Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf Series) Read Online Free
Author: Nikki Godwin
asks.
“ Bristow Park,” I say. I’ve told her this story about twenty times in the last twelve hours, but she acts like my telling her again may help trigger some big chunk of the story I had to have somehow forgotten.
I repeat every sentence from our conversation, as much as I can verbatim anyway, while I twist the little green star in between my fingers. The sun beams down on us while we lie back on the slide, and I attempt to recreate his talk of wishing on stars and good luck.
Linzi sits up and interrupts. “Remind me again why this guy was so damn awesome. He sounds boring. Talking about the stars and luck? Seriously, Haley?”
The truth is that I don’t even know why he was so damn awesome. He was just fearless, open to whatever the world threw at him. He wasn’t worried about his future and college and taking over his parents’ business. He was free, and it’s so rare to ever see someone so free in Fallen Elk Grove. He wasn’t afraid to walk through the night with no destination in mind, just ending up wherever he did, chasing forever down and breathing in ocean air and littering on my childhood dreamland.
“Oh God,” I say, not answering Linzi’s question anywhere other than in my own mind.
I push off the slide and dash toward the trash can. I drop to my knees and run my hand over the grass hoping to find that little wad of paper.
Linzi’s shadow towers over me, erasing the sunlight on the ground like a tidal wave preparing to blast away a kingdom of sandcastles. “What are you doing? We’re supposed to be retracing step by step,” she says.
I grab the white paper from the shadows. “This!”
Linzi kneels down next to me, asking a million questions with her eyes that I can’t answer because I don’t even know the answers yet.
“He put his gum in it and threw it away last night. But he missed the garbage can and I accused him of littering and he asked if I was going to arrest him because he could post bail,” I say.
My hands are too shaky to unwrap the gum-covered mystery, so Linzi does the honors. Every hope I have of ever seeing him again lies in this little piece of paper. It’s like the key to the universe, and my heart jumps in hopes of it being worth something.
It’s a receipt.
“Stella’s Salon…722 Hawkins Road…Murfreesboro, Tennessee,” Linzi says. “I can’t tell what he bought through the gum.”
“ Spence Burks was a blonde. Last night he wasn’t,” I tell her. It’s another concrete fact that he was disguising himself, that he didn’t want to be found or seen. But why not?
“ What the hell was he doing in Tennessee? What’s the deal with this guy?” Linzi asks the questions like I actually know the answers. I add them to my long mental list of things to ask him when I find him.
“ We know where he was before he came here,” I say. I don’t know what that means really, but it’s more than I knew last night.
“ Too bad life isn’t like TV, where you can find used gum and then hot guys from the crime lab solve all of your problems between five or six commercial breaks,” Linzi says.
“ Yeah, really,” I say. “They’d just trace his steps backward then bring him into the station for questioning.”
Linzi crumples the receipt back into a wad and jumps up from the grass. “That’s it, Haley! We’ll trace his steps backward. We know he was at a salon in Tennessee, so maybe the salon can tell us where he was before that. We’ll just rewind the last few days of his life.”
I push off the grass to stand. “We can’t just go to Tennessee,” I remind her.
Asking my parents if we can take a road trip to God-knows-where chasing after an undead college-aged member of the male gender would be on the same level as asking them to cancel my cell phone plan and sell my car.
“Don’t they want you to look into that business program in Nashville?” Linzi asks. She’s already planning this trip in her head, and it’s too late to stop her.
“
“ Bristow Park,” I say. I’ve told her this story about twenty times in the last twelve hours, but she acts like my telling her again may help trigger some big chunk of the story I had to have somehow forgotten.
I repeat every sentence from our conversation, as much as I can verbatim anyway, while I twist the little green star in between my fingers. The sun beams down on us while we lie back on the slide, and I attempt to recreate his talk of wishing on stars and good luck.
Linzi sits up and interrupts. “Remind me again why this guy was so damn awesome. He sounds boring. Talking about the stars and luck? Seriously, Haley?”
The truth is that I don’t even know why he was so damn awesome. He was just fearless, open to whatever the world threw at him. He wasn’t worried about his future and college and taking over his parents’ business. He was free, and it’s so rare to ever see someone so free in Fallen Elk Grove. He wasn’t afraid to walk through the night with no destination in mind, just ending up wherever he did, chasing forever down and breathing in ocean air and littering on my childhood dreamland.
“Oh God,” I say, not answering Linzi’s question anywhere other than in my own mind.
I push off the slide and dash toward the trash can. I drop to my knees and run my hand over the grass hoping to find that little wad of paper.
Linzi’s shadow towers over me, erasing the sunlight on the ground like a tidal wave preparing to blast away a kingdom of sandcastles. “What are you doing? We’re supposed to be retracing step by step,” she says.
I grab the white paper from the shadows. “This!”
Linzi kneels down next to me, asking a million questions with her eyes that I can’t answer because I don’t even know the answers yet.
“He put his gum in it and threw it away last night. But he missed the garbage can and I accused him of littering and he asked if I was going to arrest him because he could post bail,” I say.
My hands are too shaky to unwrap the gum-covered mystery, so Linzi does the honors. Every hope I have of ever seeing him again lies in this little piece of paper. It’s like the key to the universe, and my heart jumps in hopes of it being worth something.
It’s a receipt.
“Stella’s Salon…722 Hawkins Road…Murfreesboro, Tennessee,” Linzi says. “I can’t tell what he bought through the gum.”
“ Spence Burks was a blonde. Last night he wasn’t,” I tell her. It’s another concrete fact that he was disguising himself, that he didn’t want to be found or seen. But why not?
“ What the hell was he doing in Tennessee? What’s the deal with this guy?” Linzi asks the questions like I actually know the answers. I add them to my long mental list of things to ask him when I find him.
“ We know where he was before he came here,” I say. I don’t know what that means really, but it’s more than I knew last night.
“ Too bad life isn’t like TV, where you can find used gum and then hot guys from the crime lab solve all of your problems between five or six commercial breaks,” Linzi says.
“ Yeah, really,” I say. “They’d just trace his steps backward then bring him into the station for questioning.”
Linzi crumples the receipt back into a wad and jumps up from the grass. “That’s it, Haley! We’ll trace his steps backward. We know he was at a salon in Tennessee, so maybe the salon can tell us where he was before that. We’ll just rewind the last few days of his life.”
I push off the grass to stand. “We can’t just go to Tennessee,” I remind her.
Asking my parents if we can take a road trip to God-knows-where chasing after an undead college-aged member of the male gender would be on the same level as asking them to cancel my cell phone plan and sell my car.
“Don’t they want you to look into that business program in Nashville?” Linzi asks. She’s already planning this trip in her head, and it’s too late to stop her.
“
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