“Maybe you will someday.” He walked around the couch and moved the stack of books next to her. He sat down and smiled. “I don’t know why you came to see me, but I’m glad you did, Naomi.”
She smiled. “Would you mind if I come visit you once in awhile? Not just because I hope I’ll see Jesse. I don’t want you to think that’s the only—”
“Please do.” He took her drink and set it aside before helping her stand up from the sofa. He walked her to the door, and she glanced behind her shoulder at the piles of books and the bright assortment of color they added to the room.
“You know,” he said as he opened the door, his intensely green eyes focused on hers, “I think it took a lot of courage for Jesse to let you go.” He looked down at the book in her hands. “The way I see it, he’s risked some of his own happiness for yours. Now you can be with your mother.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “We never could have met each other if he hadn’t let you go.”
She remembered Jesse’s words just before he told her he was going to release her.
We would never be free, Naomi.
She hadn’t thought much of those words then, but now they were screaming at her as she held her breath and kept staring into James’ eyes. He was right. Jesse was right. She was free now, but what was freedom without happiness?
She gave James one last grateful look before saying goodbye and went down the stairs to her mother.
THE DRIVE home started quietly. Naomi looked out the window and ran her hand over the book in her lap. She looked at her mother’s reflection in the glass, wondering who she really was. She didn’t know much about when she was a teenager. All she really knew was that her mother had died of lung cancer right before she went to college. That would mean she was Naomi’s age when she had lost her mom. Something about that made Naomi feel terrible.
“Do you want to stop for lunch?” Karen asked.
“I guess so.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since before ....” She let the words hang in the air.
“We’ll eat at home. It’s okay.”
Silence again. She looked down at the book in her lap and opened the cover. The pink ribbon she had kept from her birthday present slipped out. She snatched it before it fell to the floor. It was smooth. It reminded her of Jesse and their first kiss. Her heart sank. Jesse knew this book was important to her. He must have packed it up in his car with the rest of his stuff.
“Did James give you something?”
“Yeah.” She closed the cover and hid the title. “It’s just a book.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘just a book.’”
There was no way around it. She knew fate had brought her and her mother to this moment. She shifted across her seat and moved her hand away from the title. “It’s
The Awakening,
” she said. “You wanted me to read it, remember?”
A little gasp left Karen’s mouth. She let her foot off the gas and the car lurched. “Why would Jesse’s dad give you that?” She glanced quickly at the book then back to the road as she regained her composure.
Naomi watched her reaction. “I read it six times when I was with them. They liked to read, and they owned it. It helped me ... remember you.”
Karen’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. Her chest rose up and down faster than normal. “It’s my favorite book.”
“I know.”
“Did you like it?”
Shrugging, she touched the cover. “It’s well-written, but it was really depressing. I guess I don’t understand why you like it so much. I kept reading it to figure that out—to figure you out—but I still don’t get it.”
Karen smiled. “I guess I like how strong she was. She kicked down every wall put in front of her. Don’t you think that’s pretty heroic?”
“I never thought of it like that.”
“It’s one way to look at it.”
Naomi turned to her and saw a part of herself in the stiff woman who had refused to raise her. She saw the same skin and eyes, the same set of her shoulders when she was nervous, like right now.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
Karen looked at her out of the corner of her eye and squeezed the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her chin quivered. “I’m more than okay,” she said softly. “You’re here with me. I know you don’t feel very happy right now, but time will change things. I hope you’ll let me help you.”
Naomi could see the hope in her face as something opened between them. It was only a small crack, a sliver of trust. “I know,” she said softly, looking away. “I’ll try to let you, I promise.”
Nodding, Karen turned her full focus back to the road. “When you were gone I started the foundation. I haven’t told you much about it, but it’s to help families of missing children. Do you think you’d want to be a part of it someday? It might help you.”
She fiddled with the lock on the door. “I guess so, but I don’t think I’m ready for something like that yet.”
“One step at a time.”
They entered the freeway. Naomi watched cars blur past her window. Her mother’s fingers closed around her hand and they both smiled.
XXXIII
IT SEEMED COLDER THAN NORMAL AS MAY melted into June, but that meant the morning glories along the beach trails kept blooming. Naomi could see them from her window as she sat up in bed. Her eyes were crusty from another night of crying and her body was damp with sweat as she once again saw herself standing on the curb, barefoot and shivering, staring at the taillights of Jesse’s car.
She remembered the autumn leaves on the balcony twirling around her and Jesse like wings. They were so orange in her mind. They glowed like fire. She imagined them blowing through her window, surrounding her on the bed as she rubbed her eyes, and she felt the overwhelming urge to step outside with her camera.
She had bought a new one weeks ago, but hadn’t taken it out of its box yet—or any of the other equipment, either. It was piled in a corner of her bedroom.
She rushed to get dressed, unable to shake the need to feel sand between her toes again. She hadn’t been out to the beach for over a year. She pulled a white sweatshirt from her dresser drawer and stared down at it in surprise.
You’re crazy. I couldn’t smell fish at all. Just you.
It wasn’t the same sweatshirt, but it reminded her of the old one. She pulled it over her head, her heart pounding at the memory of Damien kissing her wrist. Then she remembered Jesse’s hands sliding gently down her body, and finally Brad pulling her up from the chair, kissing her like she had never been away.
She hadn’t seen him since. She turned around and looked at her camera equipment still packaged so neatly in precise, unbendable boxes. What did she want? Who did she want? She had no idea.
Holding her breath, she looked over at her bookshelf where she had recently left an unopened letter from Harvard. Was that what she wanted?
She shook her head and growled to herself. She didn’t have to think about it right now.
HER PARENTS were in the kitchen when she went downstairs with her new camera bag slung over her shoulder. She cradled a tripod in her arms, reminding herself that she needed to buy a case for it. Her mother looked up from a cutting board where she was dicing a red pepper.
“Oh, sweetheart, your father and I are making some breakfast. You want some?”
That’s right. It was Saturday. They always cooked together on weekends now—ever since they had cut back Mindy’s hours. She breathed in the scent of red peppers. They reminded her of Eric. She pressed her tripod closer to her chest and watched her father. With his back to her, he cracked an egg with one hand and pulled his ringing cell phone from his hip with the other. Work. Always work. Even now.
Karen looked into her eyes and smiled, sleep still softening the planes of her face. She smiled back, trying not to think of Eric as she breathed in another whiff of peppers.
“Uh, no breakfast for me. I’m going to go take some pictures.” She motioned to the double glass doors.
Karen glanced out at the morning sky, still dim, but growing more blue by the second. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat something first?”
“No, I’m fine.” She turned to head out the doors, but not before her father spun around, still talking on the phone. He grabbed an orange from a bowl on the counter.
“You need to take something to eat,” he whispered, a playful smile spreading across his lips as he tossed the fruit to her. She barely managed to catch it without dropping her tripod and gave him an understanding smile. Did he remember how he used to peel them for her? The rinds falling to the floor as he answered phone calls, typed emails, gave her apologetic smiles.
“Don’t walk out too far,” he urged.
IT WASN’T a great morning for pictures. The sky was completely empty, the ocean calm and sluggish. There wasn’t a bird in sight. At least there were flowers and some tide pools down the beach.
She was too tired to carry her tripod and left it near a few rocks before continuing on. She forgot her father’s warning not to head out too far, caught up in the rush of having a camera in her hand. Everything in her head was fading away. Even Jesse. Almost.
She walked on, stopping every now and then to snap a picture. She looked through her lens down the beach.
And she saw him.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. A man was walking toward her—red hair beneath the sun, hands shoved into his pockets, green eyes focused on her as they drew closer and closer.
She couldn’t get the camera bag off her shoulders fast enough and threw it into the sand with a heavy thud. The orange rolled out of a side pocket as she took off down the beach, her toes sliding through the sand, her camera banging against her chest.
He pulled her into an embrace as soon as she reached him, his breath brushing her skin as he kissed her face and mouth. Pushing aside her camera, he pulled her closer and whispered that he had missed her like crazy and please, please stop crying.
Was she crying? She pulled away and reached a hand up to her face. Yes, her face was wet. Could he blame her?
“Jesse,” she gasped, gripping him closer. “How can you be here? Are you really here?” He didn’t seem real. It had been four months since she had stepped out of his car. Four long, bittersweet months.
He looked into her eyes, but didn’t smile. “Yes, I’m really here.”
“How?” She glanced up and down the beach, expecting to see a gang of armed policemen any second. There wasn’t anybody. They were completely alone.
“How what?” he asked quietly. His heart was pounding against her chest, and as she looked into his face she noticed beads of sweat along his brow.
She chewed on her bottom lip. “How did you know I would be here? Where have you been?” Her voice rose higher and higher. He hadn’t cut his hair in awhile. It was long and curly, hanging over his ears. His eyes were filled with fear.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he answered carefully, a soft smile spreading across his face. “I’ve been expecting you to take walks out here, but you haven’t, so today, the day I’m planning to ... well, I needed to see you again before ....”
“I don’t understand.”
He lifted a hand and smoothed it down the back of her head, rubbing her hair between his fingers as he spoke with a shaky voice. “I was on my way to your house. I was hoping I could find you.”
“You can’t go to my house!” She almost pulled away. “The second my parents see you they’ll call the police.”
“I know.”
Her feet sank farther into the sand and she stepped out of his arms as she realized what he was about to do. “No,” she whispered. “You can’t.”
He tilted his head. “I have to. Trust me, there’s no other place I’d rather be but here with you, but I’ve thought about it for four months now, and there’s no other way for me to live with myself.”
She took another step back, her camera suddenly weighing like a noose around her neck. The words staggered out of her mouth. “You’re really going to turn yourself in?”
He nodded. “I thought I could live with myself like this, but it turns out I can’t.”
Closing her eyes, she felt her body sway in the morning breeze. She imagined him handcuffed, sentenced, lying in a cell year after year, growing older without her, a book constantly in his hands. She opened her eyes in time to see him stepping closer.
“You need me to hold you,” he whispered, and gathered her to him. “You’re safe now.” He pressed her head to his shoulder. “I made sure you would be safe.”
“Why have you done all this?” She tried to hold onto him so tightly he would never be able to escape. “Why did you leave me? Why did you run? Why can’t we stay together?” Her mind reeled with sudden panic. “I’ll go with you. Whatever we have to do, I’ll do it.”
“Oh, Naomi.” He kissed her head and shifted his feet in the sand. “I love you, but you know as well as I do that it could never work. Not like this.”
She melted at the sound of those words—
I love you
. She knew it. She had known it all along. But now it didn’t matter. He was going to leave her again. She gritted her teeth. “You can’t leave me.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
She pulled away. “Not my decision? What does that mean? I’m tired of people talking to me about decisions.”