Don't Forget Me by Victoria Stevens

Author:Victoria Stevens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

26

Things had been so weird at home since his father’s return the day before that Red couldn’t wait to get out of the house and meet Hazel on the beach Monday night. Not uncomfortable weird, just different. Luca had assured him before school this morning that everything was okay, but you wouldn’t know it from the way everyone was tiptoeing around one another. This tentative peace was better than the alternative, though.

Hazel was already there when he arrived, climbing to her feet to greet him. “Hey, you.”

Red didn’t say anything, just drew her into his arms and nestled himself into her neck, holding her tighter than ever before. She held him back just as tight and didn’t ask any questions until he’d pulled away.

“Everything okay?” she asked him softly.

Red nodded. “It’s been one of those days.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation there’s only about three minutes of it left.”

He smiled gratefully and sank to the sand. Hazel followed suit, and they sat in silence for a while, her head resting on his shoulder.

“My dad’s home,” he said after a few minutes had passed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Red said, the corners of his mouth tugging downward. “It’s just that having him back has thrown everything off, you know? He hasn’t been around for so long and now that he is it feels weird. It’s like we’re all back in the past or something, back in Sydney after Ryan—”

He stopped suddenly, eyes wide. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, Hazel wasn’t supposed to know about Ryan. That was Luca’s secret to tell, and now he’d gone and opened his big mouth and Luca was going to—

“It’s okay,” Hazel said hastily. “He told me.”

Red blinked at her. What? “He did?”

“Yeah. He didn’t mean to, I don’t think, but he did. When he was drunk at Kayla’s party.”

“Did he tell you everything?”

“He told me Ryan died, yeah, but not how—and he doesn’t remember telling me, so I never said anything. I figured that if he wanted me to know, he’d tell me again. Sober. That’s why you moved away from Sydney, wasn’t it? Because of Ryan. So that Luca could have a fresh start.”

“That place was killing him,” Red said. “Everything there reminded him of what he’d lost. So we left.”

“And what about you? Didn’t you have a life there?”

He shrugged. “Of course I did. So did Mum and Dad—but that’s the thing about the people you love, isn’t it? You’d do anything in the world to make them happy, fuck the consequences. You know that better than anyone.”

Hazel turned her gaze out to the ocean. “I guess I do,” she said. She swallowed hard. “Speaking of which, there’s something I really need to talk to you about.”

“To do with your mum?”

“Kind of. And also to do with Luca.”

Red shifted to look at her. She looked nervous, or upset, or maybe both. “What is it?”

She wet her lips. “It’s…”

“What, Hazel?”

She shook her head; she couldn’t do it. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

He studied her for a moment, trying to get a read on her expression, but she’d closed herself off.

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