CHAPTER

7

I totally forget about Kate and her dumb phone call until Quinn says she has to meet her mom for lunch and runs off down the beach. I watch her blue hair flapping like a curly kite and try to remember what it was like to run that long, that hard.

When I turn back around to where Kate had been pacing, Dave is there too—in jeans, because I’ve never seen him wear anything but skinny rock star jeans, even on the beach—and they’re sitting in the sand.

He’s got his arm around her shoulders, and she’s wiping at her face like she’s been crying. My stomach knots up, wondering what she and Lena talked about that made her cry, but I don’t want to think about that or how a million questions are trying to jump out of my mouth right now. I want to think about the auger shell in my hand.

The auger shell and a new heart that didn’t go kaput in the ocean.

The auger shell, a happy heart, and an invitation from Quinn to go to the movie on the beach tonight.

When Kate sees me, she scrambles to her feet, grabbing Dave’s hand and pulling him up with her. Then she drops his hand super-fast, because she’s weird and won’t admit she’s madly in love with him.

“Sunny, sweetie, how’d it go?” she asks.

“It’s a miracle, I’m alive!” I singsong, doing a little skip and a hop and flourishing my arms.

“Not funny,” she says.

“Kind of funny,” Dave says, winking at me.

She elbows him in the stomach.

“You guys stop flirting,” I say, and they both turn candy-apple red. It’s just too easy.

“Do you feel okay?” Kate asks. “Seriously. Any dizziness or shortness of breath?”

I tap my chest lightly. “Good as gold in here.”

Kate nods and then shoots Dave a look. “Listen, honey, Lena—”

“Can I go to the movie tonight?”

Kate blinks at me and I hold my breath. If she pushes me too much about Lena, I know I’ll cave like an empty Coke can. I feel all jittery, and I can’t decide if it’s from the ocean or Quinn or hearing the name Lena spoken out loud way too many times in the past few weeks. Probably all three. I squeeze the auger shell in my hand.

“The beach movie?” Kate finally says, and I let blood back into my fingers.

“Yeah, I met this girl just now and I really, really, really want to go.”

“The girl with blue hair you were talking to?”

“Her name is Quinn. She’s very nice and healthy and probably knows how to administer CPR.”

Kate cracks a smile, but it fades quick. “Oh, honey, I don’t know…”

I groan, but it’s not like I’m surprised. Kate goes into total Mama Bear mode whenever I want to leave the house lately. And leave the house without her? Double the freak-out.

“Kate, come on,” I say. “I did fine just now. And you weren’t even with me!”

“We could go and spy on her like really horrible grown-ups,” Dave says to Kate.

“No, you could not,” I say.

“I’ll wear my Speedo,” Dave says.

“Kate, chain him in the basement.”

Kate tries to hide her laugh, but she can’t. She always goes all squishy around Dave, because love.

“Can we make a big old batch of buttery popcorn?” I ask. “With M&M’s? Oh, and can we go shopping? I need some new clothes. All my old ones suck.”

“Language, Sunny.”

“But they do!” I need a New Life wardrobe, stat.

“Your clothes are adorable. They’re so you.”

Which is exactly the problem, but I’m on the hunt for a yes right now, and getting all existential about my new heart isn’t the way to do it.

“Please, please, please!” I clasp my hands and bounce on my feet. Kate wants to press my shoulders down to keep me on the ground, I can tell.

“Fine,” she finally says. “But no butter.”

“Katie,” Dave says. “For real?”

“Whine at her for me, Dave,” I say.

His back straightens and he pushes up his sleeves.

“Oh, no,” Kate says. Her voice still sounds kind of watery, but she’s smiling. She backs up toward the dunes and waves her finger at him. “No, no.”

Dave rolls his shoulders back and clears his throat.

“Get her, Dave, get her,” I say.

Kate groans, but Dave cannot be stopped. He starts singing, loudly, one of Truth Lies Low’s most famous songs, “You’re the Sky.” There’s more people on the beach by now and most of them turn their heads to listen.

You gotta let me cry.

You gotta let me try.

You gotta let me tell you that you’re the sun and you’re the sky.

See? Super-whiny. Dave’s voice is really nice, though, all velvety with a little growl on the end, which he plays up big-time whenever he sings to Kate. She hates it. But she really doesn’t hate it, because soon she’s laughing and says, “Fine, fine, you can have a little butter on the popcorn. But no shopping today. I have to go by Cherry Picked for a couple of hours. And only if you take a nap before the movie. And be sure to take your phone. And charge it fully before you go.”

Well, it’s not all my wildest dreams come true, but I’ll take it.

When we get back to our house, Kate and Dave hang out on the porch while I bolt inside.

“Slow down, Sunny!” Kate calls after me, but I’m already down the hall and turning into my bedroom. Our house isn’t very big. It’s actually the old lighthouse and used to guide ships into the harbor with a lightbulb the size of a small city. Kate grew up in Mexico Beach, Florida, but she inherited this house from her great-aunt, who used to be the for-real lighthouse keeper. It doesn’t function now, because Juniper Island’s not a big trading port anymore. All the ships and boats go into Port Hope, and our island just has the usual speedboats and pontoons. The entrance to the tower is all boarded up—not that Kate would let me climb up there in a million, billion years—but still, it’s pretty neat.

The house part is a two-bedroom that’s mostly all open, with big windows that show a blue blip of ocean from all sides. I love it.

I also love my room, which I affectionately named the Reef when I was sick. I spent so much time in here, so Kate tried to make it really awesome. She built a seat under my window, full of bright pillows and flanked by sheer white curtains. Little white lights wrap around the frame like a vine. My bed is a tiny twin, but it’s covered in lots of aqua, turquoise, and sea-green pillows.

I press my back against my bedroom door and breathe-breathe-breathe. I’m going out. Without Kate. With an actual human person who’s my age. I can’t keep the smile off my face as I set my auger shell on my nightstand and then throw open my closet.

Red V-neck, green tank top, blue T-shirt, shorts, jeans, more shorts. A whole bunch of boring solid colors that Kate picked out and that remind me of being sick. I don’t care what Kate says—nothing in here looks like New Life Sunny.

I shut my closet and poke my head out my bedroom door. Kate and Dave are still on the porch. They’re talking low and serious, probably about me. Or worse—Lena.

I tiptoe down the hall, careful to avoid the floorboards that squeak, and slip into Kate’s super-neat room. It has light blue walls and white linens, dark wood bookshelves filled to the brim and arranged alphabetically by author. I don’t even bother opening her closet, though, because I know exactly what’s in it—a whole lot of the same kind of blah that’s in mine.

Instead, I head straight for the cedar chest at the end of her bed and lift the heavy lid. Inside is another world. Big tan envelopes filled with pictures; lots of jewelry I can’t imagine Kate ever wearing; and a pair of black stomping boots from her college days, which are exactly what I’m after.

I take a big breath and grab the boots. I shuck off my flip-flops and plop them onto Kate’s floor. The boots are super-heavy, lace halfway up my calves, and are very un-Sunny.

Which, of course, means they’re perfect.

I hook my flip-flops on my thumb and close the chest, which sends a puff of cedar and old rubber up my nose.

Back in my room, I stash the boots in my closet and flop onto my bed. I promised Kate I’d take a nap, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little wiped out after all that swimming. I turn onto my side and wrap myself around my pillow, waiting for sleep to come.

The sun is too bright, though, and my brain is all revved up. I roll over and open my nightstand drawer, taking out the picture of Lena that I hide under a bunch of sticky-note pads and pens. She looks the same as she always does—tangly dark hair, amber eyes soft as she looks out the window of whatever room she’s in, long fingers splayed on her big pregnant belly. It’s an artistic kind of picture. Something I might frame so the whole world can see her, so I can say, “Look at my mom, isn’t she amazing?”

But the thing is, I don’t know if she’s amazing. I don’t know anything about her at all. She’s just a question. A hard one. A mad one. That question is always what makes me start crying and stuff the picture back into my drawer. And the next night, that same question is always what makes me take the picture out again and stare at her until my eyes blur and I can’t see her anymore.