Page 79 of 16 Forever

And I couldn’t wait to talk to Vivian about him.

Mom and Dad picked me up from the camp bus in the afternoon, and even though they put on a good face, it was clear they were both in shitty moods. This was about a month before they officially called it quits. So neither of them could really take in New Maggie. And I certainly wasn’t going to rub my joyful dalliance with Ryan in their sour faces.

Once we pulled into the garage, I bolted out of the car and into the house, leaving Mom and Dad squabbling in my wake. I left my duffel bag at the foot of the steps and hightailed it upstairs, wheremy heart sank as I discovered Vivian’s room was empty.

“Where’s Vivvy?” I shouted down to my parents.

“Oh shoot, I forgot,” Mom said. “She’s working today.”

My effortlessly cool sister had spent the first two weeks of the summer at an intensive music camp and the time since then working a part-time job at Ridgedale’s best ice cream place, Scoops ’n’ Sprinkles.

It was the spot where tons of kids from our high school hung out in the summer, loitering in the parking lot till the sun went down.

“Want to go over and say hi?” Mom shouted up to me. “We can get some cones.”

Hell yeah I wanted to go say hi.

We pulled up in Mom’s green Honda CR-V, loud teenagers amassed on the front benches like a colony of ants, only a couple of them actually eating ice cream. I stepped out of the car with my New Maggie confidence, ready to turn heads and take on the world.

The door jingled as we stepped inside and were aggressively enveloped by AC. I spotted my sister behind the counter and went through a slot machine whirl of emotions, starting with excitement and landing, finally, on a bright yellow disappointment lemon. The thing I hadn’t accounted for was that my sister mightalsohave turned into a new person while I was away.

Vivian was chatting happily with a customer, tapping their order into the iPad register, her dark brown hair pulled tight into a ponytail, sporting a blue employee T-shirt—with its classic image of a dripping three-scoop cone covered in sprinkles—that fit her perfectly. She looked...radiant. It was the most appropriate wordI could think of. She somehow looked older than her fifteen years, just the way she was carrying herself.

Her glowing newness made mine seem... small. I should’ve seen it coming.

But it wasn’t just that.

There was someone else behind the counter with her.

A boy.

He was radiant, too, bouncing around with a genuine smile plastered to his face, dramatically flipping the stainless steel scoop in the air before muscling misshapen spheres onto a cone, his blue shirt speckled with mint chocolate chip (or pistachio?). He was an adorable human. Like a character straight out of a Netflix show about teenagers that Vivian would let me watch with her, except he was slightly less perfect-looking, with a crooked nose and green eyes a bit too large for his face. Which only added to his aura of hotness.

“What do you think you’re gonna get?” Mom asked as we joined a line of six people.

I couldn’t even answer. I was too fixated on the dynamic between Vivian and The Boy. They wereflirtingwith each other. Exchanging glances, muttering things that made the other crack up, engaging in tiny arm touches, scattered like glitter amid the sand of their interactions with customers.

I watched as The Boy took a small clump of rocky road that had affixed itself to his shirt during the scooping process and mushed it into Vivian’s nose. I thought she’d be horrified, and she did scream, but it was with glee. Sure, she said, “You are a fricking jerk!” but the tone was much more like, “Please do that again, I never want to be apart from you!”

“Yup,” Mom said, seeing what I was seeing. “Vivvy’s got a boyfriend now.”

The words reverberated in my head like a taunt, even as I knew it was ridiculous to feel anything but happy for her. But here I was, ready to show Vivian who I had become over the past month, and, even in this, she’d somehow found a way to outshine me.

That’s what Vivian did. And still does. She shines.

Vivian’s obvious sparks with this scoop-flipping boy made my time with Ryan Fischer seem like a puddle. One of those small, flat ones you barely notice until you’ve stepped in it.

“Ahhhhhhh, Mags!” Vivian said when we made it to the front of the line. She reached across the counter to hug me and kiss the side of my head. “I missed you!”

“Missed you too,” I said.

“She really did miss you,” The Boy said as he grabbed an empty cone. “Won’t shut up about you, actually.” He leaned over the counter and offered me a fist to pound. “I’m Carter.”

“Maggie,” I said, pushing my knuckles into his, smiling in spite of myself.

“Oh, uh, good to see you, Mrs. Spear,” Carter said, directing his charm spotlight onto my mom, who also couldn’t help but grin.

“Hi there, Carter.”