Page 1 of Wilder Love
Part I
BEFORE
1
Remy
Hope is a dangerous thing. It makes you wish for things you can’t have. I thought mine had died in a shitty apartment in Detroit when I was twelve, along with the frayed threads of childhood innocence I’d still been clinging to. So, it surprised me when I woke up that morning feeling… hopeful.
Maybe Mom’s words, uttered more times than I could count, would finally come true.
“You’ll see. Everything will be different here.”
It might have been the tangerine clouds or the palm trees swaying in the summer’s breeze outside my bedroom window. Whatever the reason, hope bubbled to the surface like it used to when I was a kid and didn’t know any better.
Our new apartment building was on a hill, desert-dry grass sloping down to fenced-in backyards behind terracotta-roofed white stucco houses. It reminded me of photos I’d seen of seaside Mediterranean towns. Slightly shabby but with an old-world charm. Nothing like the derelict neighborhoods we usually ended up in.
Don’t get too attached, Remy.
Even so, I wanted to capture the moment, preserve it in a photo. Digging through my backpack, my hand wrapped around my most prized possession. A 35mm Canon Rebel. Everyone wanted digital cameras, but I preferred using film. It felt more authentic. I had found the camera in a pawn shop in Tulsa and begged Mom to buy it for me. I’d never asked for anything before. She gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday. Two weeks late, but still, she’d gotten it for me. And now it went everywhere with me.
Kneeling on the mattress I’d shoved against the wall last night, I hung out my open window and snapped photos. Of my first California sunrise. The palm trees. Beach towels hanging on a wash line. Three surfboards leaning against the back of a house. Then I stowed my camera in my backpack for later and rummaged through my still-packed duffle bag on the floor, eager to get out of here and explore my new town.
I threw on a faded orange bikini under cut-offs and a swim team T-shirt from a Midwest college I’d never attended and shoved my feet into my beat-up white Chucks. Grabbing my skateboard and my backpack, I made a quick stop in the bathroom. It was so small my knees grazed the bathtub when I sat on the toilet.
My sneakers squeaked on the linoleum as I crept across the living room. Dylan was still asleep on the sofa, his face smashed against the back cushion, his long legs tangled in dark blue sheets. I watched him sleeping for a few seconds, debating whether to wake him then decided against it. I wanted this time to myself. To see the ocean on my own. To capture the memories in dozens of photographs.
Shouldering my backpack, I closed the apartment door quietly behind me and jogged down the metal staircase attached to the side of the building. Our apartment was on the second floor, the parking deck below us, and two more stories above ours. Late last night after we unpacked, Dylan and I had climbed onto the flat roof of the building and smoked a joint. He had scowled for the camera, a blunt clamped between his lips, a hazy halo of smoke hanging above his head. My moody, broody twin was catnip for good girls who fell for bad boys. They wanted to fix him. Tame him. Make him love them. They would fail. Falling in love with Dylan would only break their hearts.
I stopped at the bottom of the staircase and watched a guy across the street slinging a surfboard into the back of a white Jeep Wrangler. A few years older than me, he had a golden tan and disheveled light brown hair, sun-streaked and curling a little where it met the collar of his faded-out blue T-shirt.
He looked like summertime. Like a California dream.Golden.
If I captured him in a photo, it would go in my beautiful collection.
He caught me watching him and gave me a smile. This really beautiful chilled-out smile that made my stomach somersault.
“How’s it going?” he asked as I ventured closer.
“It’s all good.”
“Just moved in?” He squinted at the second floor of our building as if he knew we’d just moved into that apartment.
“Just passing through.” I didn’t know why I said that, except that it was usually true. We never stayed in one place for long.
“On your way to where?” he asked as if he was genuinely interested.
“Something better.” It wasn’t true. It never was.
He cocked his head and closed one eye as if he was about to let me in on a secret. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
I believed him. It probably didn’t. “Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Or maybe you’ll find out for yourself.”
“Maybe.” Although I doubted it.
He glanced at the skateboard under my arm. “Where are you headed?”
