Another set of storms is set to roll in later, but for now, it’s a cloudless sky, ensuring it’s bright enough that a majority of the cave is visible even through the blanket of water pouring over its one exposed wall. I expect to see Jase waiting inside, but there’s no one. All there is is the trail of Skittles continuing towards the far corner…
…where I used to keep my supplies stashed away.
Everything from my blankets to my candy collection remains untouched, but the folded piece of paper and small black velvet box are definitely new additions.
When I unfold the sheet, the air stalls in my chest.
Because it isn’t new at all.
I’d recognize that pale pink paper anywhere.
It’s from the notebook my therapist had given me to journal in, a notebook I had thrown away over two years ago.
Jase’s handwriting fills the paper, confirming what he had only recently been able to tell me.
It’s his apology.
But not only that.
The bottom part of the letter has my eyes dragging over to that velvet box.
“I haven’t earned your forgiveness, and I have no right to meddle in your business, but I hope you don’t hate me for this in particular. You deserve it more than anyone.”
I crack open the lid, and my vision immediately begins to blur as I try and fail to blink back tears.
Because it’s a Celtic love knot.
And not just any. Attached to a thin silver necklace is my mom’s pendant, and it’s not a replica. My fingertips glide over the grooves I haven’t felt in years, the engravings my grandmother had put on the back not having faded a day since I last saw it.
With the rushing water echoing over the space, I don’t hear him until his arms wrap around my waist from behind.
“How?” It’s all I manage to say over the lump in my throat, but Jase doesn’t need more than that.
“I thought about what you said, how your dad didn’t want to see anything that reminded him of your mom. But seeinghis office, it was clear he was harboring everything he could that belonged to her.” I don’t have to look at Jase to know he’s smiling. “So, when your parents were throwing their Labor Day bash at your house sophomore year, someone may or may not have crashed the party and snuck back into the office, and that same someone may or may not have lock-picked the bottom drawer on your dad’s desk to find it.”
“Someone?”
“I plead the fifth.” He kisses the side of my cheek, removing the necklace from the box to clasp around my neck.
The pendant falls between my breasts, the cool metal both familiar and foreign. I never thought I’d see or feel it again. I turn to face him, holding up the letter. “How did you get this paper?”
Jase winces. “I wrote the letter in your room that night, and I intended to leave both it and the necklace there, but you must have been outside at the party, and I didn’t know who might see it before you would. The last thing I wanted was to find out that Blythe or someone else had run off with it.”
“So you put it somewhere you knew only I would find it.”
“Granted, I didn’t think it would take you several years and a scavenger hunt to get you back here,” he chuckles, brushing his lips over mine, “but, yeah, that’s the gist.”
I melt into his touch, into the feel of his kiss, into the breath heating me in the most perfect way possible.
“What do you think?” he asks, taking the sheet of pink paper from me. “Will you let me try to make it up to you?”
I want to tell him there’s nothing to make up for, but the grin spreading over his lips is too tempting. “What did you have in mind?”
I’m right.
The second I give him the green light, that grin of his transforms into something so perfectly mischievous. “I say we start by fucking up everyone’s shit.”
CHAPTER 39
