Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins
For Ben, because I like our love story best of all.
Prologue
T he beach is empty. In the fading glow of twilight, the waves roll up to the rocks in sweeping curls of white foam. The sand glistens like wet steel. The grass bends low in the briny night wind. Always changing, yet always the same. I imagine the beach has looked like this since the beginning of time.
Stepping onto the soft terrain, I feel transported to some ancient evening, eons ago. Long before my uncle claimed this land as his own. Long before man even dared to taint these shores.
I wish the fleeting vision was true.
My gaze falls to the full moon’s reflection on the water. It’s broken into shards on the black sea, tossed about with each wave. A small, white shape catches my eye. It’s in the glare of the reflection, so I nearly miss it.
I step into the wave break. A seabird, dead and limp, is rolling back and forth in the foam. Her wings are spread open, her whiteandbrownspeckled breast exposed.
I lift the small creature into my palm. What killed her? I wonder. There’s no sign of injury. Did she drown in the sea? Pinching her brittle, fragile leg gently between my fingers, I notice a small metal band snapped around her ankle. The sight of it startles me. Examining it closer, I catch the faint impression of numbers and letters etched into the band, but something in me resists reading them. I can’t say why.
What does it matter, anyhow? The poor creature is dead. And she reminds me that there is no going back. Time howls on, like the wind. And it is not only weaker creatures like this bird that succumb to it. Even the strongest man will fall before its crushing forward push.
I set the bird out into the water. As the tide pulls her away, I accept this truth. Soon the summer will be over. Too soon.
vi
Chapter 1
Cassandra
ate: July 8.
D
Days at my mom and stepdad’s new summer home: 22
Hours spent at the froufrou country club: 0
Hours spent on the fancy private beach: 0
Hours spent lying on the couch bemoaning my lack of a life:
somewhere in the 100s.
Number of times Mom has told me to make some new
friends and stop moping around: also somewhere in the 100s.
To paraphrase Shakespeare: Oh, for a muse of fire to convey
how utterly and completely bored I am.
Given the circumstances, it should be clear that I have no
choice but to try to sneak into my neighbors’ yard and swim in
their pool at 2:00 a.m.
My two accomplices are less than ideal. Travis Howard and
Brandon Marks are local royalty of this ritzy, historic neighborhood slapped on the coast of Massachusetts’s North Shore.
Both have the classic all-American look—tall, sparkling blue
eyes, and a crop of blond hair that’s been gelled to scientific
levels of perfection. But given the circumstances, they’ll have
to do.
Brandon can barely keep pace as we cut along the tailored
brush that adorns the Andersons’ back fence. Maybe because
he’s too busy shooting nervous glances behind us.
“We’re being followed,” he says.
Travis and I exchange a look.
“Chill out, dude,” Travis says.
I sigh. “Seriously. I didn’t pack my smelling salts, so try not
to faint.”
Travis holds out his fist for a bump.
Brandon is resolute. “At the very least, we’re being watched.
You think these people don’t have security cameras?”
“No clue,” I say brightly.
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“I try.”
I probably should have come on my own. Trouble is, I need
a pair of hands to boost me over the fence. My little brother,
Eddie, couldn’t do it, since he’s three. And for obvious reasons,
I couldn’t ask Mom or Frank. That left the only other person I
knew here: Travis.
He and I met at a garden party. How bourgeois is that? I
was so bored I was ready to claw my eyes out. Then I saw this
crazy guy doing a chair dance, to the utter shock of the local
hens, and I decided he might be okay. Travis is pretty cool. He
reminds me a little of my friend Jade back in Ohio. A delightful
troublemaker. Having Travis’s buddy Brandon tagging along,
however, has proved to be an unwelcome change of plans.
It’s late, but humidity still hangs in the air. Not as oppressive
as during the day, but enough to make the hair against my neck
damp. Crickets chirp loudly in the surrounding brush, which
makes me uneasy somehow, as if their incessant noise will draw
attention to us. As if they’re crying, “Look! Look! Look! Look!”
to some unseen guard. Brandon’s nerves must be contagious.
Luckily, I spy the edge of the fence before I can dwell on my
uneasiness for too long.
“We made it,” I say.
Gripping the bars, I look for a good spot to grab midway up.
Travis helps me with the inspection.
“Right over here,” he says, motioning. “The ground’s a little