CHAPTER

33

On the way home, I stare at the pines and palms blurring out the window. I keep folding up my legs crisscross and then pulling my knees to my chest while I sigh a whole bunch. I’m tired from surfing, but I can’t stop fidgeting.

“You okay?” Kate asks as she turns onto Juniper Island Road. The ocean blinks in and out of the trees, an aqua jewel in between all the green.

“Yeah,” I say. And I am. Surfing was amazing. I rode two whole waves. I’m pretty sure Kate was freaking out the whole time, but she clapped her hands over her head, cheering my name as she watched me from the shore.

And Lena—well, I’m still mad at her. I’m still kind of hurt. But I think you can be all those things and still love someone a whole lot.

I let my feet flop back to the floor.

“Can you stop by Margot’s?” I ask.

Kate slows the car and side-eyes me. “You sure?”

I bite my lip, really thinking through Kate’s question. I don’t really want to see Margot. I don’t want to be in her house or in her room and I sure don’t want to hear anything Margot might have to say to me.

But.

I’ve got some things to say to her and I think I’ve got the perfect way to say them.

“I’m sure,” I say. Then I pop open Kate’s glove box, which is full of tiny packs of tissues in neat stacks and cleaning wipes made especially for car interiors. There’s also a little spiral-bound notebook, a pen hooked to its red cover.

Kate turns into Seaside Cove, the tiny subdivision filled with pastel beach houses where Margot lives. The street is so familiar, all palmettos and tabby driveways. I take a deep breath and open up the notebook. I slip the pen free, flip past some grocery lists Kate forgot to rip out, and start writing.

I don’t remember a me without you.

I learned to swim

holding your hand,

the ocean wild and wide and scary.

We slept under the sky

and hid our wishes in the stars.

We built forts

with blankets and pillows,

a safe place for all our secrets.

Then my heart broke

and you couldn’t

put it back together.

You blew out the stars

and tore down the fort

and scattered my secrets

into the sky.

I don’t remember a me without you.

But I have learned

to swim on my own,

the ocean wild and wide and scary.

By the time I’m done, we’re parked outside Margot’s house. I look up, blinking into the bright sun, and Kate tucks a strand of blue hair behind my ear. I stare out the window for a second, taking in Margot’s pale green house, the same big hammock in the front yard where we used to spend summer afternoons, loaded down with books and snacks.

In the front window, a curtain moves. I just about chicken out, but then I look down at my poem again. I reread it while Kate rubs my back. My words. My story.

My truth.

I rip my poem out of the notebook and unfasten my seat belt. Outside, a lawn mower hums across the street and the salty breeze rustles the palms. I jog up to Margot’s porch and slip my poem through the brass mail slot in her front door.

I ring the doorbell.

I make sure I hear the sound of Margot’s feet bounding down the stairs.

Then I turn and walk away.