
so
into football.”

He leans in, lowers his voice. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He whispers in my ear. “But you have plenty of time to learn.”

He’s right. We have all the time in the world. Yet for some reason, the idea makes me feel a little restless. “I’m going to go to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”

I slide out of the booth and walk around the big L-shaped counter, ducking into the bathroom at the back of the restaurant. I don’t actually have to use the restroom, so I just wash my hands, staring at my decked-out reflection in the mirror. I marvel at how pretty the dress is. I spin around, admiring it. When I come to a stop, though, it feels a little melancholy.

I was supposed to wear this for Steven.

I dry my hands, tossing the paper towel into the trashcan as I exit the bathroom.

I nearly walk right into Cole.

“Oh!” I start, then back up. I go to move past him, but he touches my arm, and I go still.

“It’s not real.”

“What?”

“Your smile. When you look at him. It’s nothing like the one you had for Steven.”

I look up at him, the breath gone from my lungs. “You’re just saying that because it’s not you.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend like I’m the only one who felt something.”

I cross my arms. “I’m with Erik, and you’re with Nikki.”

“I’m
friends
with Nikki.”

I hate the surge of relief I feel at his words. “It doesn’t matter.”

Cole leans in closer. “Why?
Why
doesn’t it matter? It’s the only thing that
does
matter.”

I scowl. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“And that pretty well sums up the problem, doesn’t it?”

Anger sparks inside me. “Why do you keep doing this?”

“Because I’ve wanted to be with you for three years, okay? That’s why.”

I feel as if he’s punched me in the stomach. “But that’s—”

“The day I met you. At Sienna’s house. Steven and I were playing Ping-Pong and you and Sienna walked in off the beach. You were twisting your wet hair up into a ponytail, and then you saw us, and you smiled. . . .”

“Then why didn’t you—”

“Because you were smiling for
him.
And I would have had to have been an idiot to get in between that. And that’s why I know whatever you feel for Erik, it’s nothing like what you had for Steven. And nothing like what I feel for you.”

I look away, blinking rapidly. “If you liked me for so long, why did you wait until now?”

Cole gives me a bitter smile. “Because even when he was dead, I couldn’t compete with Steven.”

I step away from him. “I need to go back to the table.” I don’t wait for him to respond.

 

After we’re all stuffed full of eggs, bacon, and pancakes, we pile back into the limo to go home. Erik’s house is the first stop, barely ten minutes away. The limo doesn’t fit in the small driveway, so it stops half in the street.

Before Erik climbs out, he turns to me. “Come over in the morning? For breakfast, part two?”

I nod, blushing as he leans in and kisses me in front of everyone. I can’t help but feel Cole’s eyes on me, watching as Erik steps out of the limo. I don’t have to look at him to know what his expression is.

The limo stays silent for the ride to my house, which thankfully only takes moments. I all but spring out, mumbling, “Thank you” and “I had a great time.” As quickly as I can, I slam the door so I won’t see Cole’s face behind the dark tint of the glass.

They all think I’m going to bed. Instead, I creep into the house, standing outside of my Gram’s door for a long moment, listening to the heavy snoring through her door.

Then I change my clothes, and minutes later I’m starting my car.

It’s time to swim.

T
he next morning, I leave a note for Gram and dash off to Erik’s house, my hair still wet with lake water.

When he answers the door, I swear smoke pours out. “Uh, I’m not much of a cook,” he says, with an adorable sheepish grin. “I make no claims that the food you are about to eat is edible in any way.”

I laugh. He’s wearing gray track pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, his hair sticking up slightly in the back.

I smile and inhale the aroma. The smell sweeps in memories of my mother, a terrible cook, whose only mastery in the kitchen was chicken-noodle. “I’ll cut you a little slack.”

He smiles. “How very generous of you. The first batch of pancakes isn’t bad, actually. And the bacon is only two levels past crispy.”

He pulls a covered plate from the microwave and reveals a stack of slightly misshapen flapjacks. “I bought the breakfast stuff before I knew we were also having breakfast for dinner. So, uh, sorry for the, uh, redundancy there.”

“No worries. I could eat my weight in pancakes and still want more.”

He smiles. “I thought we could eat on the porch. I brought some juice and utensils out already. Grab some pancakes.”

I take a clean plate off the stack and serve up the top three pancakes. He leads me out to the back porch, picking up a small fleece blanket along the way. As soon as the door opens, the whooshing sound of the ocean greets my ears. I sit down beside him, pulling the throw blanket over my lap.

From behind the house, the sun basks the beach in a warm glow. But we’re all alone, despite the intense beauty of the vista. The sand is empty of any people or birds. It’s like this little beach house is on an island, not the edge of town.

I lean slightly on him, and take my first bite of pancakes. “They taste better than they look,” I say, between bites.

“Thanks. I think.”

Ten quiet minutes later, he takes my empty plate and stacks it up on his. Then he sets it on the small table beside the rocker. I pull my feet up underneath me. He keeps his on the ground, rocking us as he wraps an arm around me. I sigh, staring out at the beach as I lean back against the porch swing and wrap the blanket tighter around the two of us.

The morning seems extraordinarily quiet. Beyond the rustling of the reed grass and the breath of the ocean, there’s nothing.

“Did you have fun last night?” I ask, leaning my head against his chest.

“I did,” he says. “I could spend every night seeing you in a dress that short.”

I laugh. “It’s nice, though, doing . . . normal stuff.”

“Yeah, definitely,” he says.

We go quiet again, and I stare out at the ocean. Moments tick past. Waves come in and out. Birds swoop down and fly away.

And I can’t think of anything to say. It’s weird, how if we’re not talking about our curses, we don’t really have that much to say. I guess I never noticed that before.

Far in the distance, white clouds appear, but for now, most of the sky is blue.

“Beautiful,” he finally says.

“Definitely,” I agree.

“I meant you.”

I look down at my hands, feeling silly. “Oh.”

He pulls me even closer, rests his lips against the spot where the curve of my neck meets my shoulder. “I love you,” he says.

The ocean goes as silent as my heart. I swallow. It’s everything I’ve always desperately wanted to hear. Someone
loves me.

But I feel strangely trapped by the words. Like the best thing I could do right now is leave.

These last few weeks, that was what this was all about. That was why we were spending time together—so we could fall in love. His birthday is days away, now. So why does it surprise me so much to hear it? How did I manage to forget that being with Erik wasn’t just about having a normal teen experience . . . but about falling in love with him?

I can feel his breath on my skin. “This is the part where you say—”

“Why?”

He lifts his head, tries to look me in the eyes, but I don’t turn away from the beach. “That wasn’t where I was going with that.”

I sigh but still don’t meet his eyes. “I know. But why do you love me?”

“What do you mean? I love everything. You’re amazing.”

It’s hard not to frown. “No, I mean, what do you love
best
about me?”

God, how pathetic do I sound? It’s like I’m fishing for compliments. But for some reason it seems inordinately important. I have to know why he loves me.

He goes so silent. I wouldn’t even think he was beside me if his arms weren’t wrapped around me. “You’re beautiful. And smart.”

A small lump grows in my throat. I’m
cursed
to be beautiful. He should know that’s the wrong thing to say. And smart? It rings false. Erik and I have never had one intellectual conversation. He’s never even asked me what my other classes are besides English. He doesn’t know they’re AP courses. So why would he think I’m smart?

Something twists in my chest.

Either he only loves me because I can give him a normal life—because I’m his match—or he doesn’t really love me at all; he’s just saying it.

I wonder, if Cole could have loved me, what he would have said if I asked the same question. It wouldn’t have been “because you’re smart,” I know that much.

I smile and look up at him, hoping he buys it.

A
fter nearly twenty minutes in relative silence—in which we both simply swing back and forth, staring out at the ocean—things become uncomfortable. Those three little words are jammed between us. I wonder if he’s still waiting for me to say them back.

I consider telling Erik not to worry about it, that we can pretend he didn’t say it, but I don’t know if that would make things better or worse.

Finally, when I can’t take it any longer, Erik speaks. “Sienna mentioned Port Street last night.”

“Oh?”

He nods. “I was thinking we could wander around there today. It sounds fun.”

I nod. I’m relieved, because he’s acting like nothing happened, as if he didn’t just say something that requires an answer I didn’t give.

Port Street is the boardwalk area, super close to where the festival was. It’s the tourist trap, filled with its saltwater taffy stands, antique shops, and souvenir stores stuffed with things like dried-up sea stars, vials of dyed beach sand, wooden sailboats, and kites.

And that’s why twenty minutes later, I’m standing there, finding it a little ironic that he’d bring me to the most ocean-centric place in this whole town, but I try to think of it in a different way.

He’s trying to do
normal
things. Things our classmates have done all their lives. Hang out. See the sights. Besides that, he knows how obsessed I am with the ocean. I hate it because of my curse, but he thinks just because there’s hope that he can cure the curse, I’m free to love it.

It rubs me the wrong way that he’s never asked if that’s how it is for me. He assumes I love it, but he seems to have forgotten it’s still the place where I killed someone.

Why hasn’t he ever asked what happened that night? Why has he never asked who I was before he came here?

But I’ve never asked him, either. I never thought of who he was at his old school.

Was I so dazzled by living a normal life that I never looked at the guy standing right next to me?

Erik pulls me along the sidewalk, and I try to stop thinking about . . . about everything. He’s trying. He really is. And he loves me. Or so he thinks.

But I still don’t know how I feel about him. The past few weeks have been like a fairy tale, but there’s a reason fairy tales aren’t real. They seem . . . amazing in the books. But who bothers looking beyond the surface? Who even knows anything about Cinderella’s Prince Charming—other than he’s a handsome prince?

This morning’s confession has suddenly shoved that all in my face.

I swallow and try to turn my attention to the place Erik is pulling me toward. I’ve lived in this town so long, and yet it’s been years since I’ve walked this particular strip. The left side of the street has the shops and restaurants. The right side is the marina, where the chartered fishing boats are always moored. At this time of the year, things are quieter, most of the boats sitting idly along the docks, the salt water lapping at the sides of the boats.

My hand rests in Erik’s, our fingers intertwined. It feels different today. Like he’s holding on tighter.

I wore a long sundress today, one with quarter-length sleeves and a skirt that graces my ankles. It’s a little cool for it, so I added a cardigan, and some cute flats. I guess I’m wishing for summer, something more carefree. Erik is wearing Doc Martens, dark indigo jeans, and a deep hunter green sweater. The sweater’s short zipper is left undone, so that the wide collar falls over his shoulders. We must make a cute couple, the two of us. Him, with his Adonis good looks, and me, the siren, always pretty no matter what. Every time he turns toward me, smiling in that warm, happy way of his, I have to catch my breath—his eyes remind me so much of my own.