Page 39 of Crash Over Us
Mom slid her arm around me. “How is Gabe? How was your visit with him today?”
“He’s good. Awake.” I smiled at her. “He’s going to be groggy for a while. He’s under concussion protocol. He really doesn’t remember a whole lot about what happened. The doctor said it might come back as his brain heals. But he’s going to be okay, Mom.”
“That’s the best news. Maybe when he gets out of the hospital, he can come for dinner too.”
I nodded. “He’d like that.” Gabe was like my parents’ third son. I had a feeling my mom would take a break from work to visit him in the hospital now that he was awake.
“Why don’t you show Margot the house?” Mom suggested.
“Yes, I want to see everything.” Her eyes lit up.
“Okay. Let’s take the grand tour.”
I led her from the kitchen to the living room. It was simple. I had never thought about what my childhood home would look like to someone else. For the first time I was seeing it through someone else’s eyes. Margot’s eyes.
She admired the paintings of Coast Guard ships on the wall and the framed family portrait from when Jacob and I were in elementary school.
“I don’t know if I would have guessed that was you,” she teased me about my braces.
I shrugged. “Those were not my best years. But look at Jacob’s hair.”
She continued down the row of pictures and spotted the display my mother had arranged on the piano. There were more family photos. My grandparents. Days at the beach. Birthdays. She picked them up and examined them before setting them down again.
Then she grabbed one. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I didn’t know it was out. I didn’t know my mom had kept it.
Margot held it and stared at the couple in the photo. “Is this you and Josie Queen?”
TWENTY
Margot
He was wearing a tux. Even though his body hadn’t completely filled out, Caleb looked handsome. He had lost the awkwardness of the elementary and middle school years. The braces were gone. His hair was styled. He was standing in front of the house. This house. I recognized the row of rose buses and gardenia bushes even if they were young and newly planted in the picture.
Next to him was Josie Queen. I admired her long sequin gown. It was blue and the corsage on her wrist was a combination of pink and white flowers.
“You and Josie?” My throat felt tight.
Caleb exhaled. “That was a long time ago.” He grabbed the silver frame from my hands and placed it in the back row so it was hidden by all the others. “It’s an old prom picture.”
“So were you a couple? Or just a date? What is that?”
“Really? She’s like a little sister to me. She grew up next door. You know that. There are like ten dates to choose from on the island. We went as friends. Platonic friends. I swear.”
I suddenly felt like an idiot. What was wrong with me? Josie had said the same thing about Caleb more than once. They bickered like siblings.
“I don’t know why I reacted like that.”
“Maybe the same way I want to punch Dean or Ethan or whoever comes within ten feet of you.” He winked.
“Yeah, but I shouldn’t want to punch Josie. She’s been a good friend to me since I moved here. Sometimes I feel stupid when I’m the last to find out something. You all have known each other for so long. There’s so much history here and I can’t make up for that.”
Caleb looked at me. “It’s just history.”
I nodded. “Right.”
He turned me toward him. His fingers gripped the sides of my shoulders. “You know I would trade all that history for this? This is better than a platonic friend date to the prom when I was sixteen.”
