Page 79 of Heart of the Sun

He turned, peering at the spot where I’d pointed. “A tree house.”

I moved around him, hopping over a rotting trunk and rounding a feathery fir, its branches tickling my cheek as I passed.The ladder looked sturdy and didn’t wobble when I shook it, and so I looked over my shoulder at Tuck who had arrived on my heels. “I’m going up.”

“Careful,” he said.

I quickly climbed the ladder, and then crawled into the small space that was a platform surrounded by four short walls that you could hide behind or look over. Just beyond, I could see a row of roofs, proving we weren’t so lost after all.

A cardboard box sat near the corner, and I moved toward it as I heard the sound of Tuck ascending behind me. I looked inside the box and let out a sound of glee.

“What is it?” Tuck asked.

I pulled one of the items out of the box and held it up. “Crackers,” I said and then removed a couple more things. “Spray cheese,” I squeaked, close to crying with joy. “And marshmallows. Beautiful, glorious marshmallows.”

chapterthirty-three

Tuck

“You’re kidding.” But I could clearly see she wasn’t.Holy shit.We’d come across a bounty. I’d been ravenous all day in more ways than I wanted to think about, not able to satisfy any of my myriad cravings. Walking had been a constant torture considering my serious case of blue balls.

I hadn’t even realized how much I was suppressing my attraction to Emily while Charlie was around. Because the moment he went away, and even in the midst of danger and uncertainty, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to kiss her and feel her softness beneath me.

Emily ripped open the sleeve of crackers and shoved one in her mouth. Then she tossed one to me and leaned her head back as she squirted the cheese into her mouth.

I laughed and she gestured for me to do the same, so I tipped my head and opened my mouth. Emily grinned as she squeezed a generous serving of cheesy goo onto my tongue. Oh God,that was so good. Not as good as the dinner we’d eaten the night before with Tom and Jane and their family, but it’d been a long twelve hours with only a handful of almonds to fill our bellies, and so this was an unexpected windfall. Before I’d realized we’d turned in the wrong direction somewhere, I’d been thinking about snares and wondering how long it’d take to catch something for dinner.

“Wait,” I said, knowing how easy it would be to gorge ourselves on this. “We need to ration. Who knows if we’ll find anything to eat tomorrow.”

She nodded, her mouth too full to speak for a moment. “I know, I know. Okay. Just one more squeeze.”

We each enjoyed another mouthful of cheese and a few crackers and then regretfully packed them away in my backpack. But it was a relief to know that we had something for tomorrow too. Emily lay back on the wooden floor of the fort and smiled up at the canopy of trees. The sun was setting, the resplendent yellow sky filtering through the tree boughs. Everything looked mildly smudged and slightly out of focus as though we’d found ourselves in a make-believe forest. I lay down next to her, our hips touching as we stared upward. “This light,” I said, “it reminds me of the hayloft at Honey Hill.”

I didn’t look at her, but I heard her mouth move into a smile. “Magical,” she said. “That’s how I think of Honey Hill Farm. That’s how I remember it.”

“Golden,” I added. I felt unexpectedly choked up. “My memories of those years are gilded.”

She did look at me then, and I turned toward her. “It’s the first time you’ve talked about Honey Hill to me.”

Our faces were so close. I had this urge to pull away, worried that my body would act on its own accord regardless of what my mind told me was best. But I’d spent the day struggling to move my mind from the way Emily had felt snuggled against me the night before and couldn’t seem to do it anymore. It was exhausting because all I wanted to do was relive the memory of how we’d fit together so perfectly,how silky her skin was, and how, even though the only shower we’d taken in a week had been far too short and extremely frigid, to me, she still smelled like sunshine. “It’s hard for me to talk about Honey Hill,” I admitted. “It…hurts.”

Her eyes filled with empathy.This woman.She was made up of so many different shades. One minute she was irritating me, the next turning me on, and then she looked at me in a way that pierced my damn heart. It was difficult for me to understand her sometimes because I was so black-and-white. And she fascinated me too, just the same way she always had. She was silly and reckless and reactive and strong and fearless and gentle and sweet. And I never knew exactly which version of Emily would appear and it made me crazy, but I also couldn’t get enough.

The sun lowered, the hush of coming night falling over the woods. Emily reached out and used her thumb to smooth the space between my brows. I blew out a slow exhale, relaxing my face. I hadn’t even realized how tightly I’d been holding myself until she touched me in just that spot.

“I thought you were angry,” she murmured. “When your mother died.”

I blinked, surprised by her words. What had been on my face that had reminded her of my mother’s death? Her expression was wistful, slightly sad.

“But you weren’t mad,” she said. “You were sad but also…you were afraid.” She paused, and I couldn’t move, caught in her gaze, rendered mute by this version of her.Sweet. Tender.“I’m so sorry I didn’t see that. I thought you were angry…at life, at me, at everything. And so, when I didn’t get an immediate response, I ran from you. I left you alone because I thought it was what you wanted.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. But I felt captured in her gaze.Seenwhen I hadn’t experienced that for years, and certainly hadn’t known enough to miss it. And maybe it meant all the more that it was her gazing at me with such knowing depth. Clearly, I cared far more about her opinion of me than I’d allowed myself to believe, mostly because I’d assumed she found me lacking. The gentleness in her eyes made me want to fall into her and never come up for air. I hadn’t felt that type of kindness in so long. I reached out and put my hand over hers, needing so desperately to touch her. “I didn’t even know what I wanted, or needed, back then, Em. How could you have known?”

She sighed. She was so beautiful, especially now, gauzy light shifting over her face. She’d expressed regret about that time, but I had regrets too, ones that I hadn’t even seen clearly until very recently. “In that car on the highway outside Springfield,” I murmured, “you said you’d survived me leaving you once before.” She frowned slightly and tilted her head. “I did. I did do that, Em. I left and barely said goodbye. That wasn’t right. It’s not what a good friend would have done.” I understood now too why I’d sensed something unsaid when I’d denied lashing out at her in the wake of my mother’s death. She’d agreed, but I knew now that she would have preferred that to the stony silence I’d given her instead.

“I should have written to you, Tuck. I should have called. I could have reminded you that you were wanted and loved. Instead, I decided to pretend you no longer existed. It was a coping mechanism, but it didn’t work quite as well as I hoped it would.”

I felt so damn close to her, my throat full with the knowledge that I’d earned something back I thought was lost to me forever. Emily. My sidekick, my friend.

“Do you remember when I asked you to the prom?” she said.

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