Page 49 of The Moonlight Healers

Peter put a hand on her wrist. “Don’t do the false-modesty thing. I’m not saying this to start an argument, or get into any of the stuff from before. But you’ve always taken care of people. Your mom. Me. I mean you must have spent a solid year of your life helping me study or with homework. You help my mom in the garden and say it’s for fun. You put everyone else first, always. Ever since the day I met you. It’s why I…”

“What?” Louise asked, even though she knew the words that would follow, even though fear coursed through her body. She wanted to hear him say it again.

She held his gaze, each long, brown eyelash making her heart somersault along with the force of his words, the intention in his eyes. He stepped forward, until Louise could feel the electricity surging between them, her body pulled toward him even as her mind struggled against it.

“You guys okay?” Caroline called from somewhere out of sight.

Louise immediately shot back, almost stumbling over a large rock behind her. “We’re fine!” she shouted.

Caroline appeared up ahead, taking a swig of water from her bottle.

“So how much farther?” Peter asked.

“Not far. Just follow me.”

A few minutes later, they reached a small outcropping of rock. Beneath it, a waterfall flowed down into a large swimming hole. It was a dozen different colors at once, depending on how the light hit it, a shadowy green around the edges, a bright aquamarine in the most direct patches of sun, and almost entirely clear in the shallows, the smooth rocks beneath revealed in vivid detail.

“Wow,” Louise said as she moved toward the edge.

“Worth the hike?” Caroline asked.

“Definitely,” Peter said behind her.

“So how do we get down to the water?” Louise asked, turning back to face them. She gripped the straps of her backpack, tried to ignore the way her body still tingled. “Through there?” There was no clear path to the bottom, but it seemed possible to pick their way along the rocks.

Caroline set her backpack down on the ground and took off her baseball cap. “There’s a path that winds around the rocks. If you’d like to go that way.” She began to kick off her shoes.

“Which way are you going?” Louise asked.

“The easy way.” She placed her shoes and socks in a neat pile beside her backpack.

Louise followed her line of sight to a long, thick rope tied to a tree directly to her right. “You don’t mean…?”

Caroline grabbed the rope and handed it to Peter. “You want to go first?”

A struggle played out across Peter’s features. She knew, because she knew Peter better than anyone, that he wanted to jump. But Louise was scared of heights, and he wouldn’t leaveher alone, the same way he had missed parties and dances she was too introverted and awkward to attend, sat on the bleachers in the back at school events, to be with her.

“He will,” Louise said quickly, before Peter could respond. “And so will I.”

Peter looked incredulous. “Seriously?”

Louise nodded despite her nerves. Her fear of heights was an endless source of amusement for Peter. He loved to tease her whenever she refused to ride the Ferris wheel at the state fair or on the class trip that spring when she was the one student not to go out onto the deck of the Empire State Building.

Caroline clutched the rope and smiled at Louise. Then she jumped, flinging herself over the edge and splashing into the water below.

Louise peered down over the outcrop and watched her rise to the surface.

For a moment, neither she nor Peter spoke. She felt the magnetic pull from earlier, like he was her center of gravity. But she held her body very still, until she knew she could resist the force, focus on what a colossal mistake it would be to allow herself to give in. She was leaving in three days.

“You really want to jump?” he asked, his voice cutting through her thoughts. “You don’t have to.”

Louise swallowed her nerves. There was so much she couldn’t give to him, but she could give him this one last shared moment. She reached for his hand.

“Together?”

His face cracked into a smile that was so bright Louise felt its reflection on her own skin. He took her hand.

And together, they ran toward the edge.

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