Where Secrets Lie by Eva V. Gibson

Author:Eva V. Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24 SUMMER 2018

You guys are nothing but chickenshit,” I yelled down at them, leaning over the rotten planks. “It’s not even that high.”

“Yeah, it’s not too high when you’re like, seven feet tall, Ames,” Ben said. “If you fall, you can just reach one of those pogo stick legs out. It’ll be, like, a two-inch drop.”

Both boys cackled at that, squinting up at me through the sunlit branches. Ben stood beneath me by the ladder, compulsively jiggling one of the rungs, yet making no move to climb his ass up it to join me. On second thought, adding his weight to the platform would probably send us both crashing down in a hail of splinters. The house portion of the old tree house had fallen prey to the boys’ antics long ago, and what was left was barely big enough to hold me, my satchel, and my sketchbook.

I studied them from my bird’s-eye view, putting the cove to paper from a new perspective. Nat crouched at the shoreline just out of earshot, scooping water and dirt into her plastic bucket. Teddy wasn’t even trying to care about the tree house. He slouched against a nearby tree, shirtless, hair half covering his face as he fiddled absently with his lighter. A barely smoked cigarette, bummed from Ben, hung loose between his fingers. My sketchbook seethed with the crook of his thumb, the curve of his lip, the shadows of his downcast eyes. The smooth jut of his hip bone, softened and blurred by the wish of my fingertips.

“What do you guys know about Sweden?” he asked out of nowhere, tapping ashes against the tree trunk.

“It gets very cold,” Ben mused. “Lots of blonds, many of whom are lucky enough to look like me. Good pancakes. Viking shit. Ikea. Skarsgårds. I don’t know, dude; it’s Sweden. Why are you even asking?”

“Saw an article about Scandinavian hiking tours in one of Mom’s travel magazines. It looks nice. Wouldn’t mind checking it out at some point. Visit Stockholm, head over to Norway, see some fjords. Stuff like that.”

“I’m in,” I said. “Planning starts now if you want company. You can drop me off in Paris on your way back.”

“Hell yes. What say you, Ben?” Teddy took a final puff on the cigarette and ground it out, folding it into a foil gum wrapper and tucking it into his pocket. “We’ve got to get you out of this town one way or another, right?”

“Nah, it’s not so bad here.” Ben’s words caught on the contradictory twitch of his jaw. “I might take a road trip or a gap year, hike the Appalachian Trail or whatever the kids are doing these days. Beyond that, what’s the point? Everything I care about is here.”

“What’s the point?” Teddy pushed himself off the tree, spreading his arms. “All your money, and you choose this? How can you not want more? How can you not want to see everything there is to see?”

“That’s a statistical impossibility, dude.”

“Don’t be an asshole.

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