“It is. It’ll be over by the end of the summer,” I say.
“What are you, a fortune-teller?” She smiles. “From your mouth to God’s ears, Lydia.”
She steers me in the opposite direction from the navy camp, where several one-story houses sit next to larger wooden buildings advertising for bait and tackle and fresh fish. A group of older men are standing around a beat-up truck with high, rounded hubcaps. Mary waves as they watch us approach. “Hiya! Heard Mick’s coming back. Suze is real excited.”
A grizzled man leaning against the rusted-out bumper nods. “Yup. Back on the sixteenth of June. ’Bout time, too, need him on the lines.”
“Mr. Moriglioni, there are more important things than fish, you know!”
“None come to mind.”
Mary laughs, and the men join her.
“Old man Moriglioni is a real gas.” She clutches my arm, leading me down a dirt road that is quickly narrowing. It looks more like a bike path now, with long grass shooting up out of the middle. There aren’t many houses around us, and the beach to the left is becoming rockier and steeper. Up ahead I see where the cliffs start forming, growing taller and taller until they eventually reach the lighthouse at the point.
“He’s as crusty as stale bread, but he knows all kinds of dirty jokes that he’s always telling Mick . . . who then tells us of course. It’s hard to even keep a straight face around him. Oh, we’re here!”
She pulls on my arm and we leave the road to follow a grassy, beaten-down path. It winds toward the beach, and stops at the door of a one-story shack made of battered blue and gray boards. The roof is slanted to the side with a bent black chimney sticking out of the top. There’s a window in the front next to a wooden door, but I cannot see into the shadowy interior.
“Is this where Suze lives?” I ask.
Mary doesn’t answer, just yanks me forward. I trip a little as I try to keep up with her, and the simple leather shoes that Tag gave me slide in the high sea grass that surrounds the house. “Hang on a second,” I say.
And then the front door opens, and I feel the world go still. Mary drops my arm and beams at me. Silhouetted in the doorway, the dark interior of the house at his back and the sunlight shining full on his face, is Wes.
Chapter 19
“It’s you.” I lift shaking hands to my face, press them against my mouth.
“Lydia.” The hammer he’s holding falls to the ground, bouncing off the wooden door frame. And then he is there, in front of me, and I am in his arms, pressed to his chest, his hands in my hair, his mouth to my forehead.
I rise onto my toes to get closer to him, burying my face in the crook of his neck. He smells like pine needles, like salt water. “You’re here. How are you here?”
“I followed you,” he whispers against my skin, and I start to cry, not just for him but for Tim, for my parents, for all the people I will never see again. I was resigned to leaving everyone behind in order to defeat the Project, but just seeing Wes’s face makes me realize the magnitude of what I was giving up.
“I never thought I’d see you again.” The tears are choking my throat. Wes runs his hand down my hair.
“It’s okay. I’m here.”
I twist my hands in the rough material of his shirt. He lifts his head to look at Mary, but I don’t let go of him or turn around. I can’t.
“I’ll leave you alone now,” Mary says. I hear the smile in her voice. “But don’t get all wrapped up in your love nest, you two. You have to come to our house for dinner later. Daddy got some fireworks from the general store, and Lucas will be there, too. If you don’t come I’ll hunt you down, I swear it.”
“We’ll be there,” Wes tells her.
“Six o’clock sharp.” Her footsteps barely make a sound on the grass.
As soon as she’s gone, Wes lifts me up. I move my arms to curl around his neck, my body against his, my feet swinging a foot from the ground.
He carries me into the house, setting me down on the floor in the middle of the one open room. I slide my hands from his neck to his chest. He leans back, fitting my face in the palms of his hands as he tilts my head up. For a minute we just look at each other. It is darker in here, the windows small and narrow, but I see that his skin is tan, his cheeks lined with dark stubble. His black hair has been recently cut, though it still falls down over his forehead. He is no longer so thin, and I can feel the muscles curving along his shoulders and back. “You look different,” I whisper.
His black eyes move over my face, taking in the sharp bones that press against my pale skin. “It was only days ago, wasn’t it? That you were in the woods?”
I nod, feeling his thumbs rub my cheeks. They are rougher than I remember, newly calloused and dry.
“God, Lydia.”
He leans forward, and I know he means to kiss me. I start to close my eyes, remembering what it feels like to have his lips on mine, but then I stop. The last time we were together, he told me why he betrayed me to the Project. I’ve been so focused on my destiny and the decision to come back here that I haven’t had time to process what that confession meant.
Wes feels me tense and pulls back. “What is
