The
steady breeze is slow and patient. It fills the sails of the boats in
the harbor, and lifts laundry on the line. It cools you on a hot
summer’s day, brings the leaves of fall, like clockwork every
year. You can count on a breeze, steady and sure and true.

But
there’s nothing steady about a hurricane. It rips through town,
reckless, sending the ocean foaming up the shore, felling trees and
power lines and anyone dumb or fucked up enough to stand in its path.
Sure, it’s a thrill like nothing you’ve ever known: your
pulse kicks, your body calls to it, like a spirit possessed. It’s
wild and breathless and all-consuming.

But what comes next?

“You see a
hurricane coming, you run,” my mom told me the summer I turned
eighteen. “You shut the doors, and you bar the windows. Because
come morning, there’ll be nothing but the wreckage left
behind.”

Emerson Ray was my
hurricane.

Looking back, I
wonder if Mom saw it in my eyes: the storm clouds gathering, the dry
crackle of electricity in the air. But it was already too late. No
warning sirens were going to save me. I guess you never really know
the danger, not until you’re the one left, huddled on the
ground, surrounded by the pieces of your broken heart.

It’s been four
years now since that summer. Since Emerson. It took everything I had
to pull myself back together, to crawl out of the empty wreckage of
my life and build something new in its place. This time, I made it
storm-proof. Strong. I barred shutters over my heart, and found
myself a steady breeze to love. I swore nothing would ever destroy me
like that summer again.

I was wrong.

That’s the
thing about hurricanes. Once the storm touches down, all you can do
is pray.

I’m
doing eighty on the highway with all the windows down, my dirty
blonde hair whipping like crazy in the wind. I’ve got my
Ray-Ban sunglasses on, and the radio playing country classics as loud
as my beat-up old Camaro will go, trying to drown out the whispers of
memory that started the minute I took the freeway exit onto the
familiar coastal road.

45
miles to Beachwood Bay.

45 miles to
Emerson.

I shake it off. We
were coming here for years before I met him, I remind myself sternly.
Every summer when I was a kid. Months filled with playing in the surf
and reading out on our shady back porch. I should have other, better
memories of this place without him.

But you haven’t
been back here since.

I block out the
treacherous voice in my mind, yelling along with the radio instead.

“Gone like a
freight train, gone like yesterday…”

The song is right,
I decide. It’s gone. That summer is so far behind me, I
couldn’t see it in my rearview mirror if I tried. I’m a
different person from the screwed up, headstrong girl I was the last
time I drove down this sandy road. I’m twenty-two now, just a
month away from graduating college and starting out a whole new life.
I’ve got a perfect boyfriend back in the city, and a great
career all lined up. Despite everything that happened here that
summer, I made it out—made myself into the person I wanted to
be—and even though coming here to Beachwood Bay makes me feel
sick and dizzy, like I’m about to jump out of a plane in total
free fall, this weekend won’t change any of that.

It can’t
.

Besides, I tell
myself, trying to calm the shiver of nerves in my stomach, I don’t
even know if he’s still here. I don’t know anything about
Emerson anymore. My idle midnight searches online always come up
blank. He could be halfway around the world by now, trekking in the
African jungle, or knocking back beers on some beach in Australia
with a tall, stacked bikini model at his side.

Tucked under his
arm, the place I used to be…

I crank the radio
even louder, the country twang ringing so hard I don’t even
hear my cellphone, I just see the screen light up from where I tucked
it in the cupholder on my dashboard. Lacey. My best friend. I answer,
struggling to turn the volume down and keep a hand on the steering
wheel. I know I shouldn’t talk and drive, but way out of the
city out here, I won’t see a cop for miles.

“Hey Lacey,
what’s up?”

“Are you there
yet?” she demands.

“Close.”
I check the clock again. “About a half-hour away.”

“I still can’t
believe Danny boy didn’t go with you.” There’s a
muffled noise as she gets comfy, and when she speaks again, I can
just picture her, curled up in our student apartment in Charlotte,
looking out the window over the bustle of downtown. “Isn’t
this the kind of thing future fiancés are legally obligated to
do?” she asks. “Packing up the summer house you haven’t
stepped foot in since…well, you know.” She trails off.

The silence sits in
the air between us, heavy with grief. Emerson isn’t the only
ghost lurking in this town. The pain he caused me was only half my
broken heart.

I gulp a lungful of
fresh, salty air and force the demons out of my mind. “First of
all, we don’t know he’s planning to propose.” I
shift the phone to a more comfortable position under my ear.

“Please,”
Lacey snorts. “His parents love you, you’re moving in
together after graduation, and he’s been dropping not-so-subtle
hints about your taste in jewelry for months now.”

“You didn’t
tell me that!” My stomach kicks, but this time, it’s with
a whole different kind of nerves.

“It’s
been kind of hilarious,” Lacey adds. “So, do you think
Juliet prefers modern or art deco styles?” she mimics Daniel’s
careful East Coast voice.

“What did you
say?” I ask, curious. Even though Lacey is right—I’ve
figured this was coming for a while now—it still feels strange
to talk about it like this. Marriage. The future. Forever.

With someone who
isn’t Emerson.

Lacey continues,
oblivious to my thoughts. “Princess-cut, classic setting,
nothing under two carats. Duh.”

“Lacey!”
I flush.

“What? You
said you wanted to build a life with him,” Lacey reminds me.
“That you could picture growing old and gray together.”

“I did. I
mean, I do,” I correct myself quickly. “Daniel is great.
He’s kind, and sweet, and smart—”

“—and
perfect, I get it!” Lacey cuts me off. “So I don’t
get why he’s not going with you. Not just for all the heavy
lifting and packing, I mean. If my girlfriend was going back to see
her ex—”

“I’m not
here to see Emerson!” My protest comes way too loud, and I
flinch, swerving wildly on the road.

Lacey whistles.
“Easy there. I’m just saying, Danny boy must be
super-secure in your relationship if he’s not even curious
about the first guy you ever loved.”

I catch my breath,
trying to calm myself. The last thing I need is to wind up dead,
crashed in a ditch before I even reach the county line. I slow my
speed and focus on the road ahead. “Daniel isn’t coming
because I told him not to. I said I need the space to study in peace.
And…he doesn’t know about Emerson.” I admit in a
rush.

“What?”
Lacey’s screech makes me swerve all over again. “You said
you told him ages ago!”

“I did,”
I protest weakly. “I said there was a guy I dated, before
college. But I didn’t say he was here. Or how serious it was.”

“Serious?”
Lacey’s voice is dripping with sarcasm. “Try, like a
fucking anvil.”

“What was I
supposed to say, Lace?” I sigh, feeling that familiar wash of
guilt that always settles over me whenever I think about the
half-truths I’ve told my boyfriend. “That I had my heart
broken so entirely, it took everything I had not to slash open my
wrists just to make the pain stop?”

My voice is light
now, but the words are true. For the longest time, it felt like I was
teetering on a precipice, like one wrong step could send me tumbling
into the darkness. The worst part was, there were moments I wanted to
take that leap, to just end the pain for good.

“Oh, babe…”
Lacey’s voice softens. She knows what it was like for me: as my
freshman roommate, she had a front-row seat to the damage that summer
left behind. The days when all I did was curl in a ball, weeping, the
weeks I barely ate or left my room at all, except for classes. She
was the one who finally sat me down and staged a one-girl
intervention: dragging me out to parties and coffee-breaks and the
campus therapist, who prescribed me a whole list of anti-depressants
and anti-anxiety meds.

The pills helped—too
much, I think sometimes—but Lacey was my real lifesaver,
forcing me to fake at being OK long enough that I finally began to
believe it for myself. I didn’t meet Daniel until my junior
year, and by then, I could almost believe that those dark days were
behind me for good. The only visible scar I had left was the tiny
blue jay tattoo on my right shoulder blade. I’ve thought about
getting it removed, wiping the slate clean completely, but something
makes me leave it there to glimpse in the mirror every time I step
out of the shower. A lasting reminder of all my dumb, fucked up
choices, and the road I swore I’d never take again.

Until
now.

“It’ll
be fine,” I say firmly, as if that old fake-it-’til-you-make-it
strategy will work now, all over again. “I’ll pack up the
house for the realtor and be back by Monday. I picked up groceries in
the city, so I won’t even need to go into town.”

“If you say
so.” Lacey’s voice is doubtful, but she doesn’t
press. “Call me later, babe.”

“Love you.”

I hang up, and grip
the steering wheel determinedly. It’ll be simple: I’ve
got a plan, just like I said to Lacey. I’ll get the beach house
packed up, hand the keys over to the realtor, and leave town for good
this time—no mess, no fuss, and damn well no moping over old
memories.

I head around the
next bend, and all of a sudden, the familiar sign comes into view.

Welcome to
Beachwood Bay. Population 5,654.

Despite all my good
intentions to leave the past in its dark, deep grave, I can’t
help it. One look at that peeling wooden board is all it takes for my
mind to go racing back, four years ago, to the last time I drove down
this road.

The day when I met
him.

***

4 years ago…

“…And
we can make s’mores in the fire pit, and cycle into town for
ice cream like we always used to. Jules? Juliet?”

My mom’s voice
slips through my daydreams. I’m staring out the window at the
haze of gray and moss green blurring past, fiercely wishing with
everything I have that I was anywhere but here.

I turn. My mom is
looking over from the driver’s seat. “What?” I
snap, not even trying to keep the irritation from my tone.

“I was just
planning all the fun things we can do this summer.” Mom glances
out of the windshield at the rain drizzling against the glass. “When
the weather clears up, at least.”

“We could have
stayed in the city another week,” I remind her with a stab of
bitterness. “I barely had time to say goodbye to everyone. I’m
missing the big graduation party. And Carina gets to stay…”

“Your sister
has classes,” Mom reminds me. “She’ll drive down
with your father next week.”

I sigh. My older
sister is twenty-two, finishing up college at UNC. She’s
majoring in publicity and marketing, and from what I can tell, that
just means she spends most of her time strutting around the bars of
Raleigh on the lookout for an eligible bachelor. And by eligible, she
means a future lawyer or investment banker from the right kind of
family, earning six figures with another seven in a trust somewhere.
I don’t want to call her a shallow bitch, but she earns it.

“We could have
waited for them,” I murmur. “I mean, isn’t the
whole point of this summer—to be one big happy family?”
My voice is full of sarcasm.

I see my mom flinch
out of the corner of my eye, but she doesn’t rise to my bait.
“Another few days would have turned into another week or more,”
she says briskly, instead. “And then summer would be half-way
done before we even arrived.”

BOOK: Reckless Hearts

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