16. Clover

Dread makes my stomach flip. I can practically feel my dad's confusion and anger radiating off him like a black hole behind me, but I can't make myself turn around or explain.

I can't move or speak at all.

Neavh gulps so hard I can see her throat bob from all the way over here.

"Oh, uh, hi," she stammers, with the same tone of faux-calm masking internal terror one would use after stumbling upon a hungry bear. "Should I…?"

She's already taking a few steps backwards. I'm still frozen in place as I watch her spin around and start double-timing it back up the path. She's almost completely out of sight before I manage to break out of my trance.

"Neavh!" I shout. "Wait!"

She pauses, hovering with her back to me. I don't blame her. I'm still too scared to even look at my dad, never mind try and explain what's going on.

My heart pounds for entirely different reasons when she glances back over her shoulder and then begins to approach the clearing again.

She's wearing short black overalls paired with a striped tank top today. I'd probably look like an oversized toddler if I tried to pull that outfit off, but on her, the ensemble looks casually cool. She's replaced her dorky little ponytail with a bobby pin above each ear.

Despite the horrifying circumstances, I still have to fight to keep my eyes on her face instead of her legs as she walks back over to me.

Of course, staring at her face just makes me hyper aware that this is the first time we've seen each other since jumping into the river together. Goosebumps rise on my arms, and I settle for staring at the top of her head instead. That at least seems like a safe bet.

"Um, hi," I say once she comes to a halt. "I didn't know you were walking all the way out here yourself. Dad was, uh, just leaving."

Behind me, Dad makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a grumble.

"I was?"

I risk glancing at him over my shoulder. "Yes. You were."

I try to summon my inner petulant teenager and add a ‘get out of here, Dad!' tone to my voice, but I just sound like a squeaky cartoon character.

He steps up beside me with his arms crossed, looking between me and Neavh in a silent demand for answers.

Neavh sounds as squeaky as I do when she says, "Uh, hello, Mr. Rivers."

He dips his chin in a nod. "Why, hello, Neavh."

He somehow manages to sound sarcastic, amused, and mildly threatening all at once.

It's a valid response considering that last he heard, I wanted nothing to do with Neavh at all this summer, and now she's wandering through the depths of our property.

"Neavh is helping me with the yurt," I supply, sweeping my hand out to indicate the platform he's already seen.

He nods again, arms still firmly crossed. "I see."

A moment of silence passes. Neavh's eyes are so wide I'm scared they're going to pop out of her head. My shirt is soaked with so much sweat I look like I've run a marathon.

Dad just stands there, looming like one of the giant fir trees while he waits to see if I've got more of an explanation for him.

I open and close my mouth a few times, but there's no way I can say everything I need to say to him in front of Neavh. After a couple more failed attempts, I end up plastering on what I'm sure is an alarming smile and overcompensating with some fake casual cheer.

"Sooooo yeah," I sing-song. "We're gonna get to work now, Pops. Thanks for stopping by!"

I've never called him ‘Pops' before in my life.

If he's amused, he doesn't show it. He just gives another one of those cryptic nods, his beard covering too much of his face for me to read any shifts in his expression, and says, "I see."

After lingering for another beat of strained silence, he takes off up the path.

Neavh and I don't say a word until he's disappeared around a bend. Then Neavh turns to me, her shoulders dropping a few inches as she blows out a long, heavy breath.

"Well, that was…tense. Guess I picked the wrong day to find my own way out here."

My knees wobble. I slump down to a seat on the edge of the yurt platform and rest my chin in my hands.

"I'm so sorry," I say. "I was trying to get him out of here before you arrived."

Neavh waves off my apology. "It's okay. I should have just waited at the gate."

I concentrate on slowing my rapid breathing as my head continues to spin. Neavh rocks on her heels as her eyes dart over the platform for the first time.

"Wow," she says, her eyebrows jumping up. "You did a lot in just two days."

Turns out I can be pretty damn productive when I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about Neavh. I finished laying the foundation myself, including mixing and pouring the cement for the posts, as well as getting the frame of the platform assembled and securing the first few boards.

Considering the materials are already pre-cut and marked up with enough guidelines that even a high school shop class student could follow the instructions, it's not that impressive, but my face still flushes at the admiration in Neavh's voice.

"Mhmm," I mumble.

Neavh shifts her weight from foot to foot. A couple branches snap somewhere deep in the woods, and the echoes of laughter and shouts from the nearest campsites drift through the air.

"So…" Neavh says before coughing a couple times.

More silence.

"So…" I say.

She flashes me a nervous smile. My heart skips a beat at the sight of her grin, and I can't tell if I want to push her away or pull her down beside me.

I should be stronger than this.

I shouldn't be getting butterflies just because she smiled at me. This isn't a crush on some girl I just met. This isn't a crush at all.

At least, I don't think it is.

I can't be acting like a clueless teenager again. I've been through too much to fall back into that reckless, frenzied, sun-drunk summer magic.

I've seen behind the curtain now. I know when summer ends, so does the magic.

It leaves—just like her.

I drop my chin lower in my hands, my shoulders rounding as I squeeze my knees together like that will keep me from falling apart.

Neavh takes a step forward and then lowers herself to a seat beside me—slowly, like she's waiting for me to tell her off.

I don't.

I don't say anything as she settles herself on the smooth wooden boards, her thigh just a few inches away from mine.

For a moment, my whole body zeroes in on the narrow gap between us, my skin warm with the awareness of how close she is and how little effort it would take to feel her leg pressed up against mine.

I can't tell what I want more: proximity or distance. The thrill of inching closer or the stability of leaping away.

She slides her hand along the wood grain on her other side before giving the board a gentle rap with her knuckles.

"I can't believe you built all this yourself," she says. "I mean, I can believe it, but still, I'm impressed."

I shrug. "It's just a few boards. I grew up on a campground. I understand the basics of nailing and screwing."

Neavh's head snaps towards me, one of her eyebrows arching up. "Oh, I think you know more than the basics."

I freeze, my lips parted as my whole body seems to go up in flames.

Neavh blinks and then claps a hand over her mouth.

"Oh my god," she says from behind her fingers. "I did not mean to say that out loud."

Her shoulders begin to shake, and then she lets out a muffled squawk that ends up sounding like a fart as it reverberates against her palm.

I lose it.

We both do. We clutch our stomachs and double over as we snort and giggle our way through the laugh attack.

"Oh. My. God," I gasp.

"You set me up for that!" Neavh shrieks. "Who calls it nailing and screwing?"

"Well that's what I've been doing all day!"

She gives me a look, and then we're cackling all over again, slapping the boards and making so much noise a few birds dart out of the branches of the nearest tree.

By the time we're done, my abs are aching. I take a shuddering breath and stretch my arms up above my head.

Neavh stares up at the tree the birds just abandoned as she murmurs, "I didn't know if you'd want me to come back."

The air seems to grow a few degrees colder, and it feels like the gap between our bodies grows several feet wider.

"I didn't know either," I admit.

She lowers her eyes to meet mine. "I'm sorry."

I frown as I process the words.

"For what?" I ask, tilting my head.

"I've been thinking about it for the past two days straight, and I…" She curls her hands into fists and plants them on the tops of her thighs. "I shouldn't have kissed you. I'm sorry for that."

All the blood drains from my face.

"What?"

She shakes her head as she stares down at her fists, her brow furrowed. "You were having a vulnerable moment, and I—"

"Neavh."

I blurt her name before I can stop myself.

I'm not going to let her sit here and give me a humiliating ‘I took advantage of you' speech.

That's not what happened, and she knows it.

"I kissed you too."

I put enough force in the words to make her look back up at me.

"And I…I'm not sorry about it." My voice falters, but I keep going. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

Her eyes scan over my face while mine do the same to hers.

She's so pretty.

She's pretty like the dusk or the purple glow before dawn. She's pretty like those hazy in-between times, those lingering hours that aren't quite night or day, when anything seems possible and nothing seems insane.

It would be insane to kiss her again, but that's what I'm about to do. I can feel myself leaning, falling, on the precipice of slipping into her orbit all over again.

Then she pulls away.

"I should go."

She pushes up to her feet. I spring up beside her.

"Stop saying that."

My voice is harsh enough to surprise us both.

I clear my throat and add, "I…I don't want you to go."

She pivots to face me. The tips of our noses are barely more than a foot apart.

"Okay," she whispers.

I look into those brown eyes, the ones that have changed a million ways since I last knew her while somehow still looking the exact same.

"But you will."

The words slip out like a branch falling from overhead to crash at the ground between our feet, marking a clear line between me and her.

She winces.

"It's just…" I scramble to explain myself, since even now, I hate to see her in pain. "It's just, what the hell are we doing, Neavh? We've been through this before. You leave at the end of the summer. I know…I know you had your reasons, but the fact is, you're still going to leave again. There's not even a question about it this time around. You're a traveler now. It's what you do. You just…go. You'll always leave River's Bend, and I…"

The words taste so bitter in my mouth I go silent. I think about what my dad said to me today, and a sharp jab of guilt twists like a thorn in my side.

It's not the same without you here, Clover. I'm glad you're home.

This is where I belong. He needs me. They all need me. We already had one part of our family ripped away from us. I could never choose to be the next one to leave.

The bitter taste rises up in the back of my throat, but I finish my sentence anyway.

"I'll always stay."

Neavh lifts her hands like she wants to reach for me, but then drops them back to her side. She grimaces, her face gaunt and twisted with pain.

"Clover…if I could go back and change it, I—"

"Don't," I bark.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I can't think about that. I can't go back to the what-ifs. I buried those years ago.

"You can't." I soften my voice a little. "It was never going to work anyway."

Neavh's face turns pale. She takes a fumbling step backwards, and I can't help imagining if this is how she looked when she read that email I sent her, the one where I told her she never mattered to me at all.

Another stab of guilt pierces me.

"What I mean is that even if we went through with our plan, we still had an end date," I explain. "We were going to save up, and I was going to take a gap year to travel with you. Then I was going to come straight back here, and you…"

I pause and look at her, this girl who's seen so much more of the world than I have, this girl who shirked off the weight of her family's expectations and did what she needed to escape a life that was tearing her apart.

"All you've ever wanted is to be free."

I couldn't understand it then, but I do now—now that I've lost someone too. Some wounds are so deep you can't heal them. Sometimes all you can do is patch yourself up and run.

"Clover…"

Her voice cracks, the sound ragged, like she's thirsting to death. She doesn't say anything else. She just stares at me with the weight of a thousand words in her eyes.

I want to read them all.

From the second I met her, I wanted to know her, all of her, even the parts that hurt.

"I don't begrudge you that," I tell her. "It's who you are. You were stuck for so long, and now you need to…"

I glance around the clearing, searching for the right thing to say, and I notice the clump of ferns where we crouched and watched the wandering salamander scuttle away.

That was only two days ago. In this moment, it feels like two decades.

"You need to be a wandering salamander," I finish.

Neavh balks. "I need to be what?"

"That salamander we saw," I say, pointing over at the ferns. "They're called that because no one really knows how they got here, only that they came from far away. You can find them here and in California, but not anywhere in-between. Well, actually, they've been found in parts of Washington, but nowhere in Oregon, and—"

I cut myself off, glaring down at the tips of my work boots as my cheeks heat up.

Now is not the time for animal facts.

"Anyway, that's beside the point. What I mean is that you're a wanderer. You're on a journey, and unlike the salamander, I know yours doesn't end here, and that's okay."

My voice trembles on the last word, and when I look back up at her, my body trembles too.

She's watching me with that same look from when I talked about the salamander the other day, that soft, achingly tender expression—the same way she'd look at me when we laid side by side in bed all those years ago.

I sniffle, my vision going blurry as I blink back hot, thick tears.

"It's okay," I repeat. "It's okay. It's just…I…I…"

I take a step closer, then another, until we're just a breath away from standing chest to chest.

I close my eyes.

"I still want you."

I wait.

I wait for her to run. I wait for her to close the gap.

I wait for her to choose: distance or proximity. Safety or the unknown.

She hovers, and then her warm body presses hard against mine as her ragged whisper brushes my ear.

"I want you more than I've ever wanted anyone in the whole world, Clover Rivers."

I keep my eyes closed, like I can hold us here, suspended in this moment, this in-between state, this purple haze before the dawn.

"I wish…I wish I could be different."

She sounds so small, so lost. I feel a pinch deep in my chest.

Leaning in, I press my forehead to hers. I can hear her breathing. I can almost feel her heart.

"No one else makes me feel like this, Neavh. No one."

Her breath catches. She tilts her head to brush the side of her nose along mine.

"I sh-should g-go," she stammers. "I…"

"Stay."

Guided by touch alone, I reach out and run my hands up her sides before hooking my fingers around the straps of her overalls.

"Stay today. Stay…stay for the summer."

I hear the confusion in her voice when she says, "I am."

"You know what I mean." I tug on the straps, pressing us even tighter together. "I want…I want you…just for the summer."

She gasps. "Clover."

I shake my head, my forehead rolling against hers. I don't want to give her time to think about this. I don't want to give myself time to think about it either. I have no idea what I'm saying, what I'm suggesting, what I'm opening myself up to here.

I just know I don't want her to go. Not yet.

"I know you can't stay. I know that this time. I'm not about to fall in deep all over again. I'm just…not ready to stop yet."

A soft moan, somewhere between pain and longing, catches in the back of her throat.

"I don't…I don't want to hurt you."

"You already did."

Her body goes rigid.

"And I hurt you," I add, "but…here we are."

She softens a little. "Back where we started."

"Back where we started," I echo.

Her fingertips ghost over my lower back, hovering for a moment before she wraps her arms around me.

"You really want this?" she murmurs. "You're sure?"

That want is the only thing I'm sure of. Everything else is shifting, like tectonic plates deep beneath the ocean, but my need for this, for her body and her breath and the way she still makes me shiver when she says my name—that need is an island that sits still among the chaos.

"Yes," I breathe.

That's all it takes. I feel her hot breath on my lips, and then her mouth slants over mine.

We go slow this time, not moving except to sway a little as we clutch each other, like two trees with one trunk, branches entwined.

When I finally open my eyes, I'm greeted by Neavh and glittering afternoon sunlight.

The clouds have shifted just enough for a few dappled rays to break through the treetops. Before they can disappear, Neavh twirls a lock of my hair around her finger, watching the way the light plays across the strands as they unravel and fall back over my shoulder.

She strokes her finger down my cheek, her gaze darting over my hair, my eyes, my lips.

"Did you know," she says as she leans in close to kiss me again, "that you turn to gold in the sun?"