“So this is…” She gestures vaguely at my lobstering getup. “What, exactly? A summer job?”
I expel a sharp breath. “Something like that.”
“I figured you’d be off at some glamorous training camp between collegiate seasons,” she says bluntly. I do my best not to flinch at the not-so-subtle dig. “Isn’t that what all you baseball hotshots do?”
I wouldn’t really know.
I shrug.
My stubborn silence only seems to agitate her, stirring slow-swirling anger into a sweeping vortex of wrath. I watch her small hands curl into fists at her sides, a surefire sign she’s struggling to remain in control of her emotions. “Are you seriously not going to say anything, right now?”
“What is it you want me to say, Jo?”
“An explanation would be nice, for starters!” She throws out her hands. “None of this makes any sense.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean. You! Here! On a freaking lobster boat like some freaking townie—”
My soul stills. For one frozen instant, I feel myself disappear into that word. That unwanted identity. It wraps itself around me in a chokehold, strangles the life from my lungs. Invasive as a deadly disease.
Townie.
The one thing I never wanted to become. The one life I was so determined not to live — stuck in this place, working like a dog to keep my head above water. Struggling just to make ends meet.
I see my whole miserable existence stretching out into a path of monotonous drudgery. Fifty years of hauling traps and gutting mackerel, until my back is bowed like a river reed and my legs give out — if I don’t drink myself into a silk-lined box six feet under first, that is.
Exactly like Tommy.
“I’m just surprised, I guess,” Jo continues, her tone softening slightly. “You’re basically the last person on the planet I expected to see today. If Samuel Adams himself had pulled me from the water onto a schooner full of British tea bound for Boston Harbor, I think I’d be less shocked.”
“Generally speaking, if long-dead Sons of Liberty start showing up, you should see a doctor.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says dryly. There’s a short pause before she dives back in — a dog with a bone, she can’t seem to let her curiosity go. “But I still don’t understand… How are you here? Why are you here?”
“Do you scrutinize everyone who saves your life, or am I special?”
“I’m not trying to sound ungrateful,” she insists. “I appreciate you saving me. I’m just having some trouble wrapping my mind around all of this.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I heard your distress call over the radio. I answered it. I would’ve done the same for anyone caught out here in the storm.” My chin tilts away, avoiding her gaze. “It’s Maritime Law 101 — you hear a MAYDAY, you respond.”
She’s quiet for a long time. I can practically hear the wheels turning in her head as she mulls over my response, weighing the density of my flimsy explanation. When she does speak again, its in such a whisper, I’m not certain I’m intended to hear it at all. “Fate sure has a funny sense of humor.”
My shoulders tense. “Fate has nothing to do with it. It’s just the price you pay for living in a small town. Stick around long enough, you’ll bump into everyone you’ve ever met.”
Her shoulders tense, too, a mirror of my own posture. “Except, last I heard, you don’t even live here anymore. My mother told me your parents quit their positions and moved back to Puerto Rico…” She trails off. There’s a shade of hurt in her words, but I barely register it over the rush of anger rising inside me. A hot flare of rage sparks inside my chest at the mere mention of Blair Valentine. When I think about her spinning some false narrative about my parents packing up and leaving Cormorant House voluntarily… leaving Jo, who they always saw as a surrogate daughter…
My hands curl into fists, aching to hit something.
“Then again,” Jo mutters under her breath, “Leaving without a proper goodbye seems to run in your family.”
My anger flares even hotter. I take a deep breath to calm my ragged nerves, but it’s no use. My voice comes out sounding strange — eerily flat, devoid of any emotion whatsoever. “I said goodbye.”
“Right.” She scoffs. “The letter. How could I forget? It’s amazing, really, that you managed to reduce eighteen years of friendship to a few scrawled lines on a piece of parchment. Incredible how you could walk away from your entire life without a single backward glance.” Her hands clap together, a mocking round of applause that rings with startling sharpness in the small space. “Bravo, Archer. Really. I’m impressed. The level of sociopathy you display is rare. Scientists should study you in laboratories.”
“What do you want from me? An apology? Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry your feelings were hurt when I left. I’m sorry they’re still hurt after a year. I didn’t realize I was required to keep you apprised of every change in my life.” I narrow my eyes at her. “Funny enough, I haven’t gotten any updates on your life since you moved to Europe. Switzerland, was it? Sounds glamorous.”
“If you wanted to know about my life,” she says frigidly, “Then you should’ve reached out to me. It’s been nothing but stone-cold silence from you for a year, Archer. A year.”
I glance up toward the ceiling. I can’t stand to look at her while I’m lying through my teeth. “I guess I said everything I needed to say last summer.”
It’s a low blow. But it’s the only thing I can think of to get her to back off. And it works — maybe a little too well, if I’m being honest. She reels back, spine pressing into the stone wall. Her breaths are shallow — with incredulity or indignation, I’m not certain. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
Her fury explodes, a torrent of words laced with bitter hurt that’s been festering for twelve long months inside of her. “What the hell is the matter with you? I know we don’t talk anymore, I know everything is strained and awkward and broken between us… but I’m not the one who made it that way. I’m not the one who walked out on this friendship. So if anyone has a right to be angry and annoyed right now, it’s me. If anyone has the right to give the other person the silent treatment… once again… it is me.”
“Silence is just fine, as far as I’m concerned.”
“God, you’ve turned into such a prick!” She’s practically shaking with rage. “Of all the people who could’ve pulled me from the water… This has to be some kind of sick cosmic joke.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure the Coast Guard will be here any minute now, and you can go back to hating me from a distance.”
“Not a nanosecond too soon,” she snaps. She’s glaring at me with such disdain, it’s actually palpable in the musty air of the enclosed earthen space. “I can’t believe I was ever stupid enough to consider you my best friend. To think you actually cared about me. That you might ever lo—” She bites off the words, forcing them back down her throat with a harsh swallow. “What a waste, you are. Waste of energy, waste of breath, waste of time.”