CHAPTER TWELVE

“Anywhere but here” doesn’t wind up being far from where we started. I don’t have enough strength left to make it any farther than half a mile, so we settle for the most secluded place I can think of.

The pier isn’t exactly private. Anyone could stumble upon it if they made a wrong turn off the path toward Fulton Drive, but it’s close enough. It’s in surprisingly good condition considering no one’s in charge of maintaining it. Weeds and overgrown bushes have sprouted since we were last here, but flowers have bloomed along the shoreline too. Dozens of dandelions and a small smattering of irises. The sagging branches of the willow tree hiding the pier from view is still holding strong, its leaves as warm, vibrant, and green as I remember. I hold my arm up before Julian can step onto the dock, cautiously leaning my weight on a worn plank of wood. It doesn’t buckle under the pressure, unlike our front steps.

“How do you know about this place?” Julian asks as he props the bike up against a nearby tree.

I make myself comfortable, kicking off my shoes and lying flat along the edge of the pier, dipping my toes into the water. “My mom found it,” I whisper. The words come out soft—a secret I don’t have the right to tell.

This alcove has belonged to her since she and Dad discovered it our second year at the lake. It was her secret weapon, a place she could take me or Maya whenever we threw one of our tantrums. Nothing settled us down like one-on-one time with her. As if some part of us knew the time we did have was fleeting.

Julian sits beside me once he’s kicked off his shoes, leaning on his elbows to look up at the first budding stars. There’s a welcome silence as we adjust to the concept of being alone together. When I close my eyes, it’s as if nothing has changed. Lake Andreas is alive again, buzzing with excitement as the day winds down. But the sound of Julian’s voice is a stark reminder of how different things are now.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as he lies back.

“Like I was hit by a truck.” I rub at one of the bites on my wrist. “A truck filled with mosquitoes.”

He chuckles, stretching his arms behind his head. “I promise I’ll never make you go anywhere near a bike again.”

“It was for the best,” I admit with a sigh. “Every year my mom would say, ‘That’s it, it’s time you two learn how to ride bikes,’ but she never got around to it.”

Julian takes his time before replying, “I’m sorry.”

“Eh, she was a busy lady.”

“No.” Julian sits up on his elbows. “I meant about…y’know. Her.”

“That she died?”

Julian nods, cheeks visibly pink even in the pale moonlight.

“You don’t have to apologize; you didn’t kill her. Unless you invented ovarian cancer. In which case, fuck you.”

The joke is lost on him.

“Sorry, I’m just messing with you.” I knock my bare ankle against his calf. “Though the Suck-o incident did take five years off all of our lives,” I tease, but the way his brow furrows says it’s gone over his head again.

He turns to look at me. “The what incident?”

The question catches me off guard. Like seeing Suck-o in that box, it feels like yet another backhanded strike. Did our loss mean so little to them that they don’t even remember it? That we’re the reason they have the second-floor expansion and the Jet Skis tied to their dock?

“That bet, from our first year here?” His expression remains unreadable. “The one where your dad stole my dad’s invention and turned it into a million-dollar empire? The same bet your dad challenged us to again this year so he can turn our cabin into a boat garage?” My tone is harsher than I mean for it to be, but I can’t help the rage that bubbles up as I dwell on the fact that they can’t be bothered to remember screwing us over.

“That robot was yours?” Julian chokes out.

I prop myself up, eyes narrowed at him. “You didn’t know?”

He shakes his head. “Dad told us it was something he’d been messing around with.”

The weight of his reply makes my arms tremble. If they didn’t know, then why did he throw eggs at our house? Why did I trip him and make his lip split open? Why have we been at each other’s throats for a decade over something they had no part in?

“Then why did you hate us?” is all I can manage to say. It barely made sense before and even less sense now. We assumed they hated us because we had the power to threaten what they had. Because we knew the truth, even if we couldn’t prove it. But if Julian and his siblings didn’t see us as a threat, then why have we been feuding for twelve years?

Julian doesn’t meet my eyes, shaking his head at the sky. “Because he told us to.”

It’s easy to hate someone when you’re six. The neighbors had a pool and we didn’t; that was enough. Dad told us that the Seo-Cookes hurt him. That just fueled us even more. But what if the person you trust most isn’t trustworthy?

What if the person right in front of you was someone you could’ve trusted the entire time?

When Julian speaks up again, he still doesn’t look at me.

“This is my dad’s MO. He’s always talking about how people like us need to be louder than everyone in the room, or no one’ll listen. And maybe that’s true, but now all he does is talk over everyone.”

It’s not a line of thought I can disagree with. Mr. Cooke knows as well as I do what it’s like to be the only Latino in a room, how sometimes it feels like you’ll never be heard. But that doesn’t change what he did. That he didn’t just shout over us—he silenced us entirely.

So much for solidarity.

“That was him. On the phone earlier.” Julian’s voice is thick.

My breath catches, and I fight back the urge to cough. I can hear how badly Julian wants to cry, so I give him space.

“He set up a lunch for me and some guy who knows the coach of the Princeton lacrosse team. Even though I told him I wasn’t interested,” Julian continues. “I did what I always do. Panic and say the worst possible thing.” He stops for a moment, glancing over at me with a half-smirk. “Thankfully I didn’t say I have another fake boyfriend.”

I snort, all the breath I’ve been holding coming out at once. “Good. I can barely keep up with one fake relationship.”

He nods, looking up at the stars again. “I should’ve told him then. About Princeton.”

“What’s your plan? If you’re not going to Princeton, I mean.”

I’m prepared for him to list off dozens of top-tier universities, not shrug and say, “I don’t have one.”

“You…don’t?”

Julian Seo-Cooke, whose days are blocked out and color-coded to the minute, doesn’t have a plan. That sounds as believable as our relationship.

“Not exactly.” He sighs as he folds his arms behind his head. “I didn’t get into Princeton. Didn’t even make it onto the waitlist.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t apply anywhere else. You still have a few days left.” I should know. I didn’t submit my CalArts application until the very last day, drenched in panic sweat when my laptop crashed twenty minutes before the application portal closed. Thankfully, Maya came to the rescue and let me borrow hers. Something I’m sure she regrets now.

Julian shakes his head. “I don’t think I want to go anywhere else. It’s not like I wanted to go to Princeton, either. But…I don’t really know what I want.” He inhales sharply, exhales slowly, and I resist the urge to lean in closer.

“It was easy for Henry to become the person Dad expected him to be. Sports have always been his thing, but I never had that. A thing. So I let Dad tell me what I wanted to be, even though I knew it was never going to work. I knew I wasn’t going to get into Princeton. Or Wharton, or any of the other schools he made me apply to. Not after I flunked out of pre-calc last year.” He stalls, turning to me with a small, sad smile. “See, there is something I’m bad at.”

Something a lot like guilt burns my neck. “So, what’re you going to do?”

“Take a break,” he replies as he turns away again, his voice lighter this time. “Get a job. Figure out what I want to do—if I even want to go to college. Mom said a change of scenery might help, so we’ll see.”

“Are you going to be one of those kids who backpacks through Europe after graduation and never shuts up about it? Because that’s about half the population at CalArts, and they are insufferable.”

“Nothing that glamorous, no,” he says with a snort. “Mom’s been thinking about moving for a while now. Most of her family is still out on the West Coast, and she hates the humidity here. I’m going to stay with my aunt for a bit. She knows practically every small business owner in the area, so she has a few leads lined up for potential jobs already. If everything works out, Mom’ll come over after she takes the California bar exam.”

I stiffen, hazarding a peek at him. “California?”

“Yeah…” He trails off.

“Oh…” I shift my attention to the tree hanging over us, grateful for the darkness cloaking my flushed cheeks.

California’s one of the biggest states in the country. Julian being in California doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be in the same city. Sure, his mom is practically the pride and joy of Los Angeles, but maybe his aunt lives in Fresno. Or San Francisco. Or he could be off to become one with nature in Joshua Tree. No need to panic yet.

“Sorry, I should’ve mentioned it earlier,” Julian says, an uneasy edge to his tone. “It never felt like the right time to blurt out, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m sort of moving to LA after graduation.’ ”

Okay, never mind.

“It’s okay. I don’t own the city.” I keep my voice calm. The polar opposite of how I’m feeling internally.

All semester I’ve held out hope that the universe would put someone new in my path. A classmate, a friend, a…something more. Someone who hasn’t found their way yet either. Someone who’s as afraid of the city and the prospect of failing as I am. Someone to conquer that fear with.

And the universe gave me Julian.

The universe has a terrible sense of humor.

“So, you haven’t told your dad any of this?” I ask, trying to change the topic. I can wrestle with how I feel about everything I’ve just learned about Julian later, ideally not when he’s lying right next to me in the dreamy moonlight.

He shakes his head, tapping his knuckles against the wood. “No. I got close, though. I told him I didn’t want to play lacrosse anymore. I thought maybe if I started to come clean, it might help Stella feel like she could too. Dad wants her to focus on getting accepted into an Ivy next year, but she’s had her heart set on UCLA since she was a freshman.” He exhales, and the tapping stops abruptly. The pieces start to come together—the way he’d looked at his phone, the tension when he got back, the way he’d snapped at me.

“Dad always makes this stuff about my mom,” he says, angrier than before. “That she’s too easy on us, letting us skip practices or pull out of activities we don’t want to do. That she doesn’t care about our futures the way he does, which is rich coming from someone like him, when that’s why Mom…” The anger in his voice that’s been growing with each syllable reaches its peak, then dies altogether. He cuts himself off midbreath, and before I can process what he’s said, he’s sitting up and reaching for his shoes. “I’m sorry, you don’t need to listen to all this. I can—”

“No.” I sit upright so abruptly the world starts to spin. I grab Julian’s arm, the way he always grabs mine. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but don’t think that you’re a burden.”

I don’t know where those words came from. But they make Julian stay in place for a few more seconds, and for that, I’m grateful.

He sags once I let go of him, his eyes falling to the water. “I don’t want to make you feel weird, hearing about all of this.”

“Everything about us is weird,” I reply with a lopsided grin. “Why not make it weirder?”

Julian returns my smile with one of his own, setting his shoes aside and lying back down beside me. “This month’s been hard,” he whispers, so much closer this time. “Especially with the whole Liam thing.” He nudges his shoulder against mine. “You’ve made it easier, though.”

I ignore the goose bumps that blossom along my arm where it’s pressed against his. “What can I say? I’m a lifesaver too.”

The lack of distance between us is still unnerving, but I’m glad he’s not able to feel my heart thrumming against my skin.

“Sorry for hijacking your winter break,” he says. “When I came up with this plan, I didn’t imagine you’d wind up with six hundred mosquito bites three days before Christmas.”

I wave off the apology. “It’s fine. Not like we had exciting plans anyway.”

He lets out a sound that’s between a snort and a scoff. “Us either. Dad insisted he gets us on Christmas, even though holidays have always been Mom’s thing. He’s probably just gonna ditch us after breakfast to go golfing with Liam’s dad. So fun.”

Nothing about that statement surprises me, but the way it makes my heart ache does. I know all too well how much the loss of a tradition can hurt.

“We almost didn’t come, but Dad insisted.” Julian’s sigh cuts right through me. “It…feels weird not to have Mom around. She calls all the time to make sure we’re doing okay, but…it’s not the same.”

Yeah. I get that.

He doesn’t say anything else, so neither do I. It doesn’t feel right to tell him that a part of me is glad he came after all. That, in a weird, twisted way, he’s become the highlight of my winter break. Not when he still has the power to take so much from us. Instead, we just sit, listening to the breeze and the buzz of the lake.

“My mom loved tres leches cake,” I say after what feels like hours go by. “Her sister, my titi Rosa, always made it the best. Dad used to make us drive out to her place thirty minutes early every Christmas Eve to make sure we got some before she ran out. But then she said some pretty nasty stuff after Maya said she wanted to marry a princess instead of a prince at our fifth birthday party. So she’s dead to us, and we decided to spend Christmases here instead.” Julian flips onto his side, brows knit in confusion, but he doesn’t interrupt. “We would drive for hours to find the best tres leches cake, but nothing ever lived up to the original. So, one year, Mami said we’d figure out our own recipe. One that was ten times better than Titi Rosa’s.

“Mami was really sick by then. She’d spent most of the year in the hospital, but she was able to come home in time for Christmas. Obviously, we couldn’t come down here, but we were grateful to have her home, period. So Maya and I spent every day of our break trying to figure out that recipe. Since Mami couldn’t really leave her bed, we brought everything to her to taste test. In the end, we didn’t get super close to replicating the original. Honestly, ours was pretty gross. But Mami helped us decorate the one we had on Christmas Eve with a little smiley face made of cherries. That was my favorite part. Even though the rest of it sorta tasted like cottage cheese. We couldn’t have any family over, so we sat in her room and talked. Played board games. It wasn’t exciting, but it was still our favorite Christmas Eve.” I let out a humorless laugh, willing myself not to cry over something I’ve already shed hundreds of tears for. “And then she left us. Three days later.”

Julian lets out a muffled gasp, and for a second, I feel the warmth of his arm against mine, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Maya likes to wear one of Mami’s old jackets when she misses her. Black leather with roses printed on the back. If you lean in close enough, it still smells like her.” If I try hard enough, I can smell it now. Her favorite lilac perfume mixed with something we could never replicate. The one thing left behind that still feels like her.

The stars swim in and out of view as I fight back the tears that come every time I let my heart linger on her for too long.

“We don’t really celebrate the holidays anymore, but I still make tres leches cake. On her birthday, on mine…on the days when I miss her. The kitchen smells like cherries and cream, and I’ll blast her favorite salsa playlist, and it almost feels like she’s there. Just for a few minutes, but it’s something. My something.” I exhale slowly, bracing myself before facing Julian. Our faces are too close, but the discomfort doesn’t feel scary anymore. “I know it’s not the same, my mom and your mom. But maybe that could be something for you too. When you miss her, I mean. I saw that note she left on that recipe, the fried rice one. You could make it on the days when you miss her.”

Julian doesn’t respond. My chest seizes up, my body going warm down to my core. That’s what I deserve for getting swept up in the moment, for trying to take a blow at the wall between us. For a foolish second, I’d let myself forget that wall was built for a reason. Even if that reason has a new meaning.

“It’s stupid, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“That’s really sweet.” This time it’s Julian’s turn to reach for me when I try to run. He waits until I’ve relaxed my shoulders to let me go. “Thank you. For telling me.”

I nod, unsure of how else to respond, and even more unsure if I should still try to leave.

Julian points to a bright spot in the darkness on the opposite side of the lake. “Allegheny Park does a fireworks show every night before the park closes, if you want to stick around for that.”

“Okay,” I reply. Strangely enough, I do want to stick around.

My cheeks burn when I feel Julian’s eyes on me. I wait for him to say something, to make the prickle beneath my skin go away. When he whispers something about stars and light pollution, I can’t hear him over the thumping of my heart.

“You know how when you’re a kid you don’t like broccoli, and then you spend your whole adult life thinking that you hate it, even though you haven’t had it in years?” he says after a moment of pause.

“I’ve always liked broccoli.”

“It’s a metaphor. Work with me here.”

I gesture for him to continue.

“I think you’re my broccoli.”

Oh.

I can’t say I disagree. Hating Julian has always felt like second nature, but finding reasons to keep hating him is getting harder every day. I told myself I had to because that’s who we are, who our families expect us to be.

But who are we when no one’s watching?

“Maybe you’re my brussels sprouts,” I say.

He smirks but doesn’t say anything, and we turn back to the stars.

The sky erupts, painted neon green, gold, and red. Sparkles trickle down to earth, sprinkling the air with ash and a sense of wonder.

I’m so entranced by the display that I don’t notice Julian’s hand sliding into mine. I’d left my own palm upturned to the stars, my body inviting him before my mind could realize what I was doing. I don’t pull away when his fingers close around mine. Instead, I squeeze back, gentle but firm, and seal a wordless promise that I’m not sure I understand.