Somehow Travis, with his dimpled smile, with his enthusiasm, his disarming honesty, pulls these words from me like a magician pulling scarves from my mouth.
And soon I’m talking about Mom and Dad. And Izzy. Her disappearance but also her dreams of traveling the world. I’m fessing up to being an overthinker, an overplanner, that he was my one and only one-night stand.
“A YOLO alarm? Well, I’m flattered I’m the lucky guy who got to get you out of your shell.”
I take a sip of my cocktail and lower my head with a sly smile, peering up at him. “You mean my panties?”
That dimple again. “Were you wearing those?”
Over drinks and food, we get closer. I Ubered here—no small feat this far out—but Travis insists on driving me back to town. I hesitate at first. It’s a little reckless, I know, but the night’s gone soft and blurry around the edges, and he swears he’ll drop me a few doors down from my parents’ place so no one will see. It’s late anyway. The roads are empty.
In the truck, I watch the last of Wimberley’s lights disappear behind us, replaced by the dark stretch of country road. We don’t talkmuch, but he’s holding my hand, thumb tracing slow circles over my fingers.
I point out my parents’ house when we turn onto their street. He pulls up to drop me off a few houses down, as promised. There are so many feelings inside me, jostling for attention—worry for Mom, disappointment in Joel, confusion over the invitation and the broken high heel and Kennedy Claire’s laugh in my ear, memories of Ben Sherman swimming in The Hollow, of Izzy nuzzling her chin into my back, her body the same temperature as mine, and anger. So much anger. It all coils tightly, like kindling packed, like something ready to ignite.
Travis lifts the center console divider, and I scoot into him. He kisses me, one hand on my waist, grip firm as he pulls me tight against him. I inhale as I kiss him, feel that drown of desire dropping over me, feel his hand smooth down to my hip, my thigh, and he tugs my leg over his lap. I take his cue, climbing on top of him.
The sound he makes, half moan, half growl, as I slide my hips forward and back sends a shiver up my spine. The steering wheel jams my back, but I don’t care. I lean back so he can kiss my neck. His hand cups my face, and he slides his thumb across my lips and under my chin. Pinching my jaw hard, he kisses me rougher.
Then his grip shifts again, thumb and finger pressing into my pulse points. His fingers tighten around my throat. “You good?” he whispers gruffly into my ear.
A moan escapes me, which he takes as the yes it’s meant to be. I’m lost in the moment, and then, as his fingers close tighter, there is the flashbulb pop of a memory, of a dream.
The day before the pageant, the day Izzy went missing, I fell asleep in the bath while soaking my injured ankle. And I dreamt of hands wrapping around my neck, dreamt of being strangled. I woke up gasping for air, clutching at my throat, clawing at the fingers I was sure were there. I couldn’t breathe, could feel the crush of my windpipe closing as I thrashed in the water.
Eventually, I took in a mouthful of air, calmed myself down,slowed my breath. At the time, I thought it was just a nightmare. Or a panic attack, maybe, nerves about the pageant.
“Harder,” I tell Travis, the word barely escaping from my throat.
I’ve thought a lot in my life about what it would feel like to die choking.
People say that twins can feel each other’s pain. There is no scientific evidence to back up this theory, but Mom swears we did as toddlers. I’d bump my head on the coffee table, and Izzy would cry. Izzy would fall on the sidewalk, and I’d clutch my knee where hers was bleeding.
I still sometimes wake up gasping. I still dream of hands wrapped around my throat.
My lungs begin to burn. A high, thin ringing blooms in my ears and my vision tunnels into darkness. Then bright spots like stars.
“Stop!” I claw Travis’s hand off my neck, sucking in desperate breaths the way I always do when I wake from that dream.
Travis pulls both hands from me immediately, raising them like he’s surrendering. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. I”—he tips his palms up—“I asked if you were good. You were saying harder.”
“I know.” I run my fingers over my throat and sigh, climbing back into the passenger seat. I smooth my hair with shaky fingers.
He looks a little shaken up as well. I grab my purse and reach for the handle. “Sorry,” I tell him.
When I open the door, the shock of cold air startles me. The temperature has dropped lower even since the start of our date. I look up at the dark house, at my old bedroom window. I can almost see her standing there, her shadowed silhouette in the frame, as if she’s waiting up for me.
I touch my neck, still feeling the ghosts of a hand around my throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINESARAH LYNN
The Hollow glows in the light of the full moon, the reflected stars smudging along the ripples of the water, making it look like that Van Gogh painting. The famous one.
All the local Lone Star girls made it tonight, along with a bunch of Kayden’s friends, and everyone has agreed to keep this quiet.
On the news, they’re warning of freezing rain, slick roads, power lines icing over. It sounds serious, but under the moonlight it feels almost magical, like the night is holding its breath. The air makes my skin goose up, makes my lungs sting and my senses clear. Two of the girls are dancing up on top of the highest boulder. The shapes of them intertwine, as ribbons of moonlight kiss off their skin. The speaker volume is almost silent, but I can hear Chappell Roan sing about someone going down on her in a truck.
Hannah, Olivia, and I are perched on the edge of a limestone shelf below them, our legs dangling out in the chilly air fifteen feet above the water.