chapter twenty-one
On a Friday in mid-July, after Ocean Club is over, Lemon tells Kiko and Jules to meet us back at her house in an hour. Ever since her birthday a few weeks ago, we’ve been hanging out there at least once a weekend. Usually, Peach comes with me during the day, but if we hang out at night when she’s already in bed, Jules loves to bring out these freaky books called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The pictures alone are enough to give anyone nightmares. Still, I don’t say no when they dig the books out of their bag. There’s something amazing about reading scary stories with other people in a fairy-lit blanket fort.
Something magical, even.
“I have a surprise,” Lemon says, literally rubbing her hands together like some villain as we jog down the steps to exit the library.
“Oh, god,” Jules says, covering their face.
Kiko shakes her head. “No way. No surprises.”
“You guys have such little faith in me,” Lemon says.
“The last time you said you had a surprise,” Kiko says, “we ended up eating fish eggs.”
“It was caviar,” Lemon says. “As in fancy, rich-people food?”
“Fish. Eggs,” Kiko says.
“Okay, okay, can we stop talking about fish eggs?” Jules says, holding their stomach. “And I’ve got a surprise for tonight too. Well, actually, it’s for Hazel, but you guys are part of it.”
“Wait, what?” I ask.
Jules shrugs innocently.
“I know what it is, I know what it is!” Lemon says, clapping her hands at least ten times really fast and grinning at me like a total fool.
Kiko rolls her eyes, then pulls Jules in the direction of their houses, while Lemon and I head toward ours.
“So what’s the surprise?” I ask Lemon as we walk. The sky is crystal clear, so blue it almost feels as though the sea got tipped upside down and is floating above us. The air is dry and warm and it finally feels like summer. If I was a different kind of girl, a two-years-ago kind of girl, I’d be itching to go swimming. A pool, a lake, the sea—it didn’t matter, as long as I was covered in water.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” she says.
A flicker of anxiety sparks in my belly. “I’m not great with surprises.”
“Mine is good,” she says. “It’s… romantic.”
“Romantic?” I ask. “A rom-com movie binge?”
She laughs but shakes her head. “Better.”
I blow out a breath. I would’ve liked a rom-com movie binge. Not because I like rom-coms necessarily, but movies are safe. Easy. Get some popcorn, a few blankets, some pillows, all of us squashed into Lemon’s huge couch. I can do that. I have done that, three whole times since her birthday.
“I’m more interested in Jules’s surprise, though,” she says.
“You’re not gonna tell me that one, either?”
She shakes her head, then skips ahead of me and turns around, walking backward so she can see me. “It’s good too. Trust me.”
“That’s dangerous,” I say, pointing to her feet.
She ignores me and keeps on heading down the sidewalk backward. “They’re so sweet, don’t you think?”
“Jules?”
“Of course Jules.”
“Um. Yeah, I guess,” I say.
“You guess?”
“Okay, yeah, they’re sweet.”
I frown at her, a squirmy feeling starting in my stomach. “Sure.”
“Sure? That’s it?”
I shrug.
“They think you’re cute.”
I stop walking. Right there in the middle of the street. I touch my scars, the bumps on my cheeks that will never, ever go away. “What?”
Lemon stops too, her eyes flicking to my fingers at my scars and then back to my eyes. “They told me so.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
The words jumble in my head—romantic and cute and Jules and me. I don’t understand why Lemon is even talking about this. Have I done something to make her put all those words together, think about Jules and me as… I don’t know, Jules and Hazel? And why, why, does the slight possibility of a Jules and Hazel make me feel like a million lightbulbs have replaced all my blood?
I can’t decide if it’s a nice feeling or not. I’m suddenly sweaty, nervous, thoughts cartwheeling out of control. I think back over the past few weeks and all the time I’ve spent with Jules.
It’s a lot.
More than I’ve ever spent with anyone other than my swim team and schoolmates, Mama and Peach and Mum. But Kiko and Lemon are always there too. Half the time, so is my little sister. Nothing we do screams romance. We go to Ocean Club. We sit on the beach, far from the water, and eat lunch every weekday. Sometimes, after Ocean Club, Lemon and Kiko and Jules will hang out, so I’ll go home and pick up Peach and then we’ll meet up with them for frozen yogurt at the Pink Mermaid, this shop downtown that has wild flavors like Rose Maid Mint and Seashell Sherbet. I go, mostly because the first time Lemon invited me, I said no, and she followed me the whole way home, babbling on and on about the wonders of the Pink Mermaid’s toppings—all of them, from the cinnamon drops to the peanut butter cups, shaped like tiny mermaids—until I finally gave in just to shut her up.
Also, Mama is writing nonstop lately and the tap-tap-tap of her laptop makes me think of home, of California and Mum. My mind starts somersaulting, wondering what she’s writing about, if it’s romantic, who she’ll get to read her first draft because, before, it was always Mum.
So, yeah, I’ve been with Jules a lot. We’ve gone to the movies to see the new Pixar film. We’ve eaten truffle fries from the Rose Maid Café. About a week after the sleepover, we all went to the Lancaster House when it was actually open and looked at all the stuff that used to belong to Rosemary Lee. The rooms felt completely different in the daylight. In the parlor, the walls were packed with framed photos, maps, even blueprints of the Skylark, Captain Lee’s ill-fated ship. Several cases gleamed in the afternoon light, trinkets waiting under the glass.
I walked up to the closest one and peered down at an old-fashioned hairbrush, a silver-plated mirror, and a smaller brush with warped bristles that I was horrified to realize was a toothbrush.
“Creepy, right?” Jules said, frowning down at the nineteenth-century toiletry items. Their shoulder touched mine.
I laughed, relieved they didn’t think this thing Rosemary Lee supposedly stuck in her mouth once upon a time was magical. “Um, yes.”
“There’s better stuff, I promise,” Jules said, then pointed to a corner where at least seven other people hovered. “Anne Lancaster’s journal is over there. It’s under glass, so you can’t touch it, but the curator here puts on these special gloves every morning and turns the page.”
“How generous,” I said. “All you’d have to do is come here every day for an entire year and you’d get to read the whole thing.”
Jules’s smile dipped. “Yeah, silly, right?”
I tilted my head at them. “You’ve read the whole thing, haven’t you?”
Jules opened and closed their mouth a few times before saying, “I mean, probably not the whole thing.”
I laughed and got that swoopy feeling in my stomach that I’d been getting more and more around Jules. I didn’t know what it meant. It sort of felt like nerves, sort of like excitement. I tried to ignore it, but it’s hard to ignore your gut.
“It’s actually really beautiful,” Jules said. “Anne’s writing. And sad. Really sad.”
“Yeah, I remember a few lines from Coastal Lore. ‘She has the sea in her soul now—’”
“‘I fear one day it will claim her completely.’” Jules nodded. “Yeah.”
I pressed my fingers to the cold glass case. “Do you think it did?”
“What?”
“Claim her completely?”
Jules sighed. “I think… she was sad. And I think sadness can change you, you know? That kind of loss? It makes you different. It’s made me different, losing Immy. And she wasn’t even my family. Who knows what it can really do to some people. Maybe it did take her over completely, and she just… she just…”
I couldn’t look at them, but I felt my mouth open, heard my voice speak. “Lost herself.”
“Yeah,” they said softly. “Something like that.”
I nodded, gazing on that gross toothbrush, but a flash flood of tears welled in my eyes.
“Hey,” Jules said softly, touching my shoulder gently. Quickly, fingers there and then gone. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I sniffed, blinked the tears away. I hadn’t told Jules, or Kiko, for that matter, about Mum. And I didn’t want to tell Jules now. Getting it all out to Lemon once was hard enough, and I had no interest in reliving that moment in the middle of a museum. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Jules nudged my arm with theirs, smiling that crooked smile, and we went on meandering around the room. Lemon was right, what she said about the Lancaster House that night on the beach—there is a feeling here, a presence, a heaviness that weighs on each room like an invisible mist.
Upstairs, you could walk around and see the bedrooms, including the one that Rosemary used to sleep in. The five of us went up there together, and once we were alone, Lemon lifted five sea roses out of her backpack. We each placed a flower on the tiny twin bed—even me, because Lemon pretty much stuffed the thorny plant into my hand and I had to take it or risk a skin laceration—right on top of the rosette quilt yellowing with age.
It was a serious moment, but something about it felt light, too, all of us being there together again but in a totally different way than our midnight adventure.
On our way back toward the stairs, Jules paused on the hallway landing and sighed heavily.
“You okay?” Kiko asked.
Jules nodded and ran their hands along the banister. “I was just remembering.”
“Remembering what?” Lemon asked.
“Right here,” Jules said, looking around wistfully, sighing again. “Right in this very spot…”
Jules’s eyes settled on mine, a smile just barely twitching at the side of their mouth. “… is where Hazel nearly poisoned us all with her mighty hand sanitizer.”
“Hey!” I said, but it was too late. Everyone roared with laughter, even Peach.
“Ah, memories,” Kiko said, fake coughing and rubbing her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said, but a laugh worked its way up my belly too, falling out of my mouth even as I tried to defend myself. The heaviness I’d felt just moments before lifted like I’d shaken off a coat in the heat of summer.
We all laughed the whole way down the stairs, earning us several annoyed glances from somber tourists who clearly just wanted to get lost in a sad story.
I remember thinking about the whole day later that night in bed, what Jules and I talked about, change and sadness, how sometimes you can’t not change. Changing is survival. Changing is how you keep the Sadness from claiming you completely. Or, like Jules said, maybe the changing is the claiming. I thought about the me I was before Mum died. I barely knew that girl anymore. Even my reflection was different.
But then, in the next second, while Peach rolled over in the bunk underneath mine, shaking the whole bed frame, I thought about how Jules made me laugh. Made me feel… I don’t know. Part of something.
As I walk back to the cottage with Lemon now, my stomach flutters, remembering.
I’ve never liked anyone before. Not like liked. But it’s not something I was ever interested in. I remember making faces at a movie or TV show whenever the actors would kiss on-screen. I remember Mum laughing when I did it, one arm around Mama on the couch and tousling my hair with the other hand.
Just you wait, kiddo, she said. Just you wait.
I never really knew what I was supposed to be waiting for, but maybe… it’s this? I do think Jules is cute. And funny. And smart. And my stomach feels weird when I’m around them, but does that mean like? A stomachache—that’s it?
The questions spin on and on as we walk. By the time we get to Sea Rose Cottage, I’ve nearly forgotten about Lemon’s and Jules’s surprises, my mind completely crowded and confused.
“I’ll see you in an hour or so?” Lemon says as she keeps heading off down the beach. I nod. Wave. Walk up the porch steps to the door. I stop before going in, trying to process what I think Lemon was telling me.
Jules.
Me.
Cute.
A smile starts to form. I wonder what Mum would say—
I freeze.
My smile drops.
Because there’s no way I can know what Mum would say. I can guess, but I can’t know. In a blink, she disappeared from my life and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I was right there and I couldn’t stop it. That’s how fast your life can flip totally upside down, crushing you, knocking you sideways until you can’t breathe, until you’re sure, you’re sure, you’ll never get another deep breath ever again.
In a snap.
Everything gone.
That’s how fast Kiko and Lemon and Jules could disappear too. All it’ll take is Mama and Peach and me leaving, or all of them deciding I’m not worth it, I’m too changed, too lost, too much, too little. All these smiles, these memories of the past few weeks, these… these…
Friends.
The word hits me like a punch in the gut.
Friends.
Gone in a blink. A moment.
Other words spill into my mind, water filling a hollow cup. Goodbye and loss. Change. Heartbreak. The sea, cold, dark, deep blue. Rocks and sirens. Paramedics, pressing on Mum’s chest, scars on my face in the mirror, under my fingers, always there.
I shake my head, press the heels of my hands to my eyes. Breathe.
It takes me another minute, but I get my lungs back to normal enough to put my hand on the doorknob. I push open the door and start to call for Mama—I just want to see her, talk to her, talk to her about friends and what to do, how to handle all this. Or talk to her about home. It’s been over a month. Maybe she’ll agree. Maybe she’ll see it’s time to go back to our old life, back to where we were happy, where we were a family with Mum.
But when I walk in, I stop short. I never even get to call out for her.
Mama and Claire are sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of tea between them, their heads bent close together. They startle, pulling back from each other. Claire’s pale face goes super red and then Mama puts her fingers to her mouth like she and Claire just… like maybe they…
“Hi, sweetheart,” Mama says, clearing her throat. “How was Ocean Club today?”
I just blink at her.
Claire wraps both hands around her mug and smiles at me, her cheeks still pink. “Hi, Hazel. Did Lemon head on home?”
Blink.
“Hazey!” Peach yells, flying out of her room with her purple tutu around her waist and Nicholas in her arms. She launches herself at me and I catch her, swinging her up onto my hip. “Are we going over to Lemon’s?”
“Um…” Suddenly, going to Lemon’s feels impossible. Seeing Jules. Feeling all these new feelings I can’t talk to Mum about, can’t talk to Mama about because she’s… she’s… with Claire. She’s not worried about goodbyes. She’s happy. She’s probably told Claire everything about Mum, talked to her like I wish she’d talk to me. She’s… replaced Mum. Replaced me.
I can’t stay here. I can’t go into my room and close the door and pretend Mama and Claire weren’t just… that they aren’t…
“Yeah,” I manage to say.
Peach beams, squeezes me tight as I turn back toward the sea.
“Hazel, honey—” Mama starts, but I don’t let her get anything else out. I open the door and slam it on my way out without another word.