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I pushed off his chest, curling my hands behind my back, trying to hide that every limb and bone within me was indeed trembling. “Am I?”

“Yes.” He took a tentative step forward. “You sure you’re okay? I know tonight’s been wild, with Chet and then whatever that was?—”

“I’m fine.” It sucked to lie, but even worse was seeing the recognition of it flash across his face.

He tapped my arm, the goosebumps disappearing under the imprint of his touch. “C’mon, let’s go catch the band. We don’t want tonight to be a total bummer.”

“Music cures all, they do say.” I deigned a final glance at Madame Myrian’s unlit space. She’d reverted back to her glazed-over look, her body locked into position no different than any of the other odd cave-people sculptures found throughout the Boardwalk.

Blinded by the colorful neon lights, we emerged from the Boardwalk’s crevices, and the park’s amusements summoned me with an insincere playfulness. Festive music played from the scrap metal interiors yet warped into a tuneless loop. Shopkeepers bowed their top hats but hid their expressions within the shadows of their brims. Game hosts beckoned with bloodred painted smiles that smeared across their lips and teeth. The calm face I wore, also a lie, drawn with a hint of a frown and a tinge of rosy panic.

Attempting to make things normal, I said, “Thanks for saving me—it’s, like, your job.”

“I know, what are you going to do without me?” Javi grinned.

I didn’t want to talk—even think—about that. Didn’t want to think about what happened after tonight or what would happen a few months later, when our summer drew to a close. When he’d box up his board games, comics, skateboards, and Santa Cruz tees, and head for his new life as an undergrad at Santa Barbara.

While I stayed and repeated a class at the city college. Just to get my stupid diploma.

I scoffed at a green-and-gold Future is bright! banner, the pirate mascot stamped next to the words as unimpressed as I was. My future wasn’t bright. My future was shit.

I only had things to lose. Like Javi.

I knew how intangible some of our greatest aspirations were—slay a sea monster, surf in the Arctic Circle, get out of Santa Cruz and see the world—but when dreaming them up with him they somehow felt unleashed, alive, and possible.

That’s exactly what Javi’s dreams had become when he received his acceptance package. Mine died when I watched him read the letter. I’d known it was coming—I’d given up on getting good grades, hardly able to hold a C, but it still felt like the veins had been disconnected from my heart. He hadn’t even left, and I already grieved him.

He must have sensed it. “You know, you can visit me at UCSB.”

I knew. It wasn’t the same. But I just nodded, eyes locked on the whirling spotlights from the stage coming into view ahead.

“What was up with that fortune teller, by the way? What did she want?”

The image of her empty onyx stare made me shudder, even if we were a solid six rides away from her.

“She kept repeating the same thing over and over.” I was definitely going to butcher it. “Qua…quarto…vigil?”

“Quarto vigil?” Of course, it rolled off his tongue in perfect form. “What is that, Latin?”

“Sounds about right.” I harrumphed like a crotchety old lady. “I don’t know what it is, or what it means.”

“Let’s Google it.” He whipped out his phone.

“My guess is that she had a breakdown,” I continued as he swiped and tapped, “and took it out on the closest person. Me.”

“I know the feeling. Kidding!” He threw his hands up in surrender, the bright background of his screen shining between his fingers.

I stopped in my tracks, hating myself for needing the validation. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

“Of course not.” He shot me a devious smile. Great, so, I was.

“Well, since we’ve got an unreliable fortune teller on our hands here, my reading is most definitely shit.” He folded Madame Myrian’s business card into his pocket. “Won’t be needing this.”

I bumped his shoulder with mine. “Aw, were you hoping all her predictions might be true?” We resumed walking, forgetting about the unfinished phrase in his phone’s search bar. “What did she tell you, anyway?”

The hair-lifting bass from the concert muted his response.

At least the organizers didn’t tie the live music to Grad Night’s theme. I’d heard enough flutes and bagpipes and tambourines and the soundtrack to Midsummer Night’s Dream.