The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)(19)

I’d started to turn around and pick a path back amid the rocks and dampening sand, when I heard it. Distant but clear, between the roar of the waves. A creak followed by a slam. Like a wooden door on a busted hinge, opening and shutting with every gust of wind.

Against all good sense, I kept going, and my curiosity paid off when the boulders thinned slightly. I was able to pick a precarious path over smaller, rounded stones. The shoreline curved up, away from the water, and the waves couldn’t touch me any longer. The way grew easier. The sound—creak-slam!—grew louder.

Finally, I came around a huge cluster of boulders. Ahead, the cliffs had slid toward the ocean, and there was no more beach.

Dead end.

Then I heard it again. Behind me.

I turned and there was the door. It hung on loose hinges, and every time the wind blew it open, it revealed a rectangle of pitch black. It took me a second in the dark of the night to make it out, but I realized I was staring at a square wooden shack built against a collection of high boulders.

I should have left it alone and gone home: first day of school and all. But what was at home? A stranger in our small space. And school was nothing but another year of being bullied for the unforgiveable crime of being poor. And thanks to my colossal failure tonight with Vi, I’d spend it watching her get closer and closer to River until I lost her forever.

I fished my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans and flipped on the flashlight function.

“This is how teenagers die in horror movies,” I muttered into the wind. The creaking door slammed, making me flinch.

I held up the meager light and peered in, using my guitar case to prop open the door.

“Hello?”

Jesus, I sounded like a scared dope. But if someone—or two or ten someones—lived here, I didn’t want to be rude.

Or murdered.

The shack was empty. And bigger than I thought. My light wasn’t strong enough; I had to illuminate parts of it at a time. Moonlight filtered in through cracks in the roof and through the one glass-less window cut into the side, drifts of sand piled against it.

I guessed the shack was about two hundred square feet. Rickety, uneven wood planks made up the flooring. A tangle of poles still wound with fishing line—like white witch’s hair—stood in one corner. A bucket. A bench. Even a small table with a rusted scaling knife resting on it.

I’d found a fisherman’s shack, weather-beaten, salt-rusted. Out of sight and forgotten and unused in months, if not years. It had its own small stretch of beach, and the ocean crashed a few hundred yards away, too far away to threaten.

Mine.

I sank down on the splintered but sturdy wooden bench. Suddenly, I was so fucking tired. I pillowed my head on my arm on the table, smelling wood and salt. My eyes fell shut at once.

When my CGM’s alarm went off, dawn’s first light was filtering in the shack’s lone window and streaming in from gaps in the planks like slivers of gold. I knew immediately where I was, as if I’d been coming here for years.

Treasure. I found buried treasure.

Just as I had four years ago, the night I’d stumbled out of the forest to see Violet McNamara’s face peering down at me from her bedroom window.

I popped a few gummies and finished off the bottle of orange juice. When I felt steadier, I stretched the cricks out of my bones for sleeping hunched over a table and grabbed my guitar case.

Outside, the sun was just cresting the horizon to the east. My eyes stung with tears—probably just the cold wind—as I watched the light spill over the ocean that was no longer angry but calm. Serene.

In front of my shack, I found a flat rock and sat facing the water. I took my guitar from its case, looped the strap around my neck. The fingers of my right hand found their home on the frets, and the left went to the strings.

The sun rose, and I played Violet’s song. My voice—rough and scratchy, like old wood—sang the words that had been trapped in my heart for years. I sang them louder, strummed the guitar harder. Fueled by fruitless, hopeless longing, the words rose up and up…

Until they were caught by the wind and torn to shreds.




All I’ll Ever Want



Pretend I’m doing fine on my own

a lost soul with nowhere to go

I got holes in my shoes walking away from you

there’s living and then there’s life

don’t tell me it’ll be all right

this nomad needs a home a home

So maybe fall in love with me tonight



You’re right there but so far away

A thousand words in my mouth

And I got nothing to say

put you in my love song, hiding in plain sight

Don’t make me say it again

Guess I’ll have to play it again

And make you fall in love with me tonight



Feels so good and feels so weak

This love cuts until I bleed

Don’t touch me, baby, don’t look at my scars,

Until you want to know which ones are yours

All I’ll ever want

All I’ll ever want

Is you and me



Don’t know how lost you are

Until you’re found

you can’t see the road, when the rain’s comin’ down

You call me home

I’ll take you to bed