Page 56 of Roses & Ruin

Wow. Turns out, Rejected Julian is a huge prick. I’m actually thinking of saying so when his eyes go wide, and that green sheen returns to his face. He shoves past me and out of the office. I peek my head down the hall to watch him sprint toward the men’s restroom.

You know what? Serves him right.

Feeling gross and terrible, I exit the arts building, the sharp, gray, cold day bracing and clear. I cast it a sad glance, remembering how beautiful it looked on that very first day of class. Now the idea of going to painting class makes me feel like throwing up. Rubbing my arm, I survey the parking lot.

Would he have been such a jerk if he wasn’t sick? I shake my head hard. No, that’s no excuse. When I was in high school, I had the worst flu of my life, and when my mom barged into my room, flipped on the blinding overhead lights, and forced me to drink a medicine that tasted like liquid hospital smell, I still said please. “Please don’t make me drink that,” I said. When she said I had no choice, I did it and then pulled the covers over my head.

And if I were going to yell at anyone, it would have been my mom. Being horribly ill doesn’t make you a dick. It just makes it harder to hide when you are one. Well. At least it’s over and done with.

I make my way along the parking lot sidewalk, wishing I were back with Hayden. A soft breeze swirls me with a cinnamon-smoke smell, and I’m sure it’s wishful thinking until I’m suddenly surrounded by strong, perfect arms.

“Let me talk to him.” Hayden’s dark voice curls in my ear. I shiver at the threat lacing his voice. “I’ll show him a good time.” I feel a jolt when I realize he repeated Julian’s words. I pull back, gazing up at him in disbelief.

“You heard us from all the way out here?” I ask. “How good is your hearing?”

Hayden ducks his eyes, looking slightly embarrassed. “It’s decent. Better when I’m straining for specific tones.”

“Hayden.” I draw out the vowels. “Were you eavesdropping? You can’t…” I reach out and rub one of the small black buttons on his shirt. “Don’t do that.” His lip curls, and, ugh, it’s so annoying how he manages to look like a movie star even when he’s annoyed. Hayden sighs, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I just got so furious when I heard him. I’m here because I have a surprise for you, and Delia mentioned where you’d gone. She told me about your date, how you two…” He grimaces. “I wanted to make sure things went okay.” He clenches his fists. “The things he said to you. The fact he even got to touch you at all…The fact he touched you before I got to, that anyone gets to…” When Hayden allows me a peek into his eyes, I see a deep well of pain that shreds my heart. Immediately, I throw my arms around him, burying my face into his chest.

“Not in any way that matters,” I whisper fiercely. “Not in any way that counts. It’s just you, Hayden. Just you.”

“Still.” His chest rumbles against my cheek, a single, unhappy syllable, but his body relaxes and he threads his hands in my hair, kisses the top of my head.

“What’s this about a surprise?”

A slow smile spreads across Hayden’s face. His eyes don’t leave my face as he digs out a key fob from his pocket and clicks a button. I startle when a sleek black car parked two spaces away flashes its lights with a couple of blithe chirps.

“Taking you on a trip.” He swoops down, gently nips my bottom lip.

“Trip?” I say, a little breathless. Hayden grabs my hand, pulling me to his car. “A trip to where?”

He shoots me a look over his shoulder.

“Down memory lane,” he says. “Yours and mine. I’m taking you to where I first saw you, to your hometown.”

“You’re flying us to California?” I snort.

Hayden’s wry amusement softens into something else. “No,” he says. “I’m talking about the very first time I saw you. The original you.”

Chapter 20

Hemlock Cove, Maine, the place of my original birth, is a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. Tiny flurries dot the air when we’re an hour outside the little harbor town, and when I start to smell salt in the air, it’s begun to snow in gentle earnest.

I suck in a breath when we pass a wooden sign that reads Hemlock Cove, something stirring deep within me. Through the gathering of the falling snow, the unending horizon of the vast ocean appears, and the streets shrink to narrow cobblestone. A looming structure appears as we drive farther into the little town, and when it takes shape through the cold fog, I realize it’s a lighthouse.

A sharp and brutal longing seizes me.

“Your father was its keeper,” Hayden says, watching me. “He tended the lighthouse, ensured safe harbor to all.” There’s a tiny pause. “He was a good man.”

This is all so much. It feels strange to mourn a life I have no memory of, to long for a man who’s been gone for centuries.

As we pass the clinking sailboats bobbing in the choppy waves, the charming little storefront windows that sell locally made fudge and soap and fresh-baked bread, I fall more and more in love with this town, its symphony of ocean waves and seagulls, its moody scent of woodsmoke and fog, the briny cling of the air.

“Was I happy here?” I whisper. It’s still so strange, asking someone else to tell me the inner workings of my heart. I don’t think I’d be okay with trusting anyone but Hayden with such knowledge. He cradles the weight of that knowledge; even now, he falls solemn and doesn’t answer until he pulls into a tiny parking lot along the harbor and turns off the car.

“The happiest,” he says quietly. “We both were. For a time.” Before I can ask him to elaborate, he shoves open the driver’s door and gets out.