First Real Kiss

Chapter 26

Luke

No idea what just happened. One second, I was finally sharing my whole heart with Sheridan, and I knew she was feeling it.

The next second, she stalked out, leaving me in a daze. Doors downstairs slammed, and then her car’s engine roared away.

What the—?

She loved me, right? She’d said so. But something horrific had changed when I told her about our marriage.

Did Sheridan not want to marry me? I had no doubt she wanted to climb in bed with me but that she wasn’t going to. I respected it. I wouldn’t have pushed any further, knowing she was the waiting-for-marriage type. So was I, for that matter. Probably just the resurgence of my dream, where we were married had made me forget.

Who could blame me for that?

Sheridan, apparently.

An apology—that’s what she needed. I dialed her number, but she didn’t answer. I sent a text.

I’m sorry. Let’s talk. Let me apologize in person.

No reply.

Much as I should probably go home, something inside me also didn’t want to leave this place. This is home.

No, Sheridan was my home.

Even though she’d stormed off, I wasn’t going to leave her. I needed more information—there had to be something behind this freak-out.

I paced the bedroom, feeling like my explanation was nearby. My eyes fell on the journal on her nightstand.

Should I?

I should not.

Absolutely not.

Then again, she’d offered to show me the whole year. She hadn’t seemed the least bit protective of it. I picked it up and flipped through the pages of adolescent handwriting. Puffy cursive. Every letter I dotted with a heart.

I scanned the words. Scanning wasn’t reading. Scanning was … skimming. Like a dragonfly above the water. Skip, skip, skip.

I should not look in a woman’s diary, a little voice whispered in my head again. And yet—

A date caught my eye. Not the date of the Great Quake. I flipped back, and there was nothing for then. The first date came a month later.

July 7

I’m going to be in the hospital for a while, and almost nothing happens here other than daytime TV and a lot of visits from doctors and therapists, so I won’t have a lot to write about in here. So boring. But I can at least write what happened that day.

My eyes lodged on that July entry. It went on, describing the events of the Great Quake—from the perspective of a young teenage girl.

The part where I showed up raced into view.

I heard a voice yelling at me. “Are you okay?” By then, the lights were out, and it was hazy from the rubble falling. But the guy’s voice asked me again if I was okay.

I said, “I can’t move.”

“Hold on,” he said. Then, he pushed the heavy beam off me. “You need a stretcher, but there’s no time to go get one. Can you trust me?” When I nodded, he lifted me up, like I was a little kid getting carried to my bed. I put my arms around his neck and held on.