ABIGAIL
I watched my grandpa and Theo talk, trying to read their lips as I held a baby swan. My grandfather was frowning; Theo was frowning harder.
Abigail! Abigail! Give us a smile.
A few feet to the left of me, reporters snapped pictures, their bright flashes stinging my eyes. I ignored them. It was all I could ever do. I squinted harder, past the flashing, trying harder to see my grandpa and—
Rules.
Ha! I jumped, unable to control my happiness. I’d caught that word. Grandfather had mentioned the rules. No looking me in the eyes and definitely no touching. Theo was getting his ass handed to him. Maybe he’d even get sent back to LA.
“What are you smiling about, Abigail?” a reporter yelled. I glanced in their direction.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” I murmured.
It was the time of night when the sky looked like a painting as day faded. The stars were diamonds caught in a swirling purple-orange-pink watercolor above us. Tourists were flocking to the beach to watch the swans. Adult swans were way too mean to hold or even go near, but there was a little embankment where you could feed the baby ones.
If you were a Crowne, you could even hold them.
My eyes traveled down the soft, white-sand beach dotted with swans, a diaphanous memory of sixteen-year-old Theo, glittering beneath
the pier.
I’ve never told Theo why I stopped for him. Not the truth. I made it seem like it was a rich girl’s whimsy, and I think that was the only lie he ever bought.
He’d been sitting on the sand, smoking underneath the pier. I drove by him three times before I made the driver stop. I’d just been called back from my boarding school, Institute Le Rosey in Switzerland, mentally steeling myself for the years ahead. I didn’t have many friends at Rosey, but I had zero in Crowne Point. I hadn’t liked the plan to return home, but I wouldn’t do anything to disappoint my grandpa.
You’re not supposed to be alone. Forget what the world tells us about soul mates and family. It’s something you feel, the very essence of loneliness.
Theo had it.
He radiated it.
He was the only person I’d ever seen like me.
All at once, Grandfather walked away from Theo, and I was torn from the memory. I took a step, lips caught on a word. Grandpa was supposed to come hold the swans with me, but if Theo was glowering, whatever happened with my grandfather wasn’t good.
Grandpa probably had to walk it off. His precious protégé had disappointed him. Still, I watched my grandfather disappear into Main Street, gut clenching.
I plastered on a smile as Theo came to a stop next to me. “Rough chat?”
He said nothing, though he shifted and held his arms behind his back. I ignored how it made his biceps pop beneath his hoodie.
“I’ll understand if our little relationship is coming to an end. Nice try, though.”
I stroked the feathery head of my swan. Theo stared straight ahead. His brown hair fell unruly over his gemstone eyes. His nose looked like it had seen some fistfights. There’d been a time when this wounded, broody boy smiled for me…
I shook that intrusive thought away.
“Did you know swans mate for life, Abigail?”
The hairs on my neck rose. He was calling me Abigail, not Reject, but it wasn’t sweet. The calm way he spoke reminded me of the moment in a horror movie before the monster jumped out of the dark.
“Yes…”
“When they lose their mate, they grieve like us. They mourn. They’re never the same.” He wasn’t looking at me, but down the beach like a good bodyguard, scanning for threats.
He was the biggest threat.