a deadly storm, an unsolved disappearance, and a small town brimming with secrecy;
an outcast girl, a boy who only knows how to hide, and the world against them;
what could go wrong?
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One cup of coffee and half a ham sandwich later, Boo is curled up in bed with a blanket wrapped loosely around her shoulders and the yellow yearbooks spread across her bed. The first one she picks up is from nineteen-sixty-five, Martha's sophomore year of high school. She flips slowly through the laminated pages, completely in awe at the glimpse into the past she's getting.
Martha's face catches her eye several times. Whether she's caught walking through the halls of the school, mid-cartwheel on the football field, or snapped in the midst of laughter, she's as beautiful as Boo remembers. In the background she can also see her late grandfather admiring Martha from afar.
And, of course, Nathaniel Waters is in the yearbook too. Nearly every photo of Randall has Nathaniel alongside him, tacked to his heels like a lingering shadow. Even through a photo twice her age, she can see still the cold emptiness in his gaze that she saw every time he looked at her.
Boo goes to turn the page again but stops when her vision snags on a face she hadn't expected to see: Damien Burkwell in a tattered practice jersey, casually grinning at the camera while clutching a football.
Of course. The newscaster's voice from the other night echoes in her head: "He graduated from Primark High School in nineteen-sixty-seven and was an avid sportsman."
Her heart nearly stops beating. Thrust into a state of urgency, Boo tosses the book from sixty-five back onto the bed and scrambles to find the one from sixty-seven, nearly ripping out some of the pages by accident as she frantically flips to the graduates section and traces her finger through the faces laid out on the page.
B . . . Julie Bearden, Gerard Box, Damien Burkwell.
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She taps his smiling photo. It hadn't clicked until that moment that if Damien and Martha were at the same school, there was a chance they'd dwelt in the same circles. More than likely they were acquaintances; maybe even friends.
Her suspicion is soon confirmed; no sooner has she turned the page than do her eyes stumble upon a photo of a science fair from December 1967, with Martha and Damien candidly chatting while standing at the same display table. Martha's face holds an animated smile, but Boo is more interested in Damien's expression.
