“Fuck,” I groan, slowing to a stop in pathetic defeat.
Amelia lands behind me as I turn around. She’s not breaking a sweat. Barely panting.
I remember she’s literally Miss Mistpoint. She won the contest the year I left, and it’s not even some small-town beauty pageant. No. It’s a fucking expert-level treasure hunt that the elders in the town put together. Classic Nancy Drew shit, and Amelia won in record time.
Under the cold overcast, coastal sky, we have a thirty-second staring contest. Birds chirp and fog rolls over the lake not far from our stand-off, but I know better than to flee again.
I blink.
Shit.
“You can’t be here,” Amelia says, breaking the tense silence. She crosses her arms over her cashmere sweater.
My stomach twists. I didn’t expect anything kind to leave her lips, but I wish those words weren’t the first thing I heard since I’ve been home.
“Take that off,” Amelia suddenly says in disgust.
“What?” I frown, confused until I realize she’s fixated on my bracelet.
“Take. It. Off.”
Don’t worry, my jewelry isn’t cursed. Amelia is just wearing the identical bracelet. Translucent beads strung together; every purchase gives 50% to a marine wildlife charity. It’s become a basic bitch bracelet with about a billion Instagram ads, and I actually like it.
I make a noise. “You take it off.”
Amelia is taken aback by my courage. “Seriously?”
“Did I stammer?” I say roughly, and I can’t help but think October might be a little proud of me.
After a long, awkward beat, Amelia tugs her sleeve to hide her bracelet. Acting like the exchange never happened, she repeats, “You can’t be here.”
“Too late for that, Amelia,” I say. “I’m back.”
Her pink lips purse, and her eyes drop to the suitcase in my hand. She inhales a sharp, choked breath. “You’re planning on staying?” She looks mildly horrified.
Like big bad Zoey has come to wreak havoc on the town. Only I know she’s never seen me as a big baddie. Most people only relentlessly try to crush things smaller than them.
People are cruel that way.
And I know better than to think she’s worried that me staying here means I’m opening myself up to being cursed. Amelia couldn’t care less.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” I bend down and grab the orphaned wheel from the cobblestone.
She huffs. “You’re going to have to explain yourself to everyone in this town. If you think you can waltz back like nothing happened and we all embrace you with open arms—”
“No worries there, Amelia,” I cut her off. “I definitely don’t want to be embraced by your arms.” I rise to my feet, a good five inches shorter at five-foot-four. I try to tower.
“Stop hunching, Zoey.” I hear October back when we were just teenagers. “You know what you look like?”
“Short?”
“And like a frightened doe.”
“I am frightened.” Not of her. I was in awe of her. This cursed town with these gossiping, judgy people—that’s what scared me. Even if I was born here. Lived here all my life until I left.
“Frightened deer end up mounted on walls. You want to be mounted on someone’s wall, Zoey?”
“No.”
“Then stop hunching.” Her voice was hushed, icy breath, but her fingers were soft, warm. They skimmed my waist, slipped up my spine, traveled with gentleness along my shoulders. And before I knew it, I was standing straighter.
If only to reach her height.
Like I’m evoking the memory of Mistpoint’s Wonder Woman, Amelia’s eyes heat on me as she says, “October won’t want you here either.”
October won’t want you here either.
Those words are the equivalent of unsheathing a sword and sticking the point at my throat. I go stone cold, and my chest deflates at the mention of October. If the Roberts are royalty in Mistpoint, the Brambillas are gods.
October Brambilla was a goddess herself back in high school, and Amelia reminded me every day how lucky I was that someone like October would even dare give me a second of her prized attention.
How lucky I must be.
“You don’t know that,” I mutter weakly under my breath.
Amelia must hear because she says, “Did you lose brain cells in Cleveland?”
“Chicago,” I correct.
She ignores that. “October and I are best friends. Still best friends. I know her better than you ever did. Like I said, she won’t want you here.” She places her hands on her hips and appraises me slowly. Starting at my worn leather boots and up to my black turtleneck. “Save yourself the embarrassment, Zoey, and just leave now.”
My nose flares.
I’m not here for October. So even if she allegedly won’t want me here, it changes nothing. Other than blossoming hurt in my chest. But that feeling can be drowned out with a bottle of red and singing some 70s hits at the top of my lungs.
Right now I have neither liquid courage nor Stevie Nicks to help me through this. So I can’t stop the anger from bubbling. And there’s nothing and no one who will stop these words from coming.
“I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say it,” I snap. “I’m not leaving. And if you have a fucking problem with that, Amelia, then you can go eat a bag of dicks.”
My anger carries my feet, and I turn around, headed back towards the docks. Leaving Miss Mistpoint in a stunned puddle.
Fuck, that felt good. I hardly ever stuck up for myself in high school. It was easier shrinking into the shadows than pushing back. But I wished for those words to leave my lips thousands of times.
Maybe not exactly those words…phrased so…ineloquently. Bag of dicks? Could’ve had a better punch, but hey, at least it was something.
Endorphins start pumping through me. I feel high, and I let that electric feeling carry me further and further through town. Seagulls squawk and fly towards the pier. The boardwalk along the docks is dotted with shops, bars, and restaurants. Further up the walk, multi-colored houses splatter across the cliffs, creating a picturesque landscape that many visitors love posting on Instagram. The fresh water is endless. Only boats visible in the horizon. But somewhere on the other side of the great lake is Canada.
Closest to the entrance of the pier, two pubs face each other like an omen to their generations’ long rivalry. Fisherman’s Wharf has an upscale appeal with a blue and white safety ring artfully tangled in a fish net hung above the door. Fisherman’s Wharf letters glow in a soft, watery turquoise.
As much as I’d love to go in there and ask October herself if she’s pissed I’m back, I’m banned from the Wharf.
As Effie Brambilla so crotchetily put it, “You Durands step foot inside Fisherman’s Wharf and you’ll be kicked out faster than Mitch Montague lost the regatta race of ’84.”
He lost in five seconds. His boat sank. From what the museum has recorded, everyone in the town thought the embarrassment of the loss was his official curse. Turns out his calf sliced open from the pier as he was trying to swim onto the rescue boat.
He died a month later from an infection.
And it’s just like Effie to bring up someone’s literal death to threaten us Durands. She’s dramatic as hell, and also carries way too much sway in this town.