White Space Season 1

met, he saw that she had a crush on him. Of course, he was 11 and she was 10, and he was Jonny Conway and she was just a middle class girl with an alcoholic mother, so there was no way he was gonna actually like her.
    Jonny dusted himself off and reached toward Cassidy, pulling a twig and leaf from her hair.
    “You okay?” he asked, smiling tenderly.
    “Yeah,” she said, suddenly shy.
    As Eric emerged from the woods, Tommy shouted, “Man, you missed it! Cassidy tackled Jonny big-time!”
    “No way!” Eric said. “You got tackled by a girl?!”
    “Shut up,” Jonny said, “I bet she’ll knock you down even faster.”
    “Yeah, right,” Eric said, looking Cassidy up and down, as if insulted, though she was pretty sure she saw a bit of fear in his eyes.
    “We should probably get home,” Eric said.
    “Oh, you don’t wanna get tackled by ‘a girl?’” Jonny winked at Cassidy.
    She laughed.
    “No,” Eric said defensively. “It’s just getting dark is all, and I don’t want the girls to get in trouble.”
    “Yeah, I need to get home, too,” Tommy said, coughing as he reached into his pants to pull out a pack of Marlboros. Cassidy thought he tried a bit too hard to prove himself cool because he was the youngest kid, but she wasn’t about to put him on the spot if nobody else was.
    Cassidy waited to hear what Jonny would say. If he wanted to stay out another hour, she would, too. Even if Sarah didn’t want to.
    “Yeah, we should probably head back,” Jonny said. “Same time tomorrow?”
    “Yeah,” Cassidy said, agreeing more eagerly than she’d intended. She covered by turning to Eric, “So I can show you up, boy.”
    Jonny laughed.
    “Hey, where’s Sarah?” Tommy said, taking a puff off his cigarette and coughing again.
    Cassidy looked around, surprised. She’d been so caught up in talking with the guys, she’d not realized that Sarah hadn’t come forward, even after it was safe.
    “Sarah? It’s safe to come out. I got Jonny!” she yelled.
    Nothing but silence.
    She better not have gone home without me!
    “Sarah?!” Cassidy called out into the darkness.
    Her voice was met with a crash of thunder, louder than any thunder Cassidy had ever heard. The sound was so loud that she jumped and bumped into Jonny, and held onto him. As she clung to him, the forest was suddenly alight with an explosion of lightning, bright and repeating like strobe lights, so bright that she had to throw her hands over her eyes.
    Then all was dark and silent again. She felt awkward clinging to Jonny, but didn’t let go.
    “What was that?” she asked.
    Sarah’s sudden scream shattered the silence.
    “Sarah?!” Cassidy called, pulling away from Jonny, racing toward the scream.
    Jonny joined her, right by her side, then in front of her, calling, “Sarah!”
    Behind them, Eric and Tommy followed, and all of them yelled, “Sarah!”
    Still no answer.
    Cassidy raced as fast as she could to keep up with Jonny, hoping someone wasn’t hurting her sister. She lost sight of Jonny for a moment, then nearly ran into him when he’d stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the ground.
    Cassidy’s heart froze as dread flooded her guts. She swallowed hard, then moved closer to see what Jonny was looking at.
    Sarah’s clothes were in a heap on the ground, but her sister was nowhere to be found.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 1 — Jon Conway

    Hamilton Island, Washington
    Thursday
    September 7
    7:07 a.m.

    Jon splashed cold water on his face, in attempt to shake off his exhaustion and cool off a raging erection left over from the dream he’d woken from. The last thing Jon needed was to start having sex dreams about Cassidy.
    Sex dreams about Sarah were normal, regular even. Less frequent than they used to be, but even after a decade removed, she still haunted his dream world. And it was the mornings after those dreams that he woke up most missing her. He still dreamed of everything from slow kisses along Sarah’s long neck, to the rhythm of their personal pushes and grunts. Mostly, he dreamed of their conversations; whispers and laughter, yelling and promises, every regretted word and syllable left unsaid.
    Despite the twins looking identical to most, there were always subtle differences that you picked up on when you got to know them. Those differences became more pronounced as Cassidy and Sarah’s lives had taken divergent paths and time had exacted its toll. The pink lines on Cassidy’s wrists. The look of defeat in her