Taylor jumped down, too. She pulled off her shirt and shorts, revealing a one-piece bathing suit underneath, before tossing one of the tubes into the water below. Then she grabbed the rope, backed up a few steps, and ran for the river. She let out a yell as she swung over the bank. Clem followed after her.

Kaden made no move to get up.

“You coming in?”

“I…” He looked down at the bottle in his hands, then back up to Irene. “Can we talk first?”

Irene sat back down. “About your mom?”

“Sort of,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure out why everyone forgot I existed.”

“Your mom didn’t remember you?”

“She did,” Kaden said. “But Nate didn’t.”

“Wow,” Irene said. “Kind of shitty for him to give up his memories of you.”

“Unless…” Kaden sighed and tilted his head back against the sycamore trunk. “What if he had a reason? What if you all had a reason for wanting to forget me?”

“Do not tell me you let Quinn get in your head.”

“Maybe she’s right,” Kaden said. “I left the same summer your brother died. What if I had something to do with it?”

Irene took the bottle from him, forcing him to look at her. “Yes, something awful happened that summer. But if it wasn’t an accident and my brother was murdered, I would’ve never, under any circumstances, given up the truth of that.”

“What if… you didn’t give those memories up willingly?” Kaden asked.

Irene shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t keep coming around to see you without telling you the truth.”

Irene’s chest clenched. Of course this man had been too good to be true. He was a Bonner. She should’ve known better.

“I don’t know how to say this other than to just say it,” Kaden said.

“So, say it.”

“I’m pretty sure I took a woman’s memories the other night at a bar.”

Irene opened her mouth, then closed it.

“I know how it sounds,” Kaden said. “I tried to tell my mom, and she said it wasn’t possible, that I must’ve misremembered.”

Kaden’s aura was all hyacinths and weeping willows and king’s spear, and though his regret was obvious, as far as Irene could see, he was earnest. He was as lost as she felt.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I didn’t even know I could. Maybe I did it that summer. Maybe the dark thing the town let go of was me.”

Irene looked down at the bottle in her hands and took a long drink. Then she closed her eyes and thought back to that year, to finding Nate in the alley.