home.
By the time I started freshman year at Palmetto, I’d been through a whole lot worse than that frozen moment on the dock. I had longer hair, thicker skin, the right zip code and wardrobe, and a different nickname to prove that I had fully put that past behind me.
But the first time I saw J.B. in the halls of my new school, I was right back at that marina, totally exposed, totally worthless.
He passed me in the hall, then doubled back around. “You look familiar,” he said, squinting. “Have we met?”
Once, you used to envision your final exit from high school, some fairy-tale ending to your story. You were so easily won over by honest trifles. You succumbed so quickly to the instruments of darkness, snapping your Juicy Fruit, thinking you were on top of the world.
They spent nearly a week searching for Natalie Hargrove’s body, and Dotty Perch spent that long praying for her soul. She went through box after box of tissues, flanked on either side by Darla and the Dick on the couch at the hacienda by the lake. The Dick combed through her hair with his fingers, brewed her fourth pot of decaf hazelnut coffee. He could never erase what had happened to Dotty’s only daughter. The deed was done. The battle was lost and won. But she had someone to take care of her at last, and a house built from a lifetime of coveting. She would eventually find happiness. You would, too, if you were her.
The Double D was another story. She treated Natalie’s old locker like her own personal wailing wall, her nubby fingers peeling at the poster taped across its red metal door.
The poster read:
As easily as Kate Richards filled the hole left by Natalie Hargrove, you might expect to find our bright new star on the arm of a certain reigning King. But no one at Palmetto had seen or heard from Mike since Natalie’s tragic accident. Perhaps that one-way ticket out of town got put to use after all. .
Back at Palmetto, Officer Parker was making a personal discovery of his own. The cops had finally gotten around to cleaning out Justin Balmer’s locker. Inside it, they’d found a football helmet, socks, jock straps. And a small zipper case.
Tucked into the case, were a handful of pictures.
Of Natalie Hargrove.
Natalie serving lemonade at the freshman fund-raiser.
Natalie by the flagpole tossing her head back to laugh, so that the sun sparkled in her long dark hair.
Natalie’s jeweled lilac dress glinting in the light from the snow globe at last year’s winter formal.
And more. Photos of Nat across all four years they’d spent at Palmetto.
Proof that there was more to J.B. than anyone knew, buried truths behind his emerald-green eyes. Proof that things aren’t always what you think they are.
Once, you imagined you could be anyone you wanted to be. That you could make the right guy love you and rescue you from your fate. That you could outsmart everyone and leave your past behind for good.
How hard you worked for what you wanted.
How cruelly fate betrayed you in the end.
