Rebound (Boomerang #2)(59)

“I don’t yell. If I do, it means something I love is being threatened and that’s how I felt. She took me wanting to wait the wrong way. She thought I was ashamed of her. It was the opposite of what I was, but once she got an idea in her mind . . . Anyway, we got to yelling. I couldn’t believe she thought those things. We were bringing the house down and that only made it worse. With ice on the ground, it was probably the worst time to get in a car. I knew it wasn’t safe, and I didn’t want her to drive . . .” I’ve forgotten how to breathe again and the library feels like it’s closing in on me. Like the walls are collapsing. “Give me a minute. I’m going to finish. I just . . . . I need a minute.”

Ali leans in, and I feel her head settle on my shoulder. It’s a gentle gesture, but I feel like she’s holding me up. “Okay,” she says. “Take as long as you need.”

“Jazz has some answering to do. How exactly is this making my company stronger?”

I sense Ali’s smile. “Well, I don’t want to speak for you, but I feel like our energetic frequencies are definitely aligning.”

I have to finish this. I have to tell her what happened on the road that night, so she’ll know I couldn’t have stopped it, but she straightens abruptly.

Rhett and Mia stand at the door.

They both look from me to Alison for a moment. Then Mia smiles slightly, and Rhett frowns.

“Sorry, but I’ve got some bad news, Adam,” Mia says. “The storm’s picking up. It’s supposed to hit tomorrow, but flights are already getting canceled.”

“We have to get everybody home,” Rhett says. “We have to end this retreat right now.”





Chapter 33



Alison


I’m tucked into the bottom bunk, doing my best to stay out of the way as everyone scrambles to pack up before traveling back to LA. Adam’s arranged several chartered flights, squeezed in wherever they could fit us. Adam and I are last, and I don’t know if that’s by luck or by design, but I’m grateful to have just a little more time here. I’m reluctant to get home, to have to face my father and tell him I don’t have any more information on Adam.

Even though I do.

Who would have thought that two days of playing around in the snow would leave me feeling so wrung out, so exhilarated, so peaceful, and so anxious at the same time?

I feel lighter today than I have in a long time. And yet I’m also carrying around this deep ache, a feeling of being scooped out in the center. I can’t stop thinking about Adam. About the way he looked in the library, shrunken and vulnerable. Maybe a lot like the boy he was when he first met—and lost—Chloe.

I can’t help myself. I pull out my phone and do a search on “Chloe Randall.” I know I won’t find much, but there must be some trace of her. I just want to see her, to have a picture in my mind so that when Adam and I talk about her, I’ll know her in some small way—for him.

Nothing comes up at first, but I try “Chloe Randall, Princeton, art,” and a link to a PDF appears—a newsletter from the New Jersey Watercolor Society. I click on the link and scroll through a few articles until I find a short piece titled, “Maybe Art Isn’t for the Birds.” It’s about Chloe winning a scholarship to a summer art program.

I scroll further, and there she is. I know it even before I read the photo caption. She’s beautiful, with gleaming auburn hair in waves and delicate features.

She stands before a row of paintings—all of birds. I recognize her style immediately, can see the inspiration for Adam’s tattoo. But more than that, I see the birds aren’t falling, like they do on Adam’s tattoo. They’re flying.

People talk about feeling someone else’s pain, and now I truly do. It feels like someone’s tightening a wire around my heart. I want to find him and put my arms around him. I want to love him enough for two people—the girl he lost and the girl I’m trying to become.

“Hey, Ali,” Sadie says, coming into the room.

I close out of the browser and put my phone away.

Mia and Pippa come into the room behind her, and they riffle through all the blankets and pick up every pillow. Since Sadie’s wearing only one boot, I assume that’s the purpose of the search.

“Hey, Sadie. You guys need some help?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s in here somewhere.” She drops down onto the floor and lets out a triumphant, “Aha!” Then she pulls out the twin to her pink Doc Marten and plops onto the bunk to slip it onto her foot.

“Hey,” she says. “We’re all going to hear Mia’s roommate Skyler play at The Echo on Sunday night. Want to come?”

I glance over at Mia, who smiles at me. “Skyler is awesome. Electric cello. You should definitely come.”

I’m embarrassed by how moved I am by the invitation. And how much I missed this—just the company of other girls. And with these girls, I feel more a part of things—improbably—than I ever have.

“Will Ethan—”

She shakes her head before I even finish the sentence. “Girls night out. But it would be okay even if he was going to be there, I think. Don’t you?”

I nod. It would be, I realize. Completely okay. At least with me—and now, it seems with Mia.