Golden (6 page)

The stillness of the house when I get out of the shower is both heavy and familiar. My mom's boutique has demanded her time as far back as I can imagine, so I'm accustomed to being at home alone. Lots of times, I actually prefer it. But this morning it's unsettling. Julianna's journal is still sitting right there in my bag, and no one in the world knows I have it. No one in the world would know if I opened it up and read more about who she was and what she wanted, and all the things she missed out on. But I can't, I tell myself. Or rather, I shouldn't.

What I
should
do, what I need to do, is actually get started on my speech. A week and a half isn't a lot of time to write something that so much depends on, so I sit down at my desk and turn on the computer. While it powers on I crack my window to let the fresh air in, and I light the vanilla candle on my desk, both of these things part of my work ritual. And then I take a deep breath, open a new document, and close my eyes a moment to focus. How to begin? A strong opening line. I open my eyes and the cursor blinks impassively on the blank page. I think of Julianna's handwriting.

“Tell me, what do you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”

I type the question and let it float there in black and white. Wonder for a moment what my most honest answer would be, if it were all up to me. Then I delete it and the blank page seems fitting. I really don't know.

Downstairs I pour a bowl of cereal and eat it at the counter in front of my mom's laptop. It's open to her e-mail, which I close before checking my own. Nothing. I try Facebook, hoping maybe Kat sent me one of her slightly inappropriate messages there. Again, nothing. Just for the heck of it I type Trevor Collins's name in the search box and click on his page when it comes up.

Apparently I'm not the only one awake early with time to kill. He's just added a new album entitled
Going Big
. I smile and open it, curious. It's all snowboarding photos, which makes sense. He's carved out his own path in the snow since he got here, one that'll take him around the world for competitions after we graduate.

In the first one he's in his race uniform, leaning hard into the mountain to make a turn at an obviously ridiculous speed. Following that is a shot of him holding up a trophy, eyes bright and cheeks red from the cold. I click on the next one and it literally takes my breath away.

It's of him impossibly high in the air, back arched against the blue of the sky, hand grasping his board behind him. The photo itself is impressive, but that's not what gets me. It's the expression on his face, a mix of intensity and pure love for what he's doing at that moment. It makes me wonder if I ever look like that doing anything. It really is impressive,
and it's no wonder he's got sponsors lining up. And girls, for that matter. I click away quickly at the thought, like if I stay too long, he might be able to tell I've been there looking. Thinking about him.

I close the computer and sit back on the couch, restless. I don't know what to do with today, let alone my one wild and precious life.

Julianna seemed to, though.

I get up and climb the stairs to my room, justifying what I'm about to do with every step. And this time, when I sit on my bed with her journal in my hands, it's surprisingly easy to open it up.

May 22

Mr. Kinney said he wants us to write about who we'll be in life, starting with who we are right now. Honestly, that seems like an impossible thing to do. I don't know if you can ever truly see yourself in the present. It's too close. It's easier to see who you were in the past. If I look back, I can see exactly who I was four years ago, before I met Shane.

I showed up here beyond shy, not trusting anyone, and scared of everything—from all the kids who seemed like they'd always known each other to having to start over when life as I knew it had just ended. I was an outsider in this school, with what felt like no chance of fitting in. The first day was the worst of my life at that point. I learned
what it meant to feel like I was utterly alone, to go an entire day without talking to anyone, to feel invisible. It's crazy to think, but I might've stayed that way, become a totally different person than I am now, if Shane hadn't seen me the next day. That was when I learned what it felt like to walk down the hallway with him by my side, and that changed everything.

I was late to school that day. He was too, and we met in the office. He asked if I was all right (I'd been crying), I said I was fine, he said I was a liar, and it made me smile. He walked me to class and I didn't protest, but I didn't speak, either, because he was so perfect. I didn't want to ruin it. When we got to the door, I didn't want to go in, and I could tell he didn't want to leave, but he said he'd find me at break, and he did. He was waiting for me outside of my next class, and we had our first date in the school cafeteria over undercooked cinnamon rolls and lukewarm hot chocolate.

He claims our first date was actually a few days later, when he brought me to the top of the mountain in a gondola and we ate Chinese food out of cartons and watched the lights from town twinkle below us while the stars spread out like tiny lights far above us. I remember that night too, because I felt like someone different. Better than who I was before.

But that first day we met is one of those things you look back on, and see, so clearly, that it was meant to be. He
saved me from being lost and out of place, and that's what he's been doing ever since. I showed up here in pieces. He put me back together.

He was the first person to really see me, and he's been my first everything since then.

My first kiss—in the rain, under an umbrella of pine trees, with the smell of the rain rising around us. My first “I love you,” whispered soft as the snowflakes that fell all around a few months later. He's the first person I've given every bit of myself to, and the only person I've ever truly loved.

After four years we know each other's hearts and souls. We've grown and loved and fought and everything in between, which is why, to talk about who I am, I have to start with him. The person I am now, and who I want to be in the future, is wrapped up tight in Shane, and in us together.

I can't imagine it, or me, any other way.

I close the journal, but the last line lingers. I can't imagine it any other way either, not at all. It's impossible to picture her the way she described herself before Shane, so scared and alone. I wonder, for a second, the same thing she did. Who would she have been if she hadn't met him that day?
Would her name have been one in the box that I passed over without a second glance? The things she wrote about in her journal, her entire life, might have been different. She might never have been any of the things she was with Shane. They might both still be alive instead of ghosts in our town.

As tragic as the end of their story is, I'm glad it started out this way. A real-life, meant-to-be love story. I don't want to stop reading. I flip through the pages, decide I could definitely finish it in a day, and make myself a deal: I can read it, but when I finish, I'll seal it back up and take it to Summit Lake. Back to Julianna, like I'd decided before. I won't talk about or show it to anyone. I'll act like it never existed.

“I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice”

—“THE SOUND OF TREES,” 1916

My phone buzzes from my desk, startling me more than it should. I glance at the number before I pick it up. Kat, of course.

“Morning, sunshine. Little early for you to be awake on a day like today, isn't it?” I say.

She yawns. “Jesus, yes. I need some coffee.”

“I thought you might say that.” It's the perfect excuse for her to go stalk Lane some more.

“So meet me at Kismet,” Kat says, like she's read my mind.

I glance down at the journal, weighing my options. “Maybe later. I'm kind of busy right now.”

Kat's sigh comes over the phone like a gust of wind.
“Really? What are you busy with? Sitting in your sweats, watching
The Notebook
? She forgets who he is every time, P.”

“Shut up.” I laugh. “One of these days you're going to sit down and watch it with me and I guarantee you'll bawl your eyes out. It's
that
good.”

“Whatever. So you'll meet me then? I have a plan. A brilliant plan that needs to be hashed out over coffee, with a view of Lane.”

“A plan for what?”

“For our last hurrah before graduation. It came to me in a dream.”

It's my turn for blatant sarcasm. “Really?”

“No. But it may as well have. It's
that
good. So just meet me over there in a half hour, okay?”

“Fine. I'll see you in a few.” I hang up. Look around the room. So much for curling up with the journal and reading all day. Maybe it's better this way, though. I can make it last, stretch out the story instead of reading it all in one sitting. I'll go to the coffee shop and hear Kat's plan, which, just like all her others, will involve ten things I would never be allowed to do.

The trick will be talking without mentioning Julianna's journal. It's the kind of thing that Kat would die over, and the thought of her reaction alone is a huge temptation to say something. She wouldn't believe I'd found it. And she definitely wouldn't believe I'd actually taken it and read it. I almost don't believe I did either. I give it one last look, then slide it back into the envelope and put it under my bed, safe for later.

“Are you even listening to me?” Kat asks. We're sitting at the same table we did yesterday, drinking the same drinks, but this time the café is full of kids from school who have nothing better to do with the snow day. Between the hiss of the espresso machine, the voices of everyone all around me, and Julianna Farnetti's words in my head, I haven't really heard a thing Kat's said since we sat down.