Page 163 of Just One More Thing

I pull my knees up and rest my chin on them. A breeze lifts my hair, cooler now that the sun is dropping lower, but the stone still holds the day’s heat.

A minute later, I hear footsteps on the rocks behind me and know it’s him before I turn around.

For a second, I wonder if Willard sent up a flare.

Jake sits down beside me. Hank backs up against me with so much commitment that if I move, he’d probably tip over.

Jake nudges my shoulder with his. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

We both look out at the ocean.

“Figured I might find you here.”

I turn to him. “Why?”

“Because when you’re thinking, you end up at the farthest edge of the nearest body of water.” He glances at me. “You’ve been doing that since you were nine.”

I look back out at the ocean. “I’m not thinking about anything.”

“Okay.” He reaches into his pocket. “Close your eyes. Palm up.”

I turn back to him.

“Trust me.”

That has never been my problem with Jake. I close my eyes and hold out my hand. Something cool and metal settles into my palm, followed by the soft brush of fabric.

“Open.”

I do. For a second, I just stare. Cream face. Pink second hand. Blue numbers. White band with blue and pink stripes.

My breath catches.

I know this watch.

Not this exact one.

But this watch.

Close enough that the memory hits all at once, full force. Me at twelve, sunburned and dramatic, standing on the dock with a striped watch on my wrist and a melted Popsicle stain on my shorts, informing Jake that if he didn’t hurry up and bait the hook, all the fish would leave.

My thumb slides over the face. It’s like the one I wore every summer until I lost it in college.

A month before everything changed.

“Jake.”

“I found one,” he says.

I turn to look at him. “You remembered?”

That dimpled smile of his fades.

He meets my eyes.

“Mo. I never stopped.” Jake looks back out at the water like he didn’t just reach into my chest and close his hand around my heart.