Second Star

30

I run onto a path at the edge of the parking lot, up onto the rocks that overlook the ocean. On prettier days, this is probably a place where parents take their kids to play, where young couples bring their dogs for a hike, maybe where first dates go for a romantic view of the water. But there’s nothing romantic about the ocean today, about the waves crashing angrily against the rocks. The spray is high enough to reach me, soaking my ponytail, drenching my skin. I shiver.

I’d almost forgotten that this is the reason everyone else came here—for these waves. The waves brought Pete and Belle here. They didn’t come here looking for me, or for John and Michael; they came to surf. Maybe that’s all Jas wanted to do, too. Maybe I was just a pleasant enough companion to take along for the ride. Or maybe he was using me to get back at Pete for taking Belle from him, just like Pete said.

But then why did he suggest going to the bar yesterday? Why did he put himself in danger just to ask about my brothers? I sit down, even though the rocks are sharp and cold beneath me, and rest my head in my hands.

Even if I head up to Maverick’s or down to Killers, continuing my search for my brothers alone, I’ll still be chasing just a rumor, a whisper, a hope. I haven’t found clues, just dead ends. A hopeless detective on an endless scavenger hunt.

The heat of someone’s body beside me makes me look up.

Pete.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down next to me.

“I’m surprised you’re willing to sit next to me,” I say. “You know, after I joined forces with your arch nemesis and all.”

Pete laughs at my choice of words, as though he and Jas are two superheroes battling it out for world domination.

“It’s my fault you’re with him, Wendy. If I’d just been honest with you from the start—”

“Why weren’t you?” I interrupt. “Really. I’m not angry anymore.”

“You’re not?”

I shake my head. I’m too tired to be angry. “I just want to understand it.”

“I told you,” Pete says. “I wanted more time with you.” He looks so earnest, so sweet, like a little kid who’s begging his mother for another slice of cake, another piece of candy, more time at the playground, just a few more minutes on the beach.

“You thought that if I knew you couldn’t help me find my brothers, I’d immediately lose all interest in you?” I ask.

If only he knew. The truth is, I was drawn to him from the very first time I saw him on the beach, though it seems like a million years ago now. When I followed him into Kensington the next day, it was because I was looking for my brothers, sure, but I also followed him just because I wanted to. Because I wanted to find out where he was headed.

“No,” he answers. “But I felt awful once I know they were your brothers and they were missing. And I felt responsible. I knew if you knew I’d kicked them out, you’d never forgive me.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says it, but at the rough sea. I follow his gaze. What does it feel like to be ready and willing to take on an ocean like this only to be told that you’re not allowed to leave dry land? All those surfers at the harbor today—what will they do with all that pent-up energy now that the Coast Guard has shut the beach down? How strange to think of the ocean as something that can be closed for business, locked up and gated and guarded. Is there really any place to put all that energy when your chance has been taken away from you, all because the thing you want is simply too dangerous to attempt?

Returning my gaze to Pete, I shrug. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with addicts? Kick them out? Tough love or something?” I guess that’s what my parents were trying to do when they tried to ship me to Montana.

My poor parents. They must be worried sick. I picture them at home in the glass house, walking around silently, wondering what they did so wrong, how they failed so spectacularly as parents that all three of their children felt the need to flee. And Nana; my dog probably misses me most of all. Suddenly, I miss her so much my stomach hurts: My parents, too. They were just trying to help me.

Pete shakes his head. “I didn’t kick them out for their own good, Wendy.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “I kicked them out for my own good. For Belle’s. For Hughie’s. I kicked them out because I hate Jas and I didn’t want anyone in my house who was involved with him.”

Pete looks at me now, his hazel eyes fiery even in the mist.

“I should have let them stay. I should have begged them to stay. I should have helped them get sober, the same way I did for Belle.”

“You helped Belle because you love her,” I say.

“But I should have helped her because it was the right thing to do. I should have helped your brothers because it was the right thing to do.”

His voice is thick with guilt. He stops talking suddenly. An enormous wave crashes against the rocks, sending up spray and soaking us, but neither of us moves.

“I really thought that I’d find them here,” I say finally. “That’s why I came, you know. And now, who knows where they’re headed?” I’m surprised that I’m able to get the words out around the lump in my throat. When the tears finally overflow from beneath my eyelids, Pete stands and pulls me into his arms.

“Wendy,” he says, and my name sounds different somehow. Important. In Pete’s arms, I feel safe and warm. Like nothing bad can happen to me, not as long as I let him hold me.

“I know you miss your brothers,” he says. “And I’m so, so sorry for the part I played. I’m sorry that I made them leave, and I’m sorry for lying to you.”

I nod, my cheek damp against his shirt. He must be freezing, here in the wind and the damp in nothing but a T-shirt and board shorts, but somehow, being in his arms still makes me feel warm.

“I know that you’ll see them again, Wendy, one way or another. They’re out there.” He gestures to the ocean. “They’re surfing somewhere. I know that.”

I nod. Could Pete be right? Maybe John and Michael are destined to spend their lives searching for their next great ride, just like Pete, and maybe just like Jas, too. Maybe I should try to learn to live with that. I need to learn to live with it if I’m going to have any kind of life of my own.

“Wendy,” Pete says gently, “do you think you can be happy, even with them gone?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.

“I do,” Pete says firmly. “You were happy in Kensington. With me. Weren’t you?”

I close my eyes. I remember taking a wave while the boys cheered me on from the beach, standing in front of a bonfire to keep warm, sitting on the cliffs with Pete holding me the way he is now. I was never just there to search for my brothers; I spent my days and nights in that house on the cliffs and on the beach below falling for Pete. I never felt so free, never felt so alive. Jas said living in Kensington agreed with me, and he wasn’t wrong. Maybe Pete knew that all along.

“Yes,” I say finally. “I was happy there.”

“Then come back with me,” Pete says quickly. “Come home.”

My eyes still closed, I see myself walking into Jas’s house; the heat and the rhythm of his party, the warmth of the carpet on his floor. I see his blue eyes spotting me from across the room, beckoning me closer. I feel the heat of his body against mine, smell the warm scent of his skin. I don’t belong in that drug-saturated house with Jas; and I don’t think I belong in the abandoned house with Pete, Belle, and the boys, either.

But Pete is right. It’s time for me to go home.

“I can’t,” I say softly, disentangling myself from his hold. The wind rushes off the water, blowing my clothes flat against my body until it feels like I could take flight. “I’m sorry.”

I turn away from his hazel eyes and his warm arms, begin walking back down to the road. Somehow, I’m going to make my way back to Newport, to the glass house on the hill, to my parents and my dog, to the life I left behind. The life that’s waiting for me. But as I walk away, I hear Pete’s voice carrying over the wind.

“Belle and the boys and I are going to stick around here for a few days,” he says. “So, if you change your mind, Wendy, I’ll be waiting.”