RODGER AND TESS have decided that they know how to break into the lighthouse, and they’ve deemed me worthy to join them on their quest.
“I heard there’s relics in there from the revolution, back when they used the lighthouse as an armory,” Rodger says, his face deadly serious.
Tess looks at me and winks. “I hear it’s where they hid the Kennedy Treasure—y’know, the money the Kennedy family made from bootlegging during America’s Prohibition era when they wanted a safe place to store it, far away from suspicion,” Tess says.
“A’ight, but why would the ‘Kennedy Treasure’ be hidden in Donegal when the Kennedys were from down near County Wexford?” Rodger answers, his face gone full smug.
“Exactly!” Tess says. “Even further away from suspicion.” Tess and I laugh, and Rodger rolls his eyes.
“Anyway,” I say, “Rodger, how do you know where the Kennedys are from? You’re from England—they’re not your people!”
“I,” Rodger begins, “am from Wales. How do you not know that information?”
Tess races ahead of us on the beach. “Ooooh, ignorant American at it again!”
“Ignorant American: World’s Lamest Superhero!” I call up to her and run as fast as I can, even though with her long legs she’s already a speck in the distance. Of course, just mentioning superheroes makes me think about Callum, and the laughter catches in my throat.
Rodger catches up to us. “You do know I’m from Wales, right? Not England. I just want to make that very clear. There’s a difference.”
“Okay,” I say and place my hand over my heart. “I promise never to make that mistake again. On Kennedy’s grave.”
“Good,” Rodger says.
“Now that that’s settled,” Tess says, “what are you going to do with your share of the treasure?”
“Campaign for Welsh independence,” Rodger says.
“I want a pet shark,” Tess says. “Nora?”
“Probably pay for college. My grandpa is going to help with it, but I know that puts my mom in a weird position. I mean, I know she wants me just focusing on school so I don’t have to be working two jobs while I’m there, but I don’t like the feeling of owing someone, you know? Even if it’s my mom. Or grandpa.”
Tess and Rodger are both silent for a minute.
“Practical,” Tess says finally.
Rodger pulls out a Swiss Army knife. “All right,” he says. “Let’s do this.”
“We’re not going to get in, like, a colossal amount of trouble for this, are we?” Tess asks.
“Who knows?” Rodger answers.
Like a hallucination, I see Callum up the shore, skipping rocks. Alone.
“Is that Callum?” Rodger asks. “Hey, Callum!” Callum looks over and gives a wave, then goes back to throwing flat rocks into the water and failing spectacularly to get them to skip.
“I’m going to go over and talk with him,” I say. “I’m sorry, I won’t be long.”
Rodger scoffs. “Is this a lovey-dovey thing?”
“No,” I say. “Well, maybe. Probably not.”
“Practice safe sex!” Tess says. “Wait! What about your share of the treasure?”
I’m already walking down the beach toward Callum. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure the real treasure was friendship all along!” I say back.
Callum sees me coming but doesn’t stop throwing rocks. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say. “You’re really, really bad at that.”
“Well, maybe that’s why I need practice.” He tries one more, and it lands in the water with a heavy plunk. I try one, and it skips four times gracefully.
“My grandpa taught me,” I say with a shrug. “Lake Michigan.”
Callum sighs and walks up farther toward the shore. He doesn’t invite me to come along, but I do anyway. He’s acting distant, and it’s making my heart hurt like a physical symptom that I could type into WebMD and learn that the Internet thinks I have a rare tropical disease. I hear a metallic clunk echo from down the beach, followed by cheers.
“Rodger and Tess must’ve gotten into the lighthouse,” I say.
“Oh?”
I’m tempted just to run away, to let Callum walk up the beach and turn around to realize that I’m already gone, I’m back with friends who laugh with me and joke about hidden treasure and don’t cuddle up with their ex-girlfriends in the exact spot where we once spent the night.
But I don’t. I told myself that I was going to talk to Callum, and as awful and awkward and terrifying as it is, I’m going to do it.
I trot up until I’m right at his side. “Hey,” he says again, like he forgot that I was there in the first place.
“Callum,” I say. “I saw you in the cemetery. With—with Fiona.”
He sits down in the sand. “Yeah. I kinda thought you might have.” He rubs the back of his neck and stares at the dirt.
“Yeah,” I say. The only sound I hear is the chattering of birds and the white noise of crashing waves. “Are you guys . . . I mean, are you two back together? Was I wrong about . . . about what I thought I saw?” Please, please say yes. Say that I was wrong, that you were just comforting her because she got a bad grade or you were giving her a hug congratulating her on her new boyfriend that she’s super in love with.
“No,” Callum says. “You weren’t wrong.”
Oh, I hadn’t noticed that the knife in my stomach was also burning hot and covered in spikes. How unpleasant.
“But,” he says, “we’re not back together. I mean, yes. We were there. And we were flirting. And . . . we kissed a bit.”
Did I say burning hot and covered in spikes? Silly me, I meant made of lasers that shock you on an atomic level.
“Oh,” I say. It’s all I can manage to get out.
“But it’s not like that. I mean, yeah, me and Fiona had a thing, and she broke it off with me, but it’s just sort of habit when the two of us are together. We’re actually awful together. Complete rubbish. I didn’t think anything was going to happen, I mean.”
“Oh,” I say again. I am the Oscar Wilde of monosyllables.
“I like you, Nora,” he says finally.
“I like you too, Callum. I mean, I liked you.”
“And I want to hang out with you and spend time with you and get to know you because you’re cool and interesting and talented and have excellent taste in films.” He grins as me, but the smile fades almost immediately. “But, y’know . . . you’re leaving.”
“I get it,” I say. I don’t get it. Is he breaking it off with me? Is he trying to say he wants to be with me while I’m here?
“And, y’know,” he says, looking at his feet, “it’s like I don’t really know you or anything about you. Like, what do you like? What—I don’t know—how many bones have you broken? Who are you?”
The answer: zero. Maybe I’m just as boring as he thinks I am. I begin mentally scrolling through my Rolodex of facts about myself that I use when teachers make us go around and name a fun fact about ourselves on the first day of school. My name is Nora Parker-Holmes. My grandfather is Robert Parker—you know, the famous artist. I have a scar on the back of my wrist from trying to cook SpaghettiOs when I was four. I’m allergic to penicillin. None of that seems very helpful.
“Well, no broken bones,” I say when the silence goes on too long. “And I don’t know. I don’t think I know who I am either. I’m trying to come up with something, but I’m just getting, like, a list of facts about myself.”
Callum puts his arm around me and pulls me tight to his body. “What am I going to do with you?” he says, and I can’t tell whether he’s being playful or serious, but his body touching my body reminds me just how much I want to be near him.
“Well,” I say, letting my lips curl into the tiniest smile for the first time since I saw him, “I’m here for another week. We don’t have to plan for anything longer or more complicated than that. You can try to get to know me.”
“Live for the present, huh,” Callum says, but he doesn’t sound too certain.
“I never could get into Lord of the Rings, and maybe a week is just long enough for you to explain to me what’s so good about it.”
Callum smiles too, a shy, small smile, and then he begins laughing the same big laugh he had the night we first met. “I’ll barely be able get you through The Silmarillion in a week!”
He curls both of his hands around my face and pulls me in, and we’re kissing, and it feels amazing. I let all of my anxiety about Nick and Lena and my mother and my art career fade away, and I think only about how nice it is to have my fingers in Callum’s hair and how tingly I get when he runs his hands across my thighs.
“Hey,” he says, pulling away. “I’m taking you to Galway tomorrow.”
“Is that so?”
“You and I are going to see the Cliffs of Moher. I would not be fulfilling my role as a romantic Irishman if I didn’t take you. Plus, it’s pretty much the greatest make-out spot in the world.”
“It’s a deal,” I say, and this time I’m the one who pulls him in for a long kiss.
* * *
“K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Tess sings as she bounds up the beach. Callum and I break apart, embarrassed.
“You guys make it into the lighthouse?” I ask.
“Boy wonder managed to spring the lock. Aaaaaaaand . . .” With a flourish, she pulls a handful of junk from behind her back. “The Kennedy Treasure. Told you it was real.” She’s holding a broken fishing rod, two empty potato chip bags, a scrap of a tire, and a beaten-up license plate. “Your share of the treasure,” she says, passing me the license plate.
“The American government will never know what we know,” I say. Tess and I both salute.
“You’re not a little disappointed?” Rodger says, huffing, finally making it to us.
“Are you kidding?” Tess says. “A license plate and broken fishing rod are way better than the treasure of ‘friendship.’”
“Oh, definitely,” Callum says. “If there’s one thing that’s overrated, it’s the companionship of people who care about you.”
“Good thing I hate all of you,” Rodger says, but he’s smiling while he says it.