Page 45 of Love and Other Lost Things

“I went to Westbrook Community College. And then commuted to Buffalo for medical school.”

For a moment, Jane was speechless, and then she managed to choke out, “Why? You had a scholarship. You could have gone anywhere.”

“Right. The scholarship.” Something darkened across Nik’s features, almost like he was angry about the scholarship. But that couldn’t be right. He’d earned it with his volunteer EMT work. That scholarship had been his ticket out.

Why didn’t he take it?

“I thought you wanted to leave here. Was it—” Jane remembered running into Mrs. Andino the other day. She’d looked great—healthy, like she’d barely aged at all. But what if she’d been sick? And Nik had been left to navigate that on his own. “Was it your mom? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. Better than ever.”

Jane blew out a relieved sigh. “So, why would you stay here when you wanted to leave?”

Nik braked at a stop sign and turned to look at her. “You wanted to leave. I wanted to go where you were going.” He blew out a breath. “Anywhere you were going.” That darkness was back. “But that wasn’t an option.”

Jane looked away. “So, because I left and didn’t end up going to Cornell, you just… stayed in Linden Falls?”

Nik stared straight ahead as he accelerated into the intersection. “No.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “It’s complicated.”

Jane wanted to ask for details. Tell me what made it complicated. But she had no right to. And it wasn’t like she’d ever be able to share her own reasons for doing everything she’d done for the past ten years.

Nik turned the car down Clinton Road, past the ice cream shop where they used to go on summer evenings. Was there any place in this town that didn’t remind her of Nik? There were ghosts of the two of them everywhere she went. Jane peeked at his face, wondering if Nik ever felt that way, too. For a second, his gaze lingered on the shop’s flashing neon sign, and she wondered if he remembered stealing her sprinkles or that face he used to make when she ordered mint chocolate chip. But then he looked away and kept driving.

Of course he wasn’t haunted by the memories of this town the way she was. He lived here, he’d made plenty of new memories with Hannah, and Ali when she came back to visit. He probably took Hannah’s daughter, Amelia, to the ice-cream shop for milkshakes and made silly faces at her. Maybe he’d made new friends at the hospital who he met for picnics in Randall Park and movies at the refurbished cinema on Spring Street.

Ahead, the old wooden sign for Pine Bluff came into view, the blue-painted letters so faded that unless you knew better, you’d think they read Pin luff. Jane was willing to bet Nik didn’t even think of her when he passed that gravel fire road that wound up the mountain. He probably had a girlfriend now who he’d take up to the Pine Bluff overlook to watch the sunset.

The sign drew nearer, and Jane looked away, hoping that soon it would be behind her. But before she could register what was happening, Nik had jerked the steering wheel to the left, sending the car swerving onto the fire road. Jane looked from Nik’s profile to the patchy gravel lines illuminated only by the car’s headlights, and then back. “Where are we going?”

“For a drive.”

“I thought you were driving me home.”

“I will.” He shrugged. “Eventually.”

“You can’t just—kidnap me.” She peered into the darkness, shivering at the skeletal outlines of trees forming a canopy over the road. It wasn’t that Jane was afraid of the darkness, or of Nik. It wasn’t even the memories of what had happened ahead. It was the avalanche those events on Pine Bluff had triggered that still had the power to leave her battered and broken. “I need to get back.” Jane needed to get out of here.

“What’s the rush?” Nik took the curve in the road a little too fast, and Jane’s stomach lurched. He swung the car around the next bend, and Jane’s heart fell to somewhere around her knees. Because suddenly, the narrow road opened up to reveal a wide gravel clearing that dropped off abruptly at the edge of a steep cliff. Beyond it, the sparkling lights of the town spread out in all directions below.

Nik brought the car to a stop and shifted into park, but Jane could only stare out the windshield in front of her. That view hadn’t changed a bit. Not that she’d been looking at the view last time.

Jane’s cheeks flushed pink as she peeked over at Nik. Here in the darkness of the car, with his face cast in shadows except for the dim light of the dashboard, it all came rushing back.

The two of them in an old sedan not much different than this one. The melancholy guitar opening of a folk song playing on the same local radio station. His eyes boring into her with equal intensity.

“What are we doing here, Nik?” Jane said, her voice shaking.

“Do you ever think about it? That night we came up here together?”

The question took her breath away. Do I ever think about it? The night she’d leaned over, propping one arm on the center console, setting the other gently on his shoulder. They’d touched hundreds of times before that night, had hugged by her locker, snuggled under a blanket, tumbled together into a snowbank. But never like that night at the overlook. She’d slid her hand from his shoulder to his neck, feeling the brush of his dark hair against her fingertips, the heat of his skin on her palm. He’d shifted in his seat, turning his body to face her, angling closer. And then their lips had touched, and the world outside had fallen away, the heat from the sun dropping beneath the horizon no match for the fire burning in that car that night.

They’d kissed until her lips were swollen and her cheeks raw from the razor stubble on Nik’s jaw. Then he’d shifted his mouth to explore the sensitive skin of her earlobe and the curve of her neck before running his tongue along her collarbone. Desire had exploded inside her, a low moan escaping from the back of her throat. She’d woven her fingers into his hair, coaxing him to the swell of her breast at the neckline of her flowered sundress.

It wasn’t long before that dress had ended up crumpled on the dashboard along with her bra and Nik’s button-up shirt. They’d climbed into the backseat to escape the barriers of consoles and cupholders, so he could free himself of the rest of his clothes and she could wrap her legs around him.

“Jane,” he’d murmured, brushing a lock of damp hair off her forehead. “Is this okay? Are you sure you want to do this?”

She’d never wanted anything more in her life. In the darkness, her eyes found his. “Yes,” she whispered breathlessly. “I’m sure.”

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