He lifts his head. “You really think you could do this?”
“I know I can. I have to.”
He sets the folder down on the table and rests his fingers against it. “I’ve spent most of my life caught up in the Project. I know how powerful they are, but for the past six months I’ve been free from them. No one has come looking for me. I know you’re valuable to them, but I still think we could get away from them, if we wanted to.”
“It’s only a matter of time before they’d hunt us down. This is the only way to guarantee our freedom.”
“I don’t know, Lydia.” He stares down at the file. “This is a lot of information all at once. LJ never said a word about eliminating the Project when I found the resistance.”
“Then why did you think I came here?”
“I thought you were running away.”
“What?” I feel my chest get tight. “From you?”
“From everything.” He stares down at the scarred wood of the table.
“But you still came.”
“Even if you were trying to run away, I had to follow you. I needed to make things right between us.”
“Wes.” I lean forward until there’s only a foot separating us. I want to close the gap, but something holds me back. “I know I’ve been angry, but I would never run from you.” I pause. “I think that maybe we haven’t been trusting each other enough.”
His head snaps up. “I trust you. I didn’t blame you for wanting to get away from me, from all of it.”
“Then maybe you didn’t trust that you’d be enough for me.”
“You were leaving me, Lydia.” He speaks softly. “The reasons may have been different, but you came here thinking you would never see me again.”
He’s right. I wanted to protect him, to keep him safe, and I made that choice without him. Isn’t that the same thing he did to me?
“I’m not angry you came here,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about all this, a lot more than you have. I’m not expecting anything.” He looks out the window at the fading sun. “It’s almost time to go to the Bentleys. But . . .” He hesitates, glancing across the room. I follow his eyes to the small bed that is tucked into the corner.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Everyone thinks we’re married. And they assume you’re coming back to live here. With me.”
The bed looks smaller than a twin, and there’s hardly enough room for someone to lie down on the untreated wood floor.
We’ll be sleeping here. Together. Alone.
My mouth opens, but I can’t say what I’m really thinking. “There’s not even a bathroom in here,” I blurt out.
He laughs, and I stare at him. I’ve heard him laugh before, but not like that. Not easy and bright and free.
He stands up and reaches out, his hand skimming against mine. “Come on, the Bentleys will be waiting for us.”
Chapter 20
“Wes seems happy.” I follow Mary’s gaze to where he and Dr. Bentley are talking together in the middle of the backyard. Wes is nodding at something Dr. Bentley is saying, his face soft in a way I’ve rarely seen. He catches me staring and lifts his chin in acknowledgment. I smile.
“He looks relaxed. He likes it here, I think.”
“You know he’s been working as a fisherman with Mick’s father. He’s the one who’s renting him the house by the beach.”
“I know. He wrote to tell me.” But that’s not true, of course. He filled me in on the way here, after he led me to the ancient truck that was parked behind his house.
“Where did you get this?” I asked him.
“I bought it.” He held the passenger-side door open for me. As we drove to the Bentleys, he told me he was working as a fisherman, and that he even had his own boat now. He described getting up at dawn, casting his nets into the churning ocean, or sometimes not getting up at all, but spending the day in bed reading novels and then taking long walks around Montauk.
“I’ve never had so many choices before,” he said. “The Project decided where I would go, what I would do. I didn’t remember what freedom felt like. And now I don’t think I can ever go back.”
“When I stop the Project, you won’t have to.”
He looked over at me. “If we ran away, I wouldn’t have to either.”
Now Mary dumps some chicken pie on a plate and hands it to me. “Go take that to your beau,” she says. “Though I suppose I have to start calling him your husband now, huh?”
My husband. I am only eighteen. Wes is nineteen. We’re too young to be married, but the word still makes me feel oddly warm.
“Thanks.” I take the plate and a fork from her and walk over to Wes.
Dr. Bentley eyes the food as I approach. “Please tell me that’s for me.”
“I was instructed to bring it to my husband.”
Wes tilts his head and our eyes meet. We both quickly look away, and I shove the plate in his direction. “Here.”
Dr. Bentley winks at me, then excuses himself. “I’m famished, and I better eat while I can; I know Harriet will enlist me to get the fireworks ready soon. You’ll help, won’t you, Wes?”
“Sure, Jacob.”
Wes takes the plate from my hands as Dr. Bentley walks over to join Mary at the table they’ve set up near the back of the house. “You call him Jacob?”
He nods, and eats a bite of the pie, chewing absently.
“This is so weird.”
He raises his brows. We are standing alone in the wide, green lawn. It is just starting to get dark out, and fireflies spark in bursts of green light at the edge of the woods that circle the house. “What do you mean?”
“I was only here for about a week, a year ago.
