Reckless Hearts (Oak Harbor #2)(77)

I don’t reply. One week is nothing when I’m staring down three months of my f*cked up family pretending like everything’s OK.

I turn back to the rain-soaked view outside the window, lifting my beloved camera to peer through the viewfinder lens. It’s a manual Pentax SLR, a bulky old antique that my grandpa gave to me, years ago, back before he died. Everyone uses their cellphones now, snapping digital pictures to post online and pass around, but I like the weight of the old camera in my hand, and the hours I have to spend in the darkroom, gently coaxing each photograph into life.

I carefully twist the focus, bringing the view clearer. The sea foams, restless beyond the strip of brush-land and sand dividing the highway from the shore. I press my finger on the shutter and click, praying I make it through the summer without losing my mind.

“You’ll be coming here with your own kids soon,” Mom adds brightly. “A tradition. You know, I came here with your grandparents, every summer since I was—”

A loud bang sounds, drowning out her voice. The car swerves wildly, suddenly out of control. My chest slams against my seatbelt painfully, and my camera slips from my hands. I grab for it, desperate, as we careen across the wet highway.

“Mom!” I yell, terrified. I see a flash of red through the window—the truck behind us in our lane. It heads straight for us, then swerves past at the last second.

“It’s OK!” Mom’s knuckles are white, gripping the steering wheel as she wrestles to regain control. “Just hold on!”

I cling on to the sides of my seat, thrown to the side as the car keeps spinning. We’re weightless, drifting in the road. Then, at last, I feel the tires get traction again. The car slows, until, finally, we come to a stop along the side of the highway.

I gasp for breath, my heart pounding. The red truck we nearly hit has gone off the road further up the highway, front wheels buried up to the bumper in mud and sand.

My mom is still gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead, her face chalk-white. “Are you OK?” I ask in a quiet voice. She doesn’t reply.

“Mom?” I ask again, reaching out to touch her arm. She flinches back.

“What? Oh, yes, honey, I’m fine.” She swallows. “The tire went out, I think. I don’t know what happened. A lucky miss.” Mom gives me a trembling smile, but I feel a tide of anger rise up.

“Lucky?” I exclaim, furious. “We shouldn’t even be here! None of us wanted to come this summer, and now we nearly just died. And for what?!”

Suddenly, it’s like a mack truck is crushing down on my chest. I can’t breathe, I can’t even think straight. I fumble at my seatbelt with shaking hands and then fling the car door open, stumbling out onto the road.

“Juliet?” she calls after me, but I don’t stop. I don’t care that it’s raining, wet and cold against my thin T-shirt and cutoff shorts, I just need to get out. I need to breathe.

I stride away from the car, gasping for air.

None of this was my idea. We haven’t been back to the beach house in years, not since I was a kid. We haven’t been much of a family in years either, but mom got it in her head that we had to spend one last summer there together—before I went off to college and Carina graduated—and we could all finally stop acting like we were anything more than distant strangers living under the same roof, trying like hell to pretend to the world that everything was OK.

Not that we don’t have practice. After all, pretending is what my family does best. Dad pretends he’s not a washed up academic with one failed book to his name and a taste for vodka martinis at four p.m. My sister pretends she cares about more than landing herself a rich lawyer husband with a country club membership and a six-figure bonus. My mom pretends she doesn’t regret throwing her life away on a charming British writer, or notice his late nights “advising” students at the office, and the disdain in his voice whenever he does remember to stumble home.

And me? I pretend it doesn’t hurt me to keep pretending. That it doesn’t eat away at me to see how much she still loves him, meek and cowering for the slightest bit of his attention. That I don’t get these awful panic attacks every time I think about leaving her behind when I head off to college this fall.

That’s why I agreed to this joke of a happy family vacation, to try to numb this sense I’m abandoning her. She wants one last summer to pretend? I’ll give it to her. But look where all that pretending has gotten us now: nearly winding up dead in a car wreck before her precious summer even begins.

“Hey!”

I hear a guy’s voice behind me, but I’m so desperate, I don’t slow down. My heart is pounding now, so fast I feel like it’s going to burst out of my chest. I know I just need to calm down and wait for the panic to pass, but when I’m caught up in the whirlwind, I can’t see straight long enough to try.

“Hey, wait up!” the voice comes, louder, and then there’s a heavy hand on my arm, pulling me around.

“What?” I gasp, violently yanking back. “What the f*ck do you…” My protest dies on my lips as I stare up into the face of the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen.

His eyes are the first thing I notice. They’re dark blue, mesmerizing, the color of skies after sunset. It’s always been my favorite time, that moment when the last light of day has faded away, and the first stars come out. Now I’m looking right up into them, endless midnight constellations. Ringed with thick, dark lashes, they burn into me, intense. Full of secrets, full of scars.