The Locket (2 page)

I knew I shouldn’t invade Gran’s privacy, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I reached for the locket, flipping it over, running my fingers over the cursive-scratched silver. There, in delicate scrawl, an inscription read,
Some mistakes weren’t meant to last
.

My chest tightened and a shiver ran across my skin, raising all the little blond hairs. The message was eerie,
disturbing
almost.

Lifting the locket from the pile of jewelry, I thumbed open the latch holding it closed. Inside, two faded pictures smiled at each other. The woman I recognized as a very young version of my gran, so I assumed the man with the dimple popping in his left cheek and eyes sparkling with mischief must be my grandfather. I hadn’t seen many pictures of him—he’d died when I was a baby—but I’d heard Gran’s stories. They’d met when they were fifteen, married when they were seventeen, and divorced a few months later under pressure from Gran’s parents.

Grandpa had gone away to war soon after and they hadn’t seen each other for five years, until the day they’d run into each other on the street, gone for coffee, and eloped to Nashville a few hours later, proving that—

“Some mistakes weren’t meant to last.” Now I understood the inscription.
Aw.
So sweet. It made me smile.

Gran and Grandpa had been together for almost forty years before he’d passed away. Their happiness proved that young love didn’t always have to end. Sometimes young love became old love,
forever
love. I still believed it would be like that for Isaac and me. We were going to be together until we were old and gray.

I snapped the locket closed, my fingers wrapping around the metal. I loved the feel of it, the comforting weight and warmth. I couldn’t imagine a more romantic piece of jewelry. Almost before I’d made a conscious decision, I had a delicate chain in each hand, lifting them around my neck. The clasp was smaller than most necklaces’, but I finally managed to slip one link into the tiny fastener and slide it closed.

I’d only meant to try it on, but when I looked up at my reflection, I knew the locket had to stay. It was beautiful. It pulled together my silver and black outfit, brought out the green in my eyes, and made me look older, more sophisticated. And the inscription . . . Well, that couldn’t be more perfect. For the first time in weeks, the shame and guilt that had underscored my every waking moment faded to background noise. I felt confident, hopeful.

Everything was going to be all right. Isaac and I were going to have our happily ever after, just like Gran and—

The grandfather clock downstairs began its hourly melody. It was six already. Isaac would be here any minute!

I hurried through my room and down the stairs, grateful that my parents and Gran had already left for their movie. Gran was known for being super-generous, and probably wouldn’t have minded me borrowing her necklace, but it was nice not to have to ask. I really didn’t want to take it off.

This way, I could have the locket back in her pile before morning and no one would know I’d touched it. It would be between me, Isaac, and my new good-luck charm. My fingers smoothed along the cool silver, and a bit of that peace I’d been missing seeped through me, bringing a real smile to my face.

Isaac’s perpetually muddy red truck pulled into the driveway twenty-five minutes late. It wouldn’t have been a big deal—traffic being what it is on Saturday night—but there was no pleading traffic delay when you live five houses down.

Still, I decided not to make a big deal out of it. This wasn’t a night to pick a fight. Besides, his lateness had given me plenty of time to double-check my hair and run through a few sprays of Febreze—ensuring I smelled like laundry freshness instead of flowers and medicine.

I watched through the narrow window by the door as he ambled up the front walk with that lazy stride he always had when he was off the court. I’d recognize that walk from a mile away. Even more than his signature jagged haircut that left strips of dark blond hair hanging down into his blue eyes, his stocky, bulldog build, or his obsession with orange shirts, that walk
was
Isaac.

I’d learned to adjust my pace to fit his when we first started holding hands in seventh grade. I imagined I’d still be doing the same when we were walking our kids in their strollers years from now.

Isaac and I had talked about kids—how many we wanted, what we might name them, whether they’d have blue eyes or green. We weren’t like the rest of our friends. We didn’t pretend our relationship would end after high school, or college, or . . . ever. We were in this for the long haul.

And we
really were
going to be together forever. Our lives were going to play out exactly the way we’d planned. I was sure of that now, in spite of my mistake.

The thought made electricity shoot across my skin. I was suddenly hyper-aware of the locket, feeling it seem to grow heavier, hotter, like a curling iron warming its way up to scalding. It was a disturbing sensation and—for a split second—I thought about taking it off and leaving it in the bowl of keys near the door.

But what if Gran saw it when she came home? Maybe I should just slip it into my pocket or run it back to my room or—

Isaac’s footsteps sounded on the brick steps. The locket and everything else was forgotten.

“Hey!” I opened the door before he could knock, throwing my arms around his neck. I aimed a kiss at his mouth, but ended up getting his jaw instead when he turned his head at the last second.

Beneath my lips, I felt the scratch of unshaven whiskers and a tremor snaked through my newfound confidence, leaving fractures in its wake. Why hadn’t he shaved? He knew whisker burn made my skin splotchy, and surely I was going to be at threat-level-orange risk of burn tonight. We hadn’t been together for two and a half weeks. It was a long time, probably the longest we’d gone since we started having sex a year ago.

But I’d been too stressed out and Isaac had been too busy. Basketball practice had started, and I’d become the second love in his life until the season ended in the spring. It was the way it had always been. I was used to it by now.

Still, it was our anniversary. It was a night for being together. Surely he felt the same way?

“Hey, girl. Happy birthday.” His arms closed around me, pulling me in for a tight hug. A breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding rushed from between my lips.

“Happy anniversary.” I nuzzled my face into his neck and kissed him again. He smelled so good. So familiar. I breathed in his scent, not minding that he hadn’t shaved anymore. He’d obviously showered. He smelled of soap and boy.
My
boy.

“Yeah. You too.” He pulled away and took my hand, not looking me in the eye before he led the way back to his truck.

Hmm . . . something was definitely wrong. I wondered what was bothering him. The Bearcats hadn’t played any games so far this season, so there was no way his dad could be giving him hell about basketball stuff yet. Maybe he was just tired. They’d been practicing hard this week. I’d barely seen him since Tuesday.

“You look nice,” he said as he opened the passenger’s door and helped me into the truck, but for some reason I felt uglier for the compliment.

As he circled around the front, I wished I’d opted for jeans with the T-shirt and locket instead of a skirt. Isaac liked me best in jeans. He always wore jeans. Tonight it was black jeans and an orange and white polo shirt. Nice, but not dressy. I looked too dressed up next to him. For a second, I thought about running in to change, but before I could ask if he’d mind waiting, Isaac had started the truck and pulled down the driveway.

It seemed like he was in a hurry.

“Are we late? Do you have reservations?”

“No. No reservations,” he said, staring straight ahead as he braked at the stop sign. He turned right without another word, steering down Skylar Street, away from the highway, back toward the park and the farm country beyond.

Guess we weren’t going to Nashville, which was . . . surprising. Isaac loved going into the city. He had a fake ID and they let him into all the clubs on Broadway. They let me in too, without an ID, despite the fact that I looked about twelve years old even with major makeup intervention and a padded bra. The bouncers probably would have kicked me out if I’d tried to order a beer, but I never drank anything except Coke.

Alcohol and I weren’t a good mix.

An image flashed on my mental screen. The cast party. Me. Three shots of spiced rum. Mitch. His hands at the bottom of my shirt, his mouth on my bare stomach, lips hot against my skin.

I took a deep breath and pushed the image away, but it wasn’t easy. Especially considering we were passing Mitch’s house on the right. It was closed up, dark and quiet. His dad had rounds every other Saturday at the children’s hospital and Mitch and his band played at a lot of coffee shops and bar mitzvahs on weekends. Maybe he’d had a gig after the Belle Meade plantation fall festival where we’d both volunteered this afternoon.

Or maybe he had a date. It would be
good
if he had a date. Mitch needed to find someone. Then maybe he and I would really be able to put our mistake behind us and be friends again. We’d barely spoken at the festival, both of us strained and awkward in our historic servants’ uniforms, as uncomfortable as strangers.

Just thinking about it made my stomach ache.

“Mitch hasn’t been around much,” Isaac observed, speeding up as we passed the Birnbaums’ and headed out of the subdivision where we’d all grown up playing together. Three best friends. Even when Isaac and I had paired off, we’d all stayed friends. It was only in the past year that Isaac and Mitch had grown apart.

I shrugged, trying to look casual though the sound of Mitch’s name on Isaac’s lips made me want to fidget. “He must be busy with his band.”

“His band sucks.”

I laughed. “They do, kind of. But they have fun, and they’ve gotten a lot better lately.”

“You’ve heard them play? When?”

“I caught one of their practices in his garage. Mom had me bring over the rest of the cake she made for Dad’s birthday so she and Dad wouldn’t eat it all.” My voice was thin and strained. I might as well take a Magic Marker and write
guilty as sin
on my forehead. I had to pull it together, steer the conversation to safer topics. “Speaking of eating, have you had dinner?”

“No. I wasn’t hungry.”

“Good. I’m starving. I didn’t get a chance to eat at the festival. The volunteers didn’t even get a snack break.” I reached over to play with the hair at the nape of Isaac’s neck. He’d always said my touch gave him chills—in the good way—but his muscles didn’t relax beneath my fingers the way they usually did. “We could get some corn dogs at Lovelace’s and take them to the park near Bellevue.”

“We could.” His eyes stayed on the road.

I bit my lip, torn between asking him what was wrong and trying to make the best of his bad mood. Isaac didn’t like to talk about things that were bothering him. He kept quiet and worked through his feelings on his own. Mitch joked that Isaac went into his “man cave” when he was upset.

No. Not going to think about Mitch. Any. More.

I turned to look out the window, watching as we flew past the historic park and the 1800s schoolhouse we’d all been forced to tour a dozen times in elementary school, and the houses began to get farther and farther apart. Fenced yards gave way to fields and pastures lit by soft sunset light. Lovelace’s, the country drive-in with the best corn dogs and thick malted shakes in the Nashville area, was still a good five miles away.

Five miles of tense, cranky-Isaac-pouting-in-his-man-cave silence.

I cracked the window, suddenly needing some air. The smell of fresh-cut hay swept inside, sharp like baked sunshine. “The old mill is still open until November. We could climb up to the roof and have a picnic.”

Isaac loved picnics. It was the kind of thing he wouldn’t want me telling his basketball friends, but he loved packing up my mom’s old Victorian lunch box and taking it to a park. For my last birthday, he’d snuck some wine into the basket along with our ham-and-cheese sandwiches and barbecue-flavored chips. The wine was pink and sticky sweet and awful, but we’d drunk it all, giggling by the end. Then, after two years of waiting, we’d finally slept together.

It had been good, so good, and gotten even better. I loved being with Isaac, loved feeling him so close to me, knowing he was all mine for a half hour or more. I didn’t want to be with anyone else, I didn’t want to remember—

“Practice has been interesting this week,” Isaac said.

“Yeah?” I struggled to focus. “Good interesting or bad interesting?”

“The new equipment manager is really funny.” He was in non sequitur mode. Typical Isaac, especially when he was in a mood. “Hunter Needles, he’s in ninth grade. You know him, right?”

“I know his big sister, Sarah. She’s one of my drama friends.” Well, I
supposed
she was still one of my friends. She’d slipped me a birthday card at school yesterday. It had surprised the heck out of me, and I’d stuttered through my thank-you. I hadn’t remembered her birthday a few months before and felt awful.

But then, we’d grown apart in the last year too, just like Isaac and Mitch. We were both so busy—her with the young artists’ program at Nashville Rep, the professional theater in the city, and me with Isaac. Maybe Isaac and I needed to make more time for friends. Maybe we’d been spending too much time together. After all, we had our entire lives to be a couple; shouldn’t we make some space for other people?

Do you
really
want Mitch and Isaac becoming BFFs again? Really?

No. I didn’t. Not at all. “Sarah’s really cool,” I said, forcing a smile, struggling to put all Mitch-flavored thoughts out of my mind.

“Yeah. Hunter said she talks about you sometimes.” The sentence hung in the air, heavy and threatening, an ax that could swing in my direction any second. The atmosphere in the truck crackled and pricked and in that moment, I knew . . .