Sarah Allen - The Girl Who Chased the Moon

“What way?” Emily asked as she turned to her, intrigued.

“I hope you never find out,” she said.

“You’ve been spoken to that way ?”

“Yes,” she said softly, just as Sawyer stopped at their towels.

“Hello, ladies.”

“Hi, Sawyer,” Emily said as she sat down.

Julia sat on the towel next to her and stuffed her shorts into her beach bag. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Julia,” he said. “Bear hunting?”

She squinted up at him. “Is that a euphemism for something?”

He ignored that and sat on her towel at her feet. She could see her reflection in his sunglasses as he stared at her. What was he doing? Why was he being so familiar? The eighteen years of silence while she was gone, along with the year and a half of cold shoulder she’d given him since she’d been back, should have been more than enough to discourage him from sitting on her towel on the beach, inches away from her bare legs.

Yet here he was.

And all because she’d told Stella that she made cakes because of him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“My sister is in town for the weekend,” he said. “She and her daughter are staying at the family’s lake house. I came to see them.”

“So this has nothing to do with my telling you I was taking Emily out here today?” she asked skeptically.

“Now, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

“Everything is easy for you, Sawyer.”

“Not everything.” Before she had a chance to respond, he nudged his chin in the direction behind her. “There’s my niece. Ingrid!” he called.

Julia and Emily turned to see a pretty redheaded teenager change course and walk over to them. Julia seemed to remember Sawyer’s older sister having red hair.

“This is Julia Winterson,” he said to his niece.

Ingrid smiled. “I recognize the pink streak in your hair. I see you sometimes in town when my mom and I visit,” she said. “I love it, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Julia said. “This is Emily. She just moved here.”

“Some kids over in the cove are having a cookout party and they asked me if I wanted to come. I’m going to ask my mom. Do you want to come, Emily?” Ingrid asked.

Emily looked at her blankly. “What is it for?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it a club?”

“It’s a party,” Ingrid said, giving Emily a questioning look as she turned to leave. “I’ll be right back.”

Emily still looked confused.

“You’re making this out to be harder than it really is,” Julia said, laughing as she patted Emily’s hand. “All you have to say is ‘I’d love to come!’”

“Like this,” Sawyer said. “Julia, would you like to go out with me Monday night?”

“I’d love to!” she playacted. “See? Easy. It’s just a party. Didn’t you go to parties at your old school?”

“Well, I helped organize parties with my mom. Usually fundraisers. And some community service clubs at school used to have end-of-the-year parties.”

“What kind of school did you go to?”

“Roxley School for Girls. My mom helped found it. It’s a school based on social activism and global awareness. Volunteering is part of the curriculum.”

There again was that hint that Dulcie might have done some good with her life. Emily had mentioned something about it before, about Dulcie and her causes. As unbelievable as it seemed, Dulcie must have changed when she left here. “Well, there’s no reason for this party. It’s just for fun.”

Emily gave her a dubious look.

Julia laughed again. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be right here when you want to go home. No pressure.”

Ingrid came back shortly and said, “Are you ready, Emily?”

Emily stood, put on a smile Julia was sure she didn’t mean, and walked away with Ingrid.

“Who would have thought Dulcie would have raised such a decent girl?” Sawyer said.

“She is a nice kid, isn’t she?”

“You’re good with her. And no, I’m not surprised.”

Julia shrugged uneasily, realizing she was alone with him now and she couldn’t run away from what she knew he wanted to talk about. “I figure she needs someone she can turn to until she gets settled. I remember what it was like being that age. And believe me, I’m profoundly grateful to be on this side of it now.”

Sawyer was quiet for a moment as he studied her. She wished he would take off his sunglasses. She didn’t like seeing how uncomfortable she looked.

It was natural, she supposed, to be tense around him. Your peers when you’re a teenager will always be the keepers of your embarrassment and regret. It was one of life’s great injustices, that you can move on and be accomplished and happy, but the moment you see someone from high school you immediately become the person you were then, not the person you are now. When she was around Sawyer, she was the old Julia-the messed-up daughter of a man who hadn’t finished high school and cooked barbecue for a living. Sawyer never did anything to make her feel that way, but it inevitably happened. She could blame a lot of things on him, but not that.

“Why don’t you take off your shirt?” he finally asked.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “You know why.” She reached over to her beach bag for a bottle of water, but Sawyer caught her arm.

He held her arm and slowly pushed the sleeve up. It took great effort not to snatch her arm away. She had to remind herself that he’d seen them before. Most people had. She couldn’t hide them all the time.

He trailed his thumb over the scars. Some were as thin as wire, others were thick and raised. It was a surprisingly tender thing to do and it made her heart ache, just a little.

“Who did you turn to when you were her age, Julia?”

You . “No one. That’s how I know.” She slid her arm out of his grasp. “I don’t like to get sun on them. A tan makes them look worse.”

“Did you ever feel like you could turn to your dad or your stepmother?”

“Dad didn’t know what to do with me. And Beverly considered her job taking care of Dad, not being a mother to me. But she was the one who convinced him to send me away to school. I’ll always be grateful for that. Leaving this place probably saved my life.”

“And you can’t wait to leave again,” he said.

“Six months and counting.”

He sprawled out on his side in front of her, his head propped on his hand. “So, what time should I pick you up?”

“Pick me up for what?” she said as she found her bottle of water and took a sip.

“For our date on Monday. You accepted my invitation. I have a witness.”

She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m serious.”

“No, you’re not. Go coax the shirt off someone else. Your charm doesn’t work on me. I have a force field deflecting it.”

“Please. You’d have no idea what to do if I turned it on full blast.”

“You’re not scaring me.”

“Yes, I am. And that’s why I’m stopping. I want to talk about it, Julia,” he said. “But not now.” He rolled onto his back, the golden hairs on his legs and arms sparkling like spun sugar.

“You don’t get to decide that,” she told him. He didn’t respond. She waited for him to go away, but he didn’t. He might have even fallen asleep.

She took a book out of her bag and moved as far away from him as she could, wondering what pitiful part of her heart actually enjoyed this, his nearness.

The part that would always be sixteen years old, she supposed, frozen forever before everything changed.

THE CLOSER they got to the party, the more nervous Emily became. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it hadn’t been for those old ladies. Now she was worried about what everyone would think of her. She kept telling herself that there was no reason why she shouldn’t fit in. She just had a temporary case of new-girl-itis.