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“You know, you didn’t actually abandon your family, right? You were a kid with a dream in a place that doesn’t always make space for dreams. You had to go.”
“Most people around here would disagree with that retelling.”
“Most people around here are shortsighted. Trust me, I know abandonment. My dad walked away from his family and never looked back. He built a life and then walked away from it and didn’t care who he hurt. That was his choice, and it was selfish as hell. What you did was different. You were just a kid. You needed to build a life.”
Will is silent for long moments, no doubt trying to figure out how to respond to a woman who lectures him about his life when she’s not threatening to have him fired at a wedding.
“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of—”
“Thank you for saying that. It ... I’m not sure I believe it, but it means a lot to know that you do.”
Warmth creeps up my spine, and for the first time since we met, I’m speechless around Will.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, suddenly aware that I haven’t heard Ashley, Vicky, or any of the others in too many minutes. The light they were using to brighten the path is gone too.
“They’re—” Will stops walking and glances around. Without our movement, the forest is eerily, impossibly silent. He turns on hisphone’s flashlight and floods the space with artificial light. “Where’s the path?”
Ahead of us, there’s nothing but forest floor. We’re surrounded by trees, with no way to tell which is forward or back.
Will makes a full circle with the light. “There’s a chance we’re lost.”
A quiver enters his voice, which he tries to hide by clearing his throat.
“We can’t be too far from Maeve’s. Let’s just turn around and retrace our steps.”
“Yeah, that sounds reasonable.” His voice rises in pitch. “Which way is back?”
It’s my turn to circle around. Though without the benefit of a flashlight or my phone, which is sitting in my car, I’m met with indiscriminate shadows in every direction. For the second time, I’m lost. If this is some message from the universe, it’s been received—loud and clear.
A crow caws, and I point to the left. “That way. Downhill.”
He lights the way I pointed. “You sure?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He falls into step beside me.
“Don’t worry, my stepdad taught me what to do if we see a bear,” I tell him, thoughtaughtis generous. On his one and only attempt to take Tessa and me out camping like our dad used to, he read aloud about bear attacks from a guidebook:An Idiot’s Guide to Hiking. Then, he stayed up all night stoking the fire because Tessa told him she was afraid of the dark.
That was the trip he went from “that guy our mom is dating” to “Peter.”
Will freezes midstep. “Oh, God. Bears? Actual predators who will eat me? I was scared enough when we were just talking about nebulous shadows.”
A snort escapes the back of my throat. “Were you this afraid of things in high school?”
“What? You mean was I afraid of being lost in the woods and eaten by a bear in the middle of the night? Yes, and I think you should be more afraid.”
My cheeks hurt from holding in a second snort. “So that tough-guy act was actually just an act?”
“What tough-guy act?” He sounds genuinely confused.
“You know, the ‘expose small-town corruption, keep to yourself, never show up at parties’ act?”
“Oh,” he says in a way that makes me wish I could take back my teasing tone. “That wasn’t my tough-guy act. That was my ‘working for my widow mom and spending every other free moment making sure I get out of this town’ act.”
“You hated it here that much?” I clamp down on the impulse to tell him I felt the same way. Back then, I thought there was no fate worse than turning into one of those people who live ten minutes from where they grew up.
“This town shrank after my dad died. I can’t explain it. I just couldn’t breathe.”
