A/N: I hope I don't get any Bam-hate on this chapter...she has her reasons!

I'd like to dedicate this chapter, and in fact, the entire book to somebody who touched my heart yesterday. She shared something with me so personal in her comment and so very touching that despite my other commenters (your ded's are coming) I have to dedicate everything to her. She's so wondering for sharing with me and so strong for what she's gone through. Thank you so much <3

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              Fourteen

          “Be safe,” Mom calls from the back sliding door.

            “Yeah,” I yell back, not bothering to turn around. I sound far from caring, but if my mother detects it, she doesn’t say anything back.

            My fingers tighten around the plastic handle of a red bucket. A yellow child’s shovel clatters against it as Evan and I walk over the grass and towards where the rocky cliff begins. I haven’t ever been out here before since we arrived. In fact, no one has. My parents have never shown interest in it other than the view that they look over the rocks to see.

            “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry anything else?” I ask.

            Evan readjusts his grip on his dark green backpack and shakes his head. “Really, I’m fine, Bam.”

            I shrug and slow to a halt as we hit the edge where the grass turns abruptly to stone. I’m not really sure how to navigate through the large boulders to get down to the small, sandy beach part underneath them, so I let Evan go first.

            “You need to watch for wet rocks,” he says, lowering himself over a few larger rocks at the top. “Step on the ones I do.”

            I do as I’m told and awkwardly hobble over stones, feeling my hands scrape against their smooth yet rough edges. I touch the ground occasionally between the rocks to navigate my next move, but for the most part, the climb down isn’t that bad. It’s somewhat scary due to the height and the thought that falling could do some serious damage. However, I’m not exactly scared of falling. The old Bam might have been, but there’s something exhilarating about risking your safety. If Mom knew how high up it really was down here, I don’t think she would have let us go.

            “I’m an idiot.”

            I stop mid-climb and rest in an uncooperative position on top of one of the boulders. “What?”

            “I’m an idiot,” Evan repeats. He’s looking towards the left, but since he’s further down than me I can’t see what he’s looking at.

            “Yeah, I got that part. I mean why are you an idiot?”

            Evan gestures for me to come stand beside him in the sandy space he is now. He takes my hand as I climb towards him and lets it linger as I stand on two feet. A moment goes by when my face starts to heat up, unsure of whether or not to move my fingers away. Evan drops his hand.

            “There.” He uses the hand that was momentarily attached to mine and points towards a long line of clear sand coming from all the way on top of the cliff. “It’s a path.”

            “We’re both idiots,” I state. “I’m living here and I didn’t even know it existed.”

            Evan laughs and helps me over to it by lightly resting his hand on my back as I maneuver in front of him. When we reach the sand we walk down side by side. It’s a tight fit, but we manage and neither one of us says anything when our shoulders brush.

            Waves lap at the bottom of the cliff but the ocean is calm. No rough waves or whitecaps litter the horizon. Everything is clear and beautiful as we observe where we came from. From our position at the bottom, the rocks and boulders look much more treacherous and steep than I originally thought. I’m glad we found the path.

            “So how do we look for this shipwreck, dear ol’ captain?” I ask.

            Evan smirks. He drops his backpack on the stone-covered sand and opens it. After digging through it for a few moments, he comes up with a dusty, yellowing book. I stare at it, confused.

            “It’s a journal your mom found in the cottage,” he says, answering my unasked question and creating a million more.

            “When did you become best friends with my mom?” I wonder.

            Evan laughs and hands me the book. I take its dusty, red cover between my fingers and look over the front. There are engravings but no words, just a decorative rectangle containing nothing.

            “When I phoned and you were with Hadley, I asked if there were any old things in the cottage that belonged to the original owners. She looked on the bookshelf, and that’s what she found.”

            Still confused, I walk back a few steps and sit on a rock smoothed over from decades of rough waves washing over it. I gently open it between two fingers and try to read the messy cursive writing. It appears to be written in ink.

            “It’s old,” I state.

            “Turn to the last page,” Evan says. When he sees me shoot him a look, he raises his left shoulder and lets it drop. “I got curious,” he admits.

            I turn to the last page and read it over. Only one line is relevant, but somehow it’s all I need to get excited.

            The man spent three days in the small cove on the coast behind the lighthouse before anybody found his body.

            “Somebody died,” I murmur. “Other than the lighthouse keeper, I mean. Who apparently haunts the lighthouse now? And who wrote this?”

            “I think it was the lighthouse keeper’s son, but I can’t be sure. A lot of the writing is illegible, but I think he was the one who found his father and inherited the lighthouse and cottage after he passed.”

            “That’s all we have to go by?”

            Evan’s lips press into a thin line. “I guess so.”

            I close the book and hand it back to him with a small smile. “It’s all we need.”

            Evan and I look around the rocks for hours, until the sun is high and bright in the sky. He works at moving rocks that could have fallen, trying to find this hidden cove. We come up with nothing and eventually end up sitting on the sand, playing with the red pail and shovel. I work at filling it and he flips it over. Though at first we bought it just for laughs, building a castle has proven to be fun.

            “You know, there might be treasure in that cove, cave, whatever it is,” he says after a while of listening to the sound of the quiet waves. “I saw the word gold written a few pages before the end.”

            I raise my eyebrows. “Treasure?”

            Evan nods and flips the pail over. When he removes it, part of the top collapses. He leans forward from his spot on the sand to fix it. “Yeah. I’m not saying there for sure is, but it’s a pretty cool idea, right?”

            “Right,” I reply. “Do you mind if I borrow the journal? I want to read it.”

            Evan smirks. “It’s yours. I should have been asking you.”

            I start filling the pail again, shoveling the damp sand into the red bucket. My shorts are slightly wet from sitting on the sand but I don’t necessarily mind. It’s peaceful out here and more than anything, we’re completely alone. It’s like our own private sanctuary.

            “We should bring chairs down here,” I say. “And some food, I’m starving.”

            Evan leans back on his hands and looks out at the view of the water. “Me too. We should head back soon. I want to try searching again though. See if you can find any clues when you read it and let me know. We’ll get back out here as soon as we can.”

            I smile. “I’ll look closely.”

            “How long are you here for?”

            The question catches me off guard and I turn away. I let my hair fall into my face and chew on the bottom of my lip. Though I never wanted to come here, I don’t exactly want to go home, either. Something about the thought of all my things still there, untouched, along with the memories seems daunting. There are still things underneath my bedside table that I don’t want to see.

            “Only until the summer ends,” I respond. I draw a heart in the sand with my finger and then smooth it over. “Then I have to go back.”

             “Where’s back?” He sounds disappointed.

            “Hours away in the city. When do you go back?”

            Evan laughs quietly but it sounds slightly forced. “I live here all the time. So does Hadley. There are only a few summer cottagers here, but most of them are elderly. That’s why word spread quickly that somebody new was here.”

            “Speaking of Hadley,” I say, wanting to change the subject. I brush my hair away from my eyes and give Evan a small smile. “She invited me to a get together and told me to bring you, since I wouldn’t go otherwise.”

            Evan grins. “And why is that?”

            “Don’t get your hopes up, I’m not a crowd kind of person.”

            We lapse into silence, stretched out on the sand. Both of us lean back on our hands and let our legs reach out towards the water. My bare toes come close, but they never reach the calm waves that wash up towards me.

            It feels like we’re the only ones in the world. I could spend day after day here, not wanting to ever to return to the cottage. It’s like a private island, minus the island part. But if you don’t go past the cliff, it’s easy to pretend.

            “Can I ask you something?”

            I shrug one shoulder and tilt my head up towards the sky. My loose bun tilts slightly to the left and I have to lean my head to the right to get it back to center. “Sure.”

            “You know when you got hit by the truck…” he trails off for a moment and I feel his eyes on me. He’s assessing my reaction, seeing if it’s a sensitive topic with me or not. When I show no sign of changing my expression, he continues. “You kept holding my hand.”

            My cheeks flush and I turn my eyes away. “So my mother said.”

            “But that’s not all,” he says. I still feel his gaze so when I risk a look, he turns his head away.

            A burning feeling forms in the pit of my stomach all the way deep into my chest. It’s anticipation, anxiety – fear. I have a sense of what he’s going to say and I already don’t want him to say it. I lean forward, ready to make my getaway, but it’s too late.

            “You kept calling me…You thought…” My breath catches before he says it. “You thought I was someone named Cade.”

            I stare down at my legs and refuse to look up. Evan’s staring again, watching me, but I don’t dare look. Telling Hadley about Cade was different; something happened and she showed me she understood how I felt. Not only that, Hadley is a friend. Evan is something I’m unsure of, and as much as I enjoy being around him, I’ll always pick Cade over him. And right now, I’m picking Cade.

            “Okay.” I gather my shoes and slide them on my feet. Once I’m done tying the laces I stand as quickly as I can and forget about taking the bucket or the shovel. They’re too close to Evan. “We better get back.”

            I’m already on the path before Evan can call my name – and he does, the whole time he grabs his things and chases me. But I do not turn around and I say no more. He’s already said enough, and I don’t want to be around him anymore. By only a few words he brought up the only untouchable subject there was and now I feel caught in the middle.

            When I arrive at the top off the cliff and back on the grass, I rush towards the wooden steps and stomp up them before touching the sliding glass door. I tug on it but it does not budge. For the first time since Cade’s passing, my own mother has forgotten about me. Gently, I pound my fist on the door. No one comes.

            I whirl around just as Evan reaches the top of the sandy path. He looks tired and stunned. For a moment our gazes meet and I quickly tear them, taking off towards the side of the house. Evan chases after me.

            “Bam, wait,” he says. I hear his footsteps behind me but he knows better than to stop me from moving. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t know it was something I shouldn’t say and I apologize for-“

            Evan stops talking when he bumps into my back. I’m halted at the part where I’m at the end of the cottage, ready to turn left and head inside the house, except I can’t. A police car is parked in my driveway. No lights are flashing, no ambulances or fire trucks are parked on the street, just a single police car.

            “I better go,” Evan mumbles from behind me. “They won’t want me here.”

            I turn around and stare at him with a puzzled look. Despite how upset I am, I have to know what he means. “What are you talking about?”

            He looks towards the ground and adjusts his backpack. Like I am, he’s upset too. “They came to talk to me yesterday. It’s about the accident.”

            “Alabama,” Mom calls.

            I turn back towards the front of my house and see my parents standing with two police officers. My mother and one stopped talking, both turned towards me while my Dad speaks to one. Their eyes still glance towards me.           

            “See you around, Bam.”

            Evan brushes past me and climbs into his Jeep on the other side of the cop car. I watch him leave, still feeling everyone watching me, but I don’t want to move just yet. I feel like a deer caught in headlights.

            “Ms. Reed,” the police officer in front of my mother addresses me. “We’d like to speak to you.”

            The man talking to my father breaks away and both of them take a few steps towards me. They stop walking when they see me cautiously moving towards them. Both my parents retreat back onto the deck, whispering to each other as they talk. I feel like they’re abandoning me, but I know they were probably asked to stay out of this.

            “Hello, Ms. Reed,” a man with very short, dark hair says. He sounds serious, but a smile, one looking more threatening than calming appears on his lips. “We’d like to ask you some questions about the event you were involved in recently.”

            “What do you mean involved in? I was hit by a truck.”

            The man’s smile fades but it’s the other one’s turn to speak.

            “Mr. Lee recalls the event differently than you explained to the hospital,” he says. He retrieves a small notepad from his back pocket and a pen. “Can you describe what happened?”

            I narrow my eyes. “Who’s Mr. Lee?”

            The first officer frowns. “You are not familiar with him?”

            “I just came here a few weeks ago. I have no idea who the man is who hit me except that his name is Craig, according to a friend of mine.”

            “What friend?” Notepad officer asks.

            “Evan.”

            He writes something down. “Craig Lee,” he says, “is the man whose truck hit you. Can you tell me where you were standing on the road?”

            “I wasn’t on the road,” I snap. “I was on the shoulder.”

            I know I’m being hostile but I can’t help it. I never wanted to press charges, in fact I never cared whether or not somebody called the cops. So I don’t see the reason that I have to stand here, being grilled for a story I told a million times to two officers at the hospital.

            “You seem angry,” the first officer says. He’s looking at me with scrutinizing eyes while he folds his arms across his chest. “Why is this conversation aggravating you so much, Ms. Reed? Are you not telling the truth?”

            A frustrated noise leaves my lips as I rush past the officers. My arms hug my sides as they call after me, asking me to stop and trying to be some form of authority. As I barrel up the steps my mother reaches for my arm, gently saying my name as I dodge it. I slam the door shut and take the steps to my bedroom two at a time.

            When I reach my room I barricade the entrance so nobody can bother me and I throw my screen door shut. It hits the wall with a whack just as I launch myself onto my bed. I feel like I’m flying before I hit the cushions and throw up the comforter with both hands. As I crawl underneath it I start to take deep breathes that eventually turn into hyperventilating. I can’t stop gasping underneath the covers so I bury my head and close my eyes. People call from me from downstairs but I don’t respond. I never want to come out from my hiding place ever again.