Chapter 26

Chapter 26

I stuff my suitcase into the trunk of Liam's old wreck of a car. Jayden's already behind the wheel. Before I get in, I take one last look over my shoulder. Our house is only partly visible through all the sagebrush. It's five in the morning; the sun will be up in half an hour, but we'll be long gone by then.

I think about the three letters under my pillow—one to Ethan, one to Avery, and one to Liam. Jayden and I have agreed that he'll hand them out when he gets back and tell them the whole story.

It took me two months to convince Jayden not to take back his promise. "What if you want to leave and he won't let you?" he asked. "All over again? What if this whole thing is some big, elaborate ruse, like he kidnaps a girl once a year and keeps her there until she's in love with him?"

I asked myself that same question at first, but that was before New Year's Eve, when I saw Bren on TV.

I've got my phone with me to ease Jayden's mind, but I doubt I'll get reception anyway. He's also going to insist that Bren tell him the exact location of his property, so that he knows where to find me in case of emergency. "Somewhere in Canada" likely won't cut it.

I slide into the passenger seat, and Jayden drives away. We don't talk much on the road. After a while, he turns on the radio, and we both hum along. The distraction helps a little, but my head is still pure chaos. What if Bren doesn't show up? What if he stopped going to therapy? What if he's met some other girl? What if he shows up just to tell me that he'd rather not see me again? What if he wants a fresh start?

I don't know what I'd do then.

I roll down the window and stick my hand out. The silken Mojave Desert wind blows through my splayed fingers, tickling my skin and filling me with a crazy feeling of freedom and joy. No, he'll be there. I know it. I close my eyes and picture the way we made love on the sand beneath the willow tree, the way our bodies fit into one another—two halves forming a perfect whole. I remember his kisses, remember the sweet sensations flowing through me. I can't believe I was ever afraid those memories would fade.

By noon, we're barely halfway there, because a truck full of oranges tipped over on the street in front of us. I'm starting to get nervous that Bren will think I'm not coming. Maybe the waiting will be too much for him, and he'll leave early. I keep glancing at the clock, watching time slip away from me. Three in the afternoon already? Jay starts getting annoyed with me fidgeting around in my seat, constantly begging him to drive faster. Eventually he threatens to throw me out of the car and drive the rest of the way alone, so I force myself to be quiet until he finally, finally reaches the entrance to the national park. It's four o'clock now, but that visitor's center is somewhere in the middle of the park, at one of the highest points in the area. Why didn't we leave earlier? But it only took seven hours to get here last time, so 5 AM seemed like it would be plenty.

Liam's old Ford struggles up the serpentine roads, but soon the engine starts to smoke, and Jay pulls into a lay-by.

"Are you serious?" I moan, throwing the door open angrily and stomping around to the hood, which is steaming like a locomotive.

"We've gotta let it cool off for a second, Lou. Otherwise it'll break down." Jay gets out and starts checking the car over. "Not far now."

"We should have taken Ethan's car. The visitors' center's going to close."

"Nah, it's open late. It was dusk, don't you remember?" Jay gives me a pointed look from across the open hood.

How could I forget? Every second of that day is burned into my mind forever. I don't say that aloud, though.

By the time the engine has cooled off "for a second," it's five thirty. I'm near tears. The narrow street goes on forever, up and up... speed limit 15! After a hundred and thirty-seven more curves or so, smoke starts rising from the hood again. Jayden sets his jaw grimly and keeps pushing the car onward. If we take another break as long as the first one, we'll definitely be too late.

After what seems like a thousand years, I'm close to a nervous breakdown, and the engine isn't just smoking, it's also rattling... and then the Lodgepole sign finally comes into view. The car crawls across the line marking the boundaries of the parking lot. The visitors' center is directly ahead.

Hastily, I sweep my gaze across the lot. My hands are clammy. I only see a couple of vans and a station wagon.

Jayden parks the wheezing car directly in front of the visitors' center. "Do you want to go in alone?"

I just nod. My heart is hammering like crazy. What if Bren isn't here? I stay seated for a moment, taking deep breaths.

"Lou, before you go... there's something you probably ought to know." My brother regards me with a solemn expression on his face. "I wasn't sure if I was going to tell you or not, but it's probably better if you know."

"What?" I turn to face him, forcing myself to focus on him.

"You know how you showed me that coin you got from this Brendan guy?" He taps his hands against the steering wheel in agitation.

"What about it?"

"I decided to do some searching, and I ended up on this online artists' forum, and I found this crafts shop in Albuquerque..."

I give him a look of outrage. "You went searching for him online and didn't tell me?"

"When my sister asks me to bring her back to a guy who kidnapped her and kept her in a box for five days last year, it seems like the least I can do."

"Well, what did you find out?" This is giving me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turn to look at the entrance to the visitors' center.

"The shop belongs to an old friend of Brendan's mom's. I know because I drove out there one weekend to meet her." He pauses briefly. "I had to tell her a little bit about you, otherwise she wouldn't have told me anything."

"That's okay," I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. I can't believe he did all of this behind my back! Then again... I know how much I'm asking of him right now. "What did she say?"

"Not a whole lot. She designed that coin at Brendan's mom's request, and then she liked the motif, so she made a few more." His eyes bore into me. "Brendan's dad—well, stepdad, actually—it sounds like he was a total psycho, like, seriously sick in the head. He was a coffin-maker from Oklahoma, and he beat the crap out of Brendan's mom, really tortured her. When he discovered he wasn't Brendan's biological father, he apparently locked her in a coffin and threatened to bury her alive in the yard."

My heart is seizing up. So I was right about what happened to Brendan. I shift my gaze back to the entrance as Jayden continues.

"Brendan's mom escaped the first chance she had, and went to stay with her friend the jewelry designer. She went that same day to pick Brendan up from preschool, but he was already gone—I guess his stepdad found out she'd left, so he pulled Brendan out of school. She called him and told him she'd call the cops to help her get her son back, but he told her he'd kill Brendan if she tried, and then he simply disappeared. To L.A., I guess, if that's where Brendan told you he grew up. Anyway, Brendan's stepdad called his mom over and over again, reiterating the threat. He was a total sadist, using the son to make the wife miserable. She spent years searching for them, trying to get Brendan back, but no luck, obviously. Finally, I guess she died of a broken heart."

I swallow hard. So Brendan's mother really didn't abandon him. I can't even begin to imagine what that will mean to Brendan. I look at Jay. "Why are you only telling me this stuff now?"

He exhales slowly. "I wasn't sure if I should tell you at all. If this guy had wanted to know anything about his own past, he could have just as easily gone searching for it himself. Telling you means now you have to decide whether to tell him or not."

"He was probably afraid of what he might find out. He was trying to just forget the whole thing." I glance at the entrance yet again. I'm so scared that he's changed his mind.

"Do you think you'll tell him?" Jayden asks.

"Well, he has to show up first."

Jay's hand brushes mine. "Lou. Go inside and check. Maybe he's already in there, and he parked somewhere else."

So Jay's noticed, too. "Or he came in a different car?" I say, trying to reassure myself.

"Or that!"

"Okay. Back in a bit." I hop out of the car and shut the door behind me. For a moment, I just stand there, pondering Jay's story. In principle, it doesn't change much of anything. More than anything, it confirms what I'd already guessed. And of course Brendan needs to know this stuff about his mom... but maybe not immediately, I mean, I don't even know how he's doing yet.

Still standing beside the car, I cast a look around the parking lot. It's twilight already, just like it was last year. There's that same familiar scent of pine needles and smoke. I relive the moment I decided to walk to Brendan's camper with him. I feel the wind on my face, hear the trees rustling and Bren's keys jingling and the camping lanterns clacking in his hand. A hot-and-cold shiver runs down my back: joy, fear, nostalgia. For the hundredth time, I realize to my continued astonishment that I'm not sure when exactly I fell in love with Brendan, when trusting him suddenly turned into more. I take one more long, deep breath, letting it out slowly, and then step through the open glass door.

Warmth envelops me. Suddenly, it feels like it was just yesterday that I came in here searching for camping lanterns. The wood paneling, the shop, the information stands, they're all exactly the way I remember them. I stop at the clothing rack full of hoodies, lost in thought. I'm still too nervous to check the whole store, because I'm terrified to find out that I came all this way for nothing. Please let him be here , I pray silently. Please, please let him be here, or if he's not here yet, let him come here.

Without realizing it, I've wandered into the alcove with the camping gear. I reach for the bear spray. I bet it really does do something. He engineered that whole encounter with such finesse. I turn the can over in my hand, but the printed information on the back blurs in front of my eyes. He's not coming. I know it. If he's in therapy, working through the stuff Jay was telling me about, I'm sure his therapist has told him he shouldn't see me again. It might even make his old dangerous thought patterns come out again, and then he'll relapse, the way alcoholics do. And then maybe he'll have to kidnap another girl, just to get that confirmation of her love.

I bite my lips hard. I should go. There's no point in standing here torturing myself any longer. If he'd been planning on coming here, he'd be here by now. He'd have been waiting in the lot for me.

Dazed, I set the spray back on the shelf. It would have been too perfect if he'd arrived at this exact moment, stepped into this same alcove where we had our first conversation.

I raise my head and take a long look around the store. My heart is thumping hard in my chest. Brendan's tall, there's no way I wouldn't see him over the shelves, and the only other people in here are two guys in army-green caps and a couple of girls my age. Should I ask the guy running the register if he's seen Brendan? Um, excuse me, did last year's Hero of the Week 52 come through here by chance? By the way, I'm that girl who disappeared in the park...

It's seven thirty now. The visitors' center is closing in half an hour.

Eyes burning, I glance toward the information area, and then over to the other exit, the one leading to the showers. He's not there, either.

I try to fight back my disappointment, but it rolls over me like an avalanche. My whole body is numb, deadened. He didn't come. My memories will be all I have left of the time we spent together. When I said goodbye to him in that parking lot in British Columbia, it was goodbye forever. Why didn't I give him one more hug? Why didn't I kiss him? I turn a complete circle, still searching. I just don't want to believe it... but that doesn't change anything about the fact that he isn't here.

Finally, I give up once and for all. Head lowered to hide my tears, I start for the exit.

Suddenly, a piercing howl comes from the direction of the back entrance, followed by loud barking. Someone screams.

"Hey, mister, you can't bring a wolf?—"

"Lou! Lou, wait!"

Bren! My heart skips a beat and then restarts at full gallop. A giant boulder rolls away from my soul, releasing thousands of golden butterflies that lift me into the air. He's here!

"If you don't take that wolf out of h?—"

"—s'cuse me, so sorry about this?—"

Before I've even finished turning around, Grey leaps up and knocks me to the floor. Then he clambers onto me and licks my face. I pull his head in and hug him, stroke his fur. Tears well up in my eyes again, this time tears of joy. I push Grey aside a little with one hand and sit up.

Brendan's standing there in cargo pants and a hoodie. His face is thin and solemn, but his eyes gleam from somewhere deep down, some light hidden away inside him.

"You came," he says quietly, helping me to my feet. He seems like he's barely managing to keep himself under control. I want to tell him it's okay to cry, but I know he doesn't want to hear that, so I just squeeze his fingers.

"You doubted I would?"

He smiles, and I can see the tension falling away from him more and more. "Been doubting it all day."

My lips are trembling. "I didn't think you'd be there. We got a flat tire, and a truck tipped over, and there were these stupid oranges all over the damn street..."

He laughs, but it sounds like it's masking a sob, one that releases the rest of his pent-up fear. "I arrived yesterday, actually. I've been here since this morning." He takes hold of Grey's collar and casts a reassuring glance at the man behind the counter. "I had Grey tied up out there earlier, but he got loose—I had to run and catch him." His pupils get huge, and I feel the time we spent apart melting away to nothing. His eyes are like a butterfly net, catching me for the second time in my life. There's so much I want to say to him, but we have the whole summer for that.

I walk over to him and slide my arms around his waist. "I never want to be away from you again, Bren. Never."

He presses me close, buries his face in my hair. "You won't have to, Lou. Promise."

And then we kiss, cautiously and tenderly like it's the first time. A tingling wave washes over my skin like bubbles of air, making me shiver. His lips feel the way they did under the willow tree: wild-gentle, bittersweet. They're joy and pain, the calm and the storm.

We stand there for a long moment, wrapped up in one another, until the guy at the cash register threatens to call the rangers if we don't take the wolf out of the store this minute.

When we reach the parking lot, Jayden is waiting by the car. He's trying to act casual, but I can tell he's eyeing Bren carefully, taking in as much information as he can. Finally, he gives me a long goodbye hug.

Before we leave, he turns to Brendan with a grim look on his face. "If you hurt her again, I'll kill you."

Bren just nods, taking my hand. Then he whistles to Grey, who's busy sniffing Liam's car. This time, the wolf trots over immediately. He's full-grown now, with icy grey fur that's nearly silver, and his blue eyes have turned a deep honey color.

"He stayed with you," I marvel. I really did think it was only a matter of time until Grey wandered into the forest and didn't come back.

Bren claps Grey on the back with his free hand. I can sense the deep connection between them. "We had a couple pretty serious fights before he finally understood who's in charge around here." He looks at me. "The camper's a little ways off," he adds almost apologetically. "They wouldn't let me park it here all day."

I just smile and start across the parking lot with him. I know we're going to be okay, even though it won't be easy to forget the past. I know that the light of the future will cast shadows, too.

Right now, though, it feels like the past and the future are one moment, intersecting here and now, between the light and the shadows—weightless, like spreading wings preparing to soar away. I look around. Reddish-gold rays of sunlight filter through the gathering blue-grey clouds, and the long, dark band of sequoias at the edge of the parking lot stretch far into the distance. It'll be pitch dark here soon.

It's just how it was back then. The first time.

Bren glances over at me, and the red sunlight dances in his eyes.

I remember the question I saw in those eyes a year ago, the one he was only asking me in his heart.

Do you want this?

I know the answer now.