The Not | Page 5

knew before he’d taken his next breath that
she was the one he could spend the rest of his life looking for but
never find again. She seemed that good, that perfect.
From there, it went like a tornado wind. Fin told him she was
spending the summer in New Bern with her family, because her father
worked for a tobacco firm, and though he only nodded, the way she
was looking at him made his silence seem okay. Fin laughed then,
because he knew what was happening, and Sarah suggested they get
some cherry cokes, and the four of them stayed at the festival until the
crowds were thin and everything closed up for the night.
They met the following day, and the day after that, and they soon
became inseparable. Every morning but Sunday, when he had to go to
church, he would finish his chores as quickly as possible, then make a
straight line to Fort Totten Park, where she’d be waiting for him.
Because she was a newcomer and hadn’t lived in a small town before,
they spent their days doing things that were completely new to her.
He taught her how to bait a line and fish the shallows for largemouth
bass and took her exploring through the backwoods of the Croatan
Forest. They rode in canoes and watched summer thunderstorms, and
it seemed as though they’d always known each other.
But he learned things as well. At the town dance in the tobacco barn,
it was she who taught him how to waltz and do the Charleston, and
though they stumbled through the first few songs, her patience with

him eventually paid off, and they danced together until the music
ended. He walked her home afterwards, and when they paused on the
porch after saying good night, he kissed her for the first time and
wondered why he had waited as long as he had.
Later in the summer he brought her to this house, looked past the
decay, and told her that one day he was going to own it and fix it up.
They spent hours together talking about their dreams—his of seeing
the world, hers of being an artist—and on a humid night in August.
They both lost their virginity. When she left three weeks later, she
took a piece of him and the rest of summer with her. He watched her
leave town on an early rainy morning, watched through eyes that
hadn’t slept the night before, then went home and packed a hag. He
spent the next week alone on Harkers Island.
Noah checked his watch. Eight twelve. He got up and walked to the
front of the house and looked up the road. Gus wasn’t in sight, and
Noah figured he wouldn’t be coming. He went back to his rocker and
sat again.
He remembered talking to Gus about her. The first time he
mentioned her. Gus started to shake his head and laugh. “So that’s the
ghost you been running from.” When asked what he meant. Gus said.
“You know, the ghost, the memory. I been watchin’ you workin’ day
and night, slavin’ so hard you barely have time to catch your breath.
People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin’
to forget. And with you, I knew you was tryin’ to forget. I just didn’t
know what.”
Gus was right, of