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But the bloom disappears, and so does Chelsea. I’m not feeling the heat of a summer morning, but brutal cold. It’s not the first week of June, but early March, and winter’s still got northern Minnesota in her icy clutch. I look down to find that I’m holding the silver lid of a thermos instead of a camera. Pop’s pouring black coffee into it. And I’m not standing in the ravine; I’m looking down on it as I steer my GMC along the highway above. Snow has painted the world pure white. My breath comes out in clouds. My arms are covered in the sleeves of a parka. My forehead itches against the rim of a wool stocking cap. Through the windshield, I see the sun slowly rising. Marking the beginning of yet another day of unanswered questions.

“What you
really
need is some sleep,” Pop is telling me. “You need to try, at least.” He says it loud, because the radio is on. That damned radio.

“… the search for missing teen Rosaline Johnson continues,” the local DJ announces. “Last seen leaving to attend the local pond hockey tournament …”

“And I knew it, right away,” I say. “She didn’t show up, and I
knew
something was wrong. But I kept
playing
?” I grip the steering wheel even tighter.

“Not your fault, Clint,” Pop insists, as he has for the past eight solid hours of driving. “If you’d just get some rest—”

“Yeah, well, we still don’t know where she is. We still don’t know what’s happened to her. And something
has
happened. That’s
some-
body’s
fault. I’m not going to stop just to sleep. No way.” I hit the brakes and skid onto the shoulder. I slam the gear shift into park.

“So why
are
you stopping?” But even as Pop asks it, I think he already knows.

Up ahead, red and blue lights are splashing across the snowcovered branches. Police cars are parked on the highway, blocking traffic. And suddenly I’m out of the truck. I’m running. 94/262

“Clint,” Pop calls. But I’m already sliding down the bank, my boots sinking into inches of snow. Pop’s feet crunch behind me as he tries to catch up. My lungs are on fire, burning against the cold. Black uniforms stand ahead of me. One of them sees me, holds his hand up. “Son,” he shouts, “you don’t want to be here.”

“Rosie?” I screech. “Rosie?”

Pop catches the back of my parka, but I break away. I race forward, feet sinking. Everyone is screaming, and ahead—I can see it now—a windshield, cracked, and that paint, that damned white paint, camouflaged by the snow. A Miata, roof caved and crunched.
It rolled
, I think, my eyes darting back up to the highway.
I drove by this place a hun-
dred times the past couple of days. I just didn’t see her. She always
drove too fast anyway, like a maniac, even in bad weather. How
many times did I warn her?

The officers all join in, raising their hands, all of them calling,
son,
son
… I slowly begin to realize that the scream bouncing against my skull is coming from me.
Rosie, Rosie
…

“Hey—over here.” Chelsea’s voice makes the landscape turn green and muddy and empty of police officers. Cars fly down the highway above my head, oblivious to what happened two years ago in this very ravine. But I’m still shaking all over.

Rosie’s gone.

As I make my way toward her, Chelsea kneels down next to a fleshy-looking bloom. Her camera flashes. She reaches for the orchid as though about to pick it, but I lunge forward and grab her arm, wrench her away.

“Come on,” I snap. “We’re leaving.”

“But, I—”

“Don’t argue with me,” I bellow, because being here, reliving it, makes the accident seem fresh. Not like a memory at all, but like 95/262

something that’s happening
now
. I can’t believe I let my guard down long enough to wind up here.

Chelsea

restrictions

W
hat they say about absence isn’t true
, Gabe writes.
It doesn’t
make the heart fonder—it makes the heart want to break, it hurts
so much. Just like a compass, my heart keeps pointing me straight to
you. If I didn’t have this stupid job, I’d be on my way to Minnesota …

I sigh as I balance the netbook on my knees, wiggling my toes on the front step of cabin number four. My cell phone reception might be iffy all the way out here, but Mom had to get the bright idea of bringing her netbook so she could check the incoming emails and orders at White Sugar. (It’s driving her crazy to be away from work this long … in addition to tweaking the annual cookbook, she’s already brainstorming ideas for an August wedding cake whose order came in yesterday.) And the stupid Wi-Fi connection in our cabin’s pretty rock solid. Which allows me no breather from Gabe.
Not that you need one,
I remind myself.
You love him as much as
he loves you.

Right. Exactly.

97/262

I miss you, too,
I reply, in what has become my daily exchange of emails to the guy who, according to his latest message, writes me at one in the morning when he can’t sleep for thinking of me. I wish I could come up with something beautiful to tell him. Something that would make his heart turn as sticky as a half-melted lollipop. My mind drifts forward, wildly, like a raft on the rapids near the resort, as I imagine how it will feel to finally not just touch Gabe’s hand or his mouth, but experience the
entirety
of his naked body against my skin. I imagine the moonlight seeping in through a window of the Carlyle, playing off the golden curls on his chest. Imagine wrapping my entire body around his …

But I can’t write this down, can’t even begin to bring myself to type such a thing. So all I manage to come up with is,
Carlyle: 15 days and
counting …

After pressing
send
, I absentmindedly pick up a pair of binoculars Dad’s left on the front porch and hold them to my eyes. The lenses fill with a head of black hair as Clint steps out of the lodge. I feel a gasp kick the inside of my throat as I’m forced to admit to myself, yet again, just how much I hate the idea of losing a day with Clint. He’s taking a group out kayaking today, and stupid me, I had to go and tell him that snotty stuff about thinking kayaking’s as dumb as an eight-track tape. Now I’ll lose the entire day. And the last two haven’t exactly been so great. Ever since that weird hike, when he yanked me away from an orchid and practically tossed me into his truck, things have been—
uugh
. Professional, of all things. But kind of detached, too. He’s acting like the guy behind the counter in a fast-food joint who doesn’t really give a crap if I supersize or not. So when I said no to golf or waterskiing (I mean, really—
waterskiing?
), he just sighed and shrugged. Hadn’t pushed back. Hadn’t tried to convince me I could do more, like he had when we were at Pike’s. We just hiked again; we went bird-watching. 98/262

One full week of my vacation is now gone. Another pyramid of sand is building at the bottom of another hourglass. Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe I
am
wasting this vacation. (
Bird-watch-
ing?
Not exactly the outdoor adventure he and Mom had probably envisioned. But I have reasons. Stacks and piles of them. Right?) I get tingly when I realize that Clint’s walking toward me. Because I start to think, maybe he
hasn’t
decided I’m the world’s biggest bore. Maybe he’ll ditch the kayakers so we can spend the day together. The idea makes my lungs burn with excitement.

Brandon comes banging out of the cabin behind me with his guitar case. I jump, lose the head of black hair in the distance.

“Don’t those guys have jobs?” I ask. Brandon’s been completely monopolizing Greg and Todd’s time, practicing with them incessantly. I jerk out of the way as he flops his uncoordinated, skinny body across the porch and down the front steps, banging the case against the railing and nearly knocking me in the head with it, too.

“We jam between their fishing runs,” Brandon says, so excited he’s actually out of breath. “And besides, Greg’s got a gig for us later on today. A real gig!”

“Where?” I ask through a frown. “Are you going back to Pike’s?” I shout after him, hoping he won’t be around to ruin things if Clint and I decide to grab a bite later.

What is wrong with you, Chelsea? Forget about that email you
just sent … to your boyfriend? Hmm?

“Brand!” I shout again. But he’s too busy shuffling off, his case flopping against his calves, to answer.

“And what about you?” I call after Mom’s skinny back as she scurries along behind him.

“The oven in the cabin’s no good for baking,” she replies, tossing her words over her shoulder with a careless wave. “Chef Charlie’s going 99/262

to let me use the kitchen in the lodge, in exchange for teaching him how to make a decent pie crust.”

“Don’t you think a chef already knows—” I start.

“He’s a chef, but definitely not a baker. Don’t you have something planned with Clint?”

I certainly hope so …

I glance down at the computer screen, realizing I’ve missed the P.S. in Gabe’s last email:
Anytime you feel we’ve been apart too long,
he’s written,
just look for the Chelsea Keyes Star. I’ll be looking at it, too.
I’m not exactly in the mood for a guilt-fest. So I sign out of my email account and raise the binoculars again, easily zeroing back in on the head of black hair and the muscular jaw that clenched throughout our ride back to the cabin after the orchid hunt. Clint’s shoulders sway with each step he takes up the brown trail that leads straight to cabin number four. I aim the binoculars just low enough to get an up-close view of his slim sides, remembering how his skin warmed my hands through his T-shirt when I touched him on the patio behind Pike’s, challenging him to a dance.

There’s just something about him. It’s like he’s hotter than a steering wheel in August—he burns me every single time I get close enough to touch him. But the thing about a steering wheel in the summer is, even though it stings, you still have to touch it in order to get where you want to go. And besides, sometimes that burn feels kind of good against your hand, anyway.

I shiver.
Where did all that just come from?

I put the binoculars and the netbook aside, try to act like my heart isn’t attacking my ribs.

“Just saw your dad up at the lodge,” Clint says, his faded hiking boots pausing at the edge of the bottom step. “I think I convinced him to try out the golf course at Oak Harbor. Seemed pretty excited about it.”

100/262

As soon as he mentions my dad, I can’t help picturing the way it might have been if we’d vacationed here
last
summer. I imagine Dad sitting next to me on the cabin’s front step; I picture him jabbering with Clint and me like he’s forgotten he isn’t actually eighteen anymore, dropping in the occasional
awesome
that must have been every other word out of his mouth in high school, judging by the way he’d lean on it. But I haven’t heard him say that word
once
since my accident. He hasn’t felt much about our situation has been awesome, I guess. I feel myself tense up, my entire body turning so stiff I could practically pass for a brick wall.

“It’s tougher sometimes on other people,” Clint says, slicing into the sudden silence. “It’s—got to be hard on your dad—the whole basketball thing.”

I frown, not exactly in the mood for this conversation, either. But Clint holds up a hand, stops me from telling him how wrong he is. “At Pike’s, when you said I was an athlete, you were right,” he admits. “I
was—
played hockey. When I had to quit, it hurt—my folks—as much as me, even.”

“Yeah, but I’ve seen you and your folks,” I mutter. “They—
talk
to you, at least. Not like him.”

“We were always pretty close, I guess,” he admits. “Only child and all.”

“What happened?” I ask, my stomach plummeting, like an elevator with a broken cable.
Do we actually have this in common?
“Did you get hurt?”

“You could say that.”

“During a game?”

“No, I didn’t …
have
to give hockey up. Not physically, like you did. But I couldn’t compete at the same level anymore. I tried, but my mind wasn’t in it. I wasn’t focused. They were beating me up out on the ice. Or avoiding me, which was maybe even worse. Like I wasn’t even 101/262

playing. Like I wasn’t really part of the team. They ignored me. So I decided—no more team sports for me. Not just hockey, either. I still exercise plenty, but the only battle I get into anymore is between me and the occasional walleye.”

“Better to let them remember you when you were great.”

He shrugs and nods. “Yeah. Something like that.”

I try to picture what it would have been like if I’d broken my hip, but not as badly; if I’d been allowed to get back on the court, only to discover I was half the athlete I’d been before. I imagine college scouts trickling out of the gym before halftime. Rushing to the mailbox only to find the phone bill, checking my email only to find a message from Gabe. No news of athletic scholarships. No letters of intent. A heart that didn’t just break once, but had tiny pieces broken off with disappointment’s hammer hundreds of times, every single day.

“It’s a lady slipper,” Clint says, pointing to the picture of the orchid I loaded onto Mom’s netbook. “You got a terrific shot.” When he looks back at me, his eyes travel around my face the way fingers dart through the bottom of a drawer, searching for batteries in a blackout. I start to feel my excitement bubble over … this isn’t the passive way a guy looks at a girl he’s completely uninterested in. But Clint just shakes his head, clears his throat, points again at the computer screen.

“State flower of Minnesota,” he finally says, still just talking about the lady slipper, still not offering even a hint of an explanation for the way he’d flared up with—what
had
it been? Fear? Anger?—during our orchid hike the other day. And here I am just sitting on the step, not sure how to even broach the subject even though I’m dying to. “If you ever find another one, don’t pick it,” he says. “Protected by law.” As though this somehow explains why he was so rough about hauling me from the ravine. And we both know no one could ever care that much about a flower.