But she told herself to press forward.
It felt strange, making a move to be with someone rather than hiding. The picture of Charlie was tucked in this case, beneath her clothes. When she got settled in New Mexico, when she had her own place again, she’d f ind a spot for it. A frame, she decided. Like displaying the pocket watch—well, that had almost turned out disastrous—it was a big step, putting something that precious out in the open where she could look at it every day. Doing more than just committing it to memory.
But why the hell not? Whatever Lloyd’s reason in giving it to her, she would ignore that and make it her own. If Emma O’Neill couldn’t yet win the war, she would at least win a battle or two.
“Mondragon and O’Neill,” Pete had said, still pondering their new business. “Alpha order.”
“O’Neill and Mondragon,” she countered. “Age order.”
He’d laughed hard enough that she’d had to help him readjust his blue sling.
Now the sun was coming up. It was just before seven in the morning.
Emma zipped the lid on her suitcase, picked it up and carried it to the door. One more sweep, she thought. Make sure she didn’t miss anything. And then her gaze caught the mess on the kitchen counter, strewn with Styrofoam coffee cups and doughnut crumbs.
She set down the suitcase and went to f ind a sponge. She was wiping the counter when she heard the knock.
“It’s open,” she said, then realized it probably wasn’t. Pete had no key.
“You know you’re a pain in the—”
The door swung open.
Charlie stood on the other side, very still, waiting, as was his way. His hair was a wild thatch on his head. His skin was tawny and smooth. He was tall and slender, his arms muscled, his jaw neatly def ined. His eyes were a deeper brown than anyone else’s.
“Emma,” said Charlie Ryan.
The sponge dropped from her hand.
“Charlie,” Emma said, and his name on her tongue sounded both foreign and familiar. She swallowed, feeling those two syllables rush through her. Charlie. Charlie. He was in her heart and veins and blood. He always had been, she realized. She had never lost him, not really.
He was alive. He was here. He wasn’t dead.
“How?” She could barely form the question. He told her brief ly. He’d tell her more later. There was time. So much time.
“I tried to f ind you,” Emma said.
“Me, too,” he said. “I was so stupid, Em, to leave you. I—”
“Shh,” she whispered. She had forgiven him long ago. Now she forgave herself.
He looked at her.
“I became a private investigator,” she said, as if that could explain a century of loss.
But he smiled. Not with his mouth, but with his eyes, with that sparkle nobody ever saw but her. “And I became—”
“A pilot,” Emma f inished with him.
They were f lying then, both of them, the years and the sadness and the endless places rushing below them, as they soared above it all. Alligators and swamps and Fountains of Youth and Juan Ponce de León, dead by an arrow. Long-dead parents and siblings and a man named Glen Walters who tried and failed to destroy the threads that held them together. Murdered girls and one named Coral, alive if just barely, because Emma refused to give up. A happy boy named Hugo Alvarez. A huckster named Kingsley Lloyd who had given them a gift they never wanted and still barely understood. The people who had come and gone as Emma had traveled and hoped and wondered and lived. Sylvie Parsons in Chicago. A boy named Aaron Tinsley. Poor Elodie Callahan, whom Emma couldn’t save. Pocket watches (beautiful and heavy) and hawks and constellations. Family. A baby brother Emma missed so much sometimes it was often hard to breathe. Even now. Even after so very, very long. A friend named Pete Mondragon, true as could be.
It rushed by them and through them, years and hours and minutes and seconds.
You never knew what was coming in this world, not really. That was the true mystery, the true wonder. You just hung on and hoped for the best.
This boy. This boy.
Charlie stepped over the threshold, and he was smiling with his mouth now, and every false move, every empty hope, every reckless mistake—there had been so many—faded. Not gone, because these were the things that had led them here, the things that had changed them inexorably even as they remained the same.
Oh, thought Emma. This is why. Because now. Because us.
It wasn’t what she expected. Not at all.
Her long-bruised heart swelled. This boy. This man. This return.
Charlie held out his arms, and she closed the distance between them.
Acknowledgments
It’s a strange and wonderful task to write a story about immortality: A girl and a boy, in love and stuck at seventeen. A Fountain of Youth. The crazy, sad, happy, romantic, and dangerous hundred-year adventure that happens when they lose each other.
An American fairy tale, I told my editor.
And make it funny sometimes, he said.
No problem, I told him. But I also want to make you cry. Because living forever, that would sometimes make you cry, right?
Thank you times eternity to Daniel Ehrenhaft for believing I could write this book and giving me the time and copious editorial notes to get it right.
And to the entire Soho Press team, including but not limited to Bronwen Hruska, Juliet Grames, Rachel Kowal, Janine Agro, Meredith Barnes, Rudy Martinez and cover designer Christian Fuenfhausen—I am ever so lucky to be part of your astonishingly creative, nimble crew.
It is impossible to f ind enough thank yous for Jennifer Rofé, best agent ever, who encourages, supports, negotiates like a pit bull, and occasionally reminds me to get over my bad self.
To my lovely critique partners, especially Christina Mandelski, Varsha Bajaj, Colleen Thompson, and Kim O’Brien: thank you for endless encouragement with each draft—and there were a LOT of drafts.
Hugs to the author crew at Lodge of Death, the best writing retreat with insanely abundant taxidermy in Texas. I can’t even . . . And thanks to my Houston writers, The YAHOUS, for enthusiastic cheerleading and generosity.
Another round of thanks to every blogger and bookseller and librarian who has supported me and my books. I absolutely could not do this without you.
And as always to Rick, Jake, and Kellie: I love you all forever and forever.
Joy Preble, It Wasn't Always Like This
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