He pauses, and I can see he’s gone back there in his mind. I picture him searching alongside everyone else, hoping for a miracle.
“I kept going out there for a long time after that, just looking for something. Even after they called off the search.” He shakes his head and brings his eyes back to me, and now they’re more contemplative than sad. “It was stupid, but I kept thinking that somehow she’d come back, because it didn’t seem possible she was really gone.”
He pauses and picks up a cup from the floor, turning it in his hands, and I want to tell him maybe he was right. I want to say what I’ve been thinking since yesterday. That even now, there could be a chance. A little thread drifting along out there in the ether, waiting to be connected to the story it belongs to.
He smiles tightly and sends the cup in his hands sailing into a nearby trash can. “Anyway.”
I can tell by the shift in his tone he’s about to end the conversation, but there’s so much more I want to ask him. I want to know what made him tell me so much, why he didn’t ask me more about the journal or how I got it, or what else I know. I want to ask him what he’d do differently if he could go back. And what he would do now if he could have another chance.
But the question that I say out loud is, “Why did you stay here? After.”
He shrugs. “I probably should have left and moved on. Traveled, forgotten about it, let it go. But I kept staying and hoping, and eventually I opened this place and . . . that was it. Here I am.” He spreads his hands out, then drops them to his sides like that’s it. That’s all there is to his story.
It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s all I can do not to tell him everything I think right then and there, but fear holds me back. What if I’m wrong? What if I get his hopes up only to have them come crashing right back down?
The jingle of the bell above the door and Kat’s voice keep me from having to decide.
“Parker! Good, you’re here.” She brushes past me, hardly registering Josh standing there. Her eyes search the walls. “Where’s the painting? I need to see it.”
“Kat—” I hope the tone I say it with is enough for her to understand that she needs to stop right now.
She does, and seems to suddenly notice that Josh is standing there looking from one of us to the other like he’s waiting for an explanation of what the heck is going on. She looks him over carefully, her eyes wandering down the length of his arms. “Oh my God. Did she just tell you? Did she tell you what she thinks about the painting?”
“Kat.” This time I say it through gritted teeth, and since I know it’s not enough, I grab her by the elbow and give her my best smile. “I need to talk to you. Outside. Now.” I don’t give her a chance to argue. Instead, I yank on her arm and usher us out the front door of the café, leaving an understandably confused-looking Josh inside.
“What are you doing?” I can barely contain my anger at her. “Why would you say that to him right now?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” She shakes my hand off her arm. “Parker, I read the journal. She was totally in love with him, and he was with her, and they screwed it up. Don’t you think he’d want to know if there’s even the smallest chance that you’re right?”
I glance inside, but Josh is nowhere to be seen. I don’t blame him. “No,” I say. “I don’t think he’d believe me. As far as he’s concerned, she’s gone. It’s a closed chapter of his life. I don’t want to open it up with any false hope until I know for sure. I think he had enough of that the first time around.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s not a closed chapter of his life. He never got over her. That’s why he is the way he is.” Kat looks from me through the window of the café and back again. I don’t say anything, and I don’t move.
“Fine,” she says finally. “But just so you know, you’re ruining the picture I had in my mind of how this whole thing is going to go down.”
“Really?” I laugh. “What did you have pictured?”
“Never mind. Can you follow me to my house? We have to figure out how we’re gonna do this thing.”
“Right. Let me just—” I stop short at what I see. “Is Trevor Collins sitting in your car?”
“Yeah.” Kat dismisses the question with a wave of her hand. “Long story. I’ll explain when we get there.”
“Did you . . .” I don’t want to finish the question.
“Yeah.” She takes a step back. “I showed him the journal. He’s coming with us. Meet me at my house, okay?”
She turns before I can argue, and when she gets in her car, Trevor Collins waves at me through the windshield. And now I know. I’ve lost my chance.
18.
“On Going Unnoticed”
—1928
I drive angry. When the light up ahead turns yellow, I hit the gas instead of slowing down, and by the time I fly through the intersection, it’s definitely red. I don’t care. I almost want to just keep going, right out of town. If it wasn’t for the fact that Kat still has the journal, I might. Just go and take the trip by myself and forget about the fact that my best friend not only did the one thing I asked her not to by showing Trevor the journal, but she’s also done a thing I didn’t think I needed to ask her not to do. She had no right to show Trevor the journal. Or invite him on our trip. And now, all of a sudden, this . . . thing with him. I know I’ve said over and over I’m not interested, and I didn’t think I was. Not really. But still. I didn’t expect her to make him her end-of-the-year fling. I thought she knew me better than that. Now I just feel like I should’ve known better.