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“I have no idea,” I said instead. I’d always heard that sitting side by side in the dark made it easier to talk. Maybe the adage held a grain of truth after all.

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Losing a parent, moving, starting at a new school …” She checked the rearview mirror and turned left, heading out of town. “I don’t envy you.”

“It is a lot,” I said, thinking she hit the nail on the head. Add Dace to the equation, and things were too complicated to process. Nothing felt like my life anymore. That overwhelmed me.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did your mom die?”

“Um …” I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would. Chelle made talking easy, or maybe I was tired of not talking about the things constantly running through my head. Even so, a lump formed in my throat. “A car accident.” I swallowed hard. “It was raining out, and a semi headed the other way lost control. She got trapped between the truck and a rock wall.”

“I’m real sorry,” Chelle said, reaching over to squeeze my arm. “A drunk driver killed our mom when we were little. Beth and Dani don’t even remember her. I think I do, but sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m only imagining things.”

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t imagine losing Mom before I ever had a chance to know her. Hearing Chelle’s story didn’t make accepting Mom’s death any easier, but it did lend a certain perspective I’d been lacking. At least I’d been lucky enough to have nineteen years with her; Chelle and her sisters couldn’t even remember their mom. “Did your dad ever remarry?”

“Yeah; he remarried six years ago. We couldn’t have asked for a better stepmom. She’s great.”

“That’s good.”

Chelle and I lapsed into silence for a little while, and the lump in my throat slowly shrank. I tried to figure out whether to ask her about Dace, or if I should leave him out of the conversation for now.

“You seem different than your sisters,” I said, unable to decide one way or another.

She chuckled. “I hear that a lot. Beth and Dani are more comfortable in groups than I am. I’m happier going my own way.”

“Are you all very close?”

”We are.” Chelle glanced at me, a soft smile on her face. “Beth and Dani have a tighter bond to one another, but I don’t mind. Their personalities make them need that connection, I think. Does that make sense?”

”Yeah, that makes sense.” Mom had been the same way. She’d thrived on social interaction, and had several good friends.

”What about you? Are you and your dad close?”

”We are,” I said. “He moved here permanently after he and my mom divorced. He still came to visit every weekend, but we’re like you in a way. We’re more content doing our own thing.”

”Ah. I had him for Classic Lit last term. He did kind of seem that way. He’s a great teacher, real patient.”

He was a great teacher. I smiled, glad she thought so.

”Were your parents separated long before they divorced?” she asked.

”I guess you could say that. They split up right before Dad started teaching here four years ago. When he’d come down on weekends, he’d stay at the house, but their marriage ended a long time ago. I’m not sure why they decided to make their divorce official when they did.” I thought about it for a minute. “They both seemed more relaxed once they made the decision, though.”

I kind of figured they’d stayed together so long for me, but the situation hadn’t been terrible by any means. There had never been any drama. They’d remained friends and cared about each other a great deal. They were different people, I guess.

”You never stayed with him before?”

”I stayed one night with him on my way back from a school trip up north, but otherwise staying here never came up.” I looked out the window at the blackened shape of the trees, feeling guilty. By the time he and Mom divorced, I was graduating high school and working. There had never been a great time to get away. For a million different reasons, I wished there had been, and none of which, surprisingly, had to do with my newfound fascination with a certain green-eyed hunk. I just couldn’t help but think that things might have been a little easier had I known the town a little. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like everything familiar had been taken away and I floundered in foreign territory.

Chelle changed the subject. “Are you ready for classes?”

”Ugh,” I groaned, not wanting to think about school. “I guess so.”

”It won’t be too bad,” she promised.

”I hope not. I … I don’t know. It feels weird to go back to school after everything.”

”Understandable,” Chelle said as the lights of Cabot appeared in the distance. “At least you’ll know a few faces when you start.”

”Mmm,” I responded noncommittally. I was grateful for that, but knowing other students wouldn’t make returning any easier. Mom had always been there for school things, and going without her was going to suck hard.

”Dace will be there,” Chelle said, glancing at me as we pulled to a stop at the first red light in town.

”Will he?” I made a pretense of looking out the window at the little outlet mall before turning back to her. “I wasn’t sure.”

Chelle nodded once as the light turned green, and then flipped on the blinker and pulled into the right lane. She made a quick turn at the first side street. “He’s assisting your dad with a class this semester, actually.”

I groaned, frustrated. Every little tidbit I learned about Dace made him so much more confusing. For every one answer, there were three more questions that no one even bothered to let me know I should ask. “Is there anything he doesn’t do?”

“What do you mean?”

What did I mean? I sighed. “I seem to bump into him or his name everywhere I go, and every time someone brings him up, it’s like peeling off another layer from an onion. There’s some new tidbit here, some new piece of information there.” I wasn’t an impatient person, but I’d so had enough of being out of the loop.

Chelle laughed. “He is kind of like that, isn’t he?”

”Yes, he is,” I said quietly.

”I can tell you a little bit about him, if you’d like?”

I hesitated. Now that the moment had come, did I really want to know more? I felt like I knew him, but I didn’t know
about
him. Everything was a riddle, a puzzle. If I heard more of the same from Chelle, I’d scream. “I guess so, but I have to warn you, I’m a little frustrated with evasions. They’re driving me insane.”

”No evasions,” she promised. “What would you like to know?”

I bit my lip, trying to put my thoughts in order. “When I met you the other day and Dace came up, you acted a little off. I got the impression that you knew something I didn’t.”

Chelle pulled the car into an empty lot then parked. I couldn’t tell what kind of place had been on the lot before, but there was nothing but a big, vacant building standing there now.

“I did know something you didn’t,” she said. “I ran into him after you saw him on campus during registration.”

”Oh.” I paused. “Did he say something about me?”

”In a way.” She twisted around in her seat until she was looking at me head on. “He seemed different than usual when I saw him. Distracted, I guess you could say. I asked him about it, and he told me he’d seen a girl, and that he was certain he’d never seen her –
you
– before, but he knew you.” She looked a little like she didn’t know what that meant, but wasn’t questioning it either. “Dace doesn’t say much unless it’s important.”

Well, knowing he felt the same connection comforted me a little, but it didn’t help much. He’d already more or less confirmed as much to me. I needed something more tangible. Something, I don’t know, some insight into why, I guess. Why him? Why me? Why now? I’d asked myself the same questions for days, and I still didn’t have an answer.

She frowned thoughtfully as I processed her answer. “My sisters and Mandy were partly right the other day,” she said. “Dace has never shown interest in anyone before. He’s … different than a lot of guys. I’ve always gotten the impression that it’d take something major to get his attention. When he brought you up, I knew it meant something. And then you brought him up, so I kind of put two and two together.”

”Oh.” Her response surprised me. I think I’d expected her to tell me she could see the future or some such. Nice to know her explanation was nothing so … nefarious, I wanted to say. I’d had about enough of strange in the last few weeks. “So, you figured it meant something and sent me off in that direction so we could both find out?”

She shrugged. “Dace and I are friends, and I want to see him happy. He’s been on his own for too long, you know? He never lets anyone in far. I think maybe you’ll be good for him.”

”Will I?” I asked, not at all sure that was true.

”Truthfully?” Chelle seemed to think about my question for a minute, her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m not sure. If he lets you in, I think you could be very good for him. He needs someone he doesn’t intimidate.” She lifted a brow, giving me a half-smile.

I understood what she meant. Dace didn’t intimidate me, but I couldn’t say the same for anyone else. He was beautiful, mysterious, confident, and he came across like being in charge didn’t faze him. Girls might have found the combination intriguing, but most of us weren’t secure enough to pursue someone like him.

Had it not been for all of the strange things that happened when I went near him, or for the fact he’d pissed me off the first time we talked, I’m not so sure I would have been either. I wasn’t insecure, but that didn’t matter with people like Dace. You could be as secure as you wanted and still feel inadequate when someone that capable came around. He was only twenty-one, but in a way, he did seem like the old soul Dad called him. The reason for that was simply another of the million things I didn’t understand about Dace. I envied him that self-confidence though.

“I know without a doubt that he’ll be good for you,” Chelle said.

”Oh?” I blinked at her.

She nodded. “When Mandy saw you on campus during registration, she said her heart broke for you. She’d never seen anyone looking so lost before. When we saw you last Thursday, you still looked like that, but not so much so. You were grieving, obviously, but you didn’t look as broken as Mandy said you did. Had we not known about your mom, we wouldn’t have known how upset you were. So … what changed?”

Nothing. Everything.

“Dace,” I murmured honestly. And didn’t that frustrate the crap out of me?

She smiled, her eyes softening with emotion. “You two affected each other without even trying. I don’t think there’s anyone strong enough to fight fate like that.”

Was that what this thing between me and Dace amounted to then? Fate? “Maybe,” I said. “I’ve never really thought about fate.”

“You haven’t? Why not?” Chelle asked, sounding truly curious.

I thought about the question. “I don’t know. I’ve always believed in fate, but I’d never considered how it touched my life, I guess. I see fate more in the little things, and not the big events or life changing moments.”

“What do you mean?”

I glanced down into my lap, not sure how to put my thoughts to words. “I guess I think of fate as the little things that happen to speed us on our way when we don’t, or won’t, choose for ourselves. Like losing the car keys when you’re trying to decide whether you want to go out or not. You didn’t make a choice one way or another; fate made the decision for you.”

“Isn’t it the same thing, though? Fate doesn’t mean we don’t have any decisions; it means the decisions we make are those we were supposed to make. Fate isn’t set in stone. It’s the sign post in the road in a way. If we make the right decisions, what was supposed to happen does. If we don’t, it doesn’t.”

“I have no idea,” I decided. “It probably does amount to the same thing, but I don’t want to dwell on it.”

I’d never spent much time thinking about fate before, and I didn’t want to now, either. Honestly, I simply couldn’t believe any of this was destined to happen. That my mom had to die, so I moved here and met Dace. I found it easier to believe everything fit together strictly through coincidence. The situation was too weird, too awful otherwise.

My mom died in an accident. She wasn’t supposed to die, but she did. Because she did, I came here. In a matter of pure coincidence, I met Dace and something weird occurred between us. Maybe the situation did amount to the same thing at the end of the day, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe she had to die because fate or destiny or whatever had some other plan for me.

I couldn’t help but feel as if maybe it did though, and I didn’t like that.

The feeling that something bad lurked around the corner refused to abate. I’d had enough bad in my life in recent weeks. I wanted easy, uncomplicated, and comfortable. Was that too much to ask?

“Understandable,” Chelle said. “I guess the real question is whether you’re willing to risk a little uncertainty to get your answers?”

“I wish I knew,” I confessed, laying my head back on the headrest.

Chapter Seven

W
hen Beth said the rave was being held in an old warehouse, my imagination hadn’t come close to conjuring an appropriate image. The warehouse was a massive metal structure that reminded me of a grain silo. The roof had the same slightly steepled, slightly rounded shape. The building had that same earthy scent, too, like wheat and rain. The similarities ended there.