Magnolia (20 page)

“I know, but, well . . . just hear me out, okay?”

I nod, mentally bracing myself. I'm not sure I want to hear this—to open those old wounds again.

“I said some things that night, things I'm not proud of. And . . . it occurred to me that someone might have told you, and—”

“I heard you, Ryder,” I say, cutting him off. “I was there, hiding in those trees by the rock. I heard everything.”

He lets out his breath in a low whistle. “Shit. I am
so
sorry, Jemma. I didn't think. . . . I mean, not that it makes any difference, but I didn't know. I figured you'd had second thoughts or something and decided you didn't want to go with me.”

“I wish,” I mumble.

“The thing is, Jem, those things I said? I didn't mean them. I was there waiting for you, when Mason and Ben showed up and started teasing me. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to get rid of them, and then they started saying stuff. You know, about you.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Even now, all these years later, the memory makes me cringe.

“And I knew that if they knew the truth—if they knew how much I really liked you, it'd be even worse. I swear, in some crazy, convoluted way, I thought I was protecting you or something.”

“I still can't believe Laura Grace made you ask me,” I say. “Was Mama in on it too?”

He shakes his head. “No. Don't you get it? I made that up. My mom had nothing to do with it—she didn't even know. The truth is, I wanted to go with you. Something had changed between us, remember? At the beach over Christmas break?”

“I remember.” I'd been hyperaware of him on that trip—self-conscious and nervous and giddy and excited all at once. I'd caught him staring at me when he thought I wasn't
looking, and I'd stolen some secret glances myself.

“That was when I realized you were the prettiest girl in Magnolia Branch,” he says. “Hell, maybe in all of Mississippi. Anyway, I was excited about the dance. I even snuck into town that afternoon and bought you a corsage. I had it in my pocket when I went to the rock to meet you.”

I barely hear him, because I'm still stuck on the “prettiest girl” part of his speech.

“As soon as I lost the guys, I went back outside to look for you, but you weren't there. So I went inside and . . . well, Morgan and Lucy said you never showed, and I just thought . . .” He shakes his head. “I dunno what I thought. I was only thirteen, and I was ashamed about what I'd said to the guys and scared you didn't like me the way I liked you. So I guess I convinced myself that
you
had ditched
me
. That way, instead of feeling guilty, I could just write it off. And yeah, I realize how totally fucked up that sounds.”

I let out my breath in a rush. “All these years, and you never told me?”

“It's just that . . . one day went by, then another. After a while, it just seemed easier to let you hate me, you know?”

“God, Ryder. All this time . . .” I shake my head, my cheeks burning now. “Do you have any idea how upset I was? How humiliated?”

“I'm sorry,” he says, sounding miserable. “I was a jerk and a
coward and . . . I don't know what else. Just . . . please say that you'll forgive me.”

I lie there quietly, trying to make sense of it all—to understand the workings of a thirteen-year-old boy's mind. But my thoughts keep going back to something he'd said earlier. “You really thought I was the prettiest girl in Magnolia Branch?”

“I still do, Jemma,” he says, his voice quiet.

R
yder Marsden could not
possibly
have said what I think he just said. Nope. Not in a million years. But then he rises up on one elbow, gazing down at me, and . . .

My breath leaves my lungs in a
whoosh
as his head angles down toward mine, his breath warm on my cheek. I swear my heart stops beating for a second—seizing up in my chest before resuming its noisy rhythm. He's going to kiss me, I realize. Ryder is actually going to
kiss
me, and—

“You've got something . . .” He pauses, brushing his fingers across my cheek. “There. I got it.”

Disappointment washes over me. He
wasn't
going to kiss me. He was just noticing a smudge of dirt on my face or something. I feel like a total idiot. My cheeks flare with heat as I
scramble to a seated position and reach for a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” I mumble, unscrewing the cap. I drink for a long time, mostly to avoid meeting Ryder's eyes. Problem is, I already have to pee. This is
not
going to help the situation.

“Think the sun's up yet?” I ask.

“Maybe. You wanna go see?” He reaches for his own bottle of water.

“Yeah, might as well. There's no chance I'm going back to sleep now.”

“Let's go, then.”

When we finally emerge from the storm shelter, the sun has just begun to rise, the sky a deep, gunmetal gray. The rain has dwindled down to a drizzle, the wind a low, manageable-sounding whine. I'm happy to see that the tarp has mostly held, just one corner flapping in the breeze. With both feet and one hand still wrapped in gauze bandages, Ryder goes straight to fixing it.

The dogs make a beeline for the front mudroom, whining all the way. I know just how they feel. “Only on leash,” I tell them. Who knows what we're going to find out there, what dangers lurk just outside the door. I slip into a yellow rain slicker and pull on knee-high rain boots. Ryder joins me, putting on his own rain boots and waterproof jacket.

“Here, can you take Beau?” I ask, handing him the leash. I've got Sadie, who's straining at the bit, scratching the door. I
lead the way, taking Sadie straight to the patch of grass beside the porch. Ryder follows suit, heading out just past me.

“Oh, shit!” he calls out.

I hurry to catch up to him, and then I see it—a downed tree lying across Ryder's Durango, the metal beneath it crumpled like an accordion. The windshield is cracked, the rearview mirror dangling.

“Uh-oh,” I mutter, peering around the Durango to learn the fate of my Fiat. I flinch at the sight that greets me—several enormous limbs and leafy branches have pretty much buried my car. But it doesn't look as bad as the Durango. At least, the actual damage looks pretty minor. I think the height of the Durango protected my little car, taking the weight of most of the tree.

Still, this isn't good. In fact, everything toward the west looks bad. The tops of trees are ripped off in a path straight down toward the creek. And the roof of the barn should be visible off in the distance, but instead there's just a big, gaping hole where it should be.

Crap.

“The barn,” I say, lifting up my hood to cover my head as the rain picks up again.

Ryder nods. “I know. Let's finish up with the dogs and then we'll go check it out.”

Beau and Sadie are quick with their business, eager to get out of the rain and back inside where it's dry.

“I'm sorry about your car,” I say as we head past it a few minutes later. I know how much he loves it. It was a sixteenth birthday present from his parents. They'd secretly bought it a couple days before the big day and hid it here, driving it over to Magnolia Landing early in the morning on his birthday and leaving it in the driveway for him to find when he went outside to go to school. Anyway, it doesn't look like he'll be driving it any time soon.

Ryder doesn't respond. He's too busy looking around at the damage that surrounds us. It's much worse than I expected. In addition to the smashed sleeping porch and the broken living room window, part of the roof is missing over on the far side of the house, the top of the chimney blown clean away.

There's debris everywhere, blocking our path at every turn. Limbs, branches, roof shingles . . . what looks like sheet metal. I have no idea where
that
came from. Pieces of what used to be our fence are scattered about in splintered bits.

It takes us forever to pick our way over and around it all as we head down the path toward the barn. We walk in silence, our heads bent against the battering rain. What should be a five-minute stroll takes us close to a half hour. I keep my eyes glued to the ground, on the lookout for more water moccasins driven up from the creek. The last thing we need is—

“Uh, Jemma?”

“Huh?” I glance up, blinking hard. I look around, disoriented. “What the . . . ?”

Because it's gone, the barn.
Gone
. The spot where it stood is now a pile of unidentifiable rubble. My eyes burn, my vision blurring as tears well in my eyes.

My shooting range. Daddy's workshop and all those beautiful pieces of furniture. They're gone, just like that.

“Damn,” Ryder says.

I just stand there and gape, forcing back the tears.

“You can see the path the tornado took, right through there.” Ryder waves an arm in a wide arc, indicating the trail of destruction.

It's immediately obvious that Magnolia Landing lies directly in the path. Ryder's thinking the same thing. I can see it in his eyes.

The wind picks up, blowing my hood off my head. I shove it back in place as I reach for my camera, remembering then that I'm supposed to be filming. Doing my best to shield the lens from the rain with my hand, I quickly pan across the scene of destruction, again feeling that same disconnect as before. Hastily, I shut down the camera and stuff it in my pocket.

Ryder just stands there, his hands on his hips as he gazes off in the distance.

“It might be okay,” I say haltingly. “Magnolia Landing, I
mean. The house is half a mile away—tornadoes don't usually stay on the ground for long.”

He nods but remains silent. I know he's imagining his home leveled like the barn—a pile of white stones and tumbled columns.

“Don't think about it.” I take a step toward him and lay a hand on his arm. “Not till we know for sure.”

A gust of wind nearly knocks me off my feet. “We should get back inside,” I say, glancing up at the sky. Dark clouds obscure the horizon. I figure we're probably in what's left of the center right now, but it won't last long. There's still a lot of storm to go. We can't get careless, not now.

We head back at a plodding pace. When we reach our destroyed cars, I pull out my camera, suddenly needing the buffer of the lens to face it all—the cars, the roof, the smashed sleeping porch.

But that's not what I'm thinking about, not really. Instead, I'm thinking about the fact that my sister is having brain surgery any minute now, and there's not a
damn
thing I can do about it.

“C'mon, Jem,” Ryder calls out from the safety of the front porch. “You're getting drenched out there.”

Feeling utterly helpless, I follow him inside.

A
fter a quick breakfast of dry cereal and Pop-Tarts, we pull out our cell phones and check futilely for a signal. I'm not sure why we bother. There are
no
bars now—not a single one. Ryder figures the storm—maybe the tornado—took out the cell tower. Which means there's no telling when it'll be working again. So we're
still
cut off from the rest of the world.

The morning drags on endlessly. I play nursemaid, removing the bandages on Ryder's feet and hand. His feet don't look too bad, but the cut on his hand is scaring me. Truth is, it probably needed stitches last night, but it's too late now. I don't even want to think about what this means for next weekend's football game—
if
there's a game next weekend.

Right now I feel like we're in the middle of the Apocalypse.
I keep waiting for zombies to appear or something. One thing's for sure—if they do, Delilah and I are ready.