Page 4

Four

Now

City lights finally fill the road ahead of us. Coming off this coastal highway is like crawling from an evergreen black hole. One second we’re surrounded by dense trees, and the next we’re flying past a Cold Stone Creamery, a brightly lit gas station, and a surf rental shop. (Though who in their right mind would surf the Oregon coast is beyond me.)

Jena’s phone starts buzzing with freshly unleashed text messages. Cell service is a laughable pipe dream on the highway between home and the coast. For more than an hour, there’s nothing but rolling farm fields and thick forest—and not a single cell tower for miles. I always know I’m close to the ocean when the bars reappear on my phone. Not today though. It’s still in airplane mode. I can’t risk Jena seeing a blocked call come through on the dash screen.

One downloaded playlist and she’s none the wiser.

Jena picks up her phone and goes through her messages, her knee bouncing. “Lots of people are already there. They must have left straight from school.”

That means a lot of them got their news en route. They’re braver than I am. If I got a no from Yale while on the road, I might have crashed my damn car.

Jena points to my silent phone in the holder on the dash. “I’m surprised yours isn’t blowing up with texts. Do you not have service yet?”

Okay, maybe she’s a smidge the wiser. “It’s on Do Not Disturb. Because I’m driving.”

She shrugs and I grasp for a change in subject.

“You know, technically, I wasn’t even invited to this party,” I say, as I stop at a light.

Jena laughs and puts her feet up on the dash as she reaches over to hit the skip button on the screen. “Yeah right,” she says with a snort. “Don’t be stupid. You’re Brooke Fucking Goodwin. The invitation is implied.”

The song changes and Jena squeals.

“My song!” UPSAHL loudly pulses from my speakers. “This is a good omen. Tonight is going to be everything .”

I pretend I didn’t hear her and crack a window. A mixture of sea salt and car exhaust seeps into the car, and I close it again. Gas stations, 7-Elevens, hotels, and a Pig ’N Pancake whirl by us as I follow the GPS another twenty minutes until the turn to the beach house looms.

I’ve never actually been here. Beau started offering up his aunt and uncle’s vacation home for parties a few months after the incident at the lake house.

“This is such a long drive for a party,” I complain. “The lake house was so much more accessible.”

“Sure, but in a few months we’re all going to be scattered anyway,” Jena says. “And then we’ll all be looking for new party spots in college. Besides, Beau can’t throw these as often as you could because his family actually uses the house. We’ll probably only be here tonight and for whatever party he throws for graduation.”

I grumble my acceptance but I’m feeling strangely annoyed and I’m not sure why.

The street finally appears and I hang a right. Within a block, the streetlights disappear entirely. The little residential road slowly slopes down to the water, then veers left to follow the beach. Houses sit on either side of the dead-end street. The right is all beachfront. All the way at the end, my headlights illuminate dozens of cars parked on both sides of the road.

Beau’s place is the last little white bungalow on the right. I check the address twice to make sure this is the correct place, and sigh. It’s a shed on the damn beach. It can’t have more than two bedrooms. The single-car driveway is barely long enough to fit Beau’s shitty station wagon, and one of the porch lights is burned out.

This is what everyone chose as a replacement for the lake house? My four-thousand-square-foot, three-story, picturesque, lakefront property goes away and this is the next best option? This is where we’ll celebrate graduating from Waldorf?

Well, now I know why I’m annoyed.

“Don’t make that face,” Jena says as I slow the Subaru to a crawl. “It’s beachfront! The party is out on the sand, and the house is cute inside. It’s not as bad as it looks from the front.”

“I’m sure it has all the class and style of Depoe Bay’s most luxurious Motel 6.”

“Snob.”

I park behind a blue pickup truck and hit the keyless button on the dash. The car goes silent. “And proud of it.”

I unplug my phone, hesitate for a second, and then stick it straight into the center console. If there was ever a night to ignore No Caller ID and have a life, it’s tonight. Tonight is for me. They can wait.

Jena hops out, looking like a supermodel in my clothes, and I trail behind her, locking the car over my shoulder. She looks like she’s about to strut into an Oscar after-party, not the nautical-themed living room of a kid we tolerate for his party space. Music drifts to us, and Jena bypasses the front door entirely, heading instead for a gate on the left side of the house. She looks back at me and her eyes are wild with excitement. She’s really keyed up tonight.

The closer we get to the backyard, the more the beat pulses in my teeth. We step from the shadows into a mass of light. String lights zigzag above a weathered patio overflowing with people. There’s no grass back here; it’s all sand, straight until it turns to ocean. Someone’s already lit a bonfire on the beach, about thirty feet from the house. Mismatched Adirondack chairs sit in a wobbly circle around the fire and across the sand. People dance on the patio and talk in clusters as far as the eye can see.

Jena strikes a pose, waving jazz hands in my direction, and everyone seems to turn to us at once. The music cuts, and someone in the crowd shouts, “Yale?”

My whole body basks in the attention. All eyes are on me, and it feels like they’ve been waiting for this, for me .

I keep my face straight for an extra second, and then I smile. “I’m in.”

The cheers drown out the ocean, and I’m dragged into the middle of a crowd of about forty people. The party swells around me. All I can hear are congratulations and well-wishes. Someone hands me a Solo cup. It smells like Malibu, so I take a long drink and let the weightlessness of this moment shake off the last of the tension in my shoulders. Their joy sinks into my bones, and though I won’t admit it to Jena, I needed this.

Someone comes along the side of the house, and the music stops. I turn, hoping for Dylan, but it’s a kid I don’t recognize. The tall, scrawny boy grins and yells, “Stanford!” and the party swells around him too.

I can practically taste the celebration in the air, the crisp bite of excitement. I wish I could bottle this feeling. Especially because it’s the opposite of the hell I’ve been living since January. No Caller ID can suck it—I won, and this party is proof.

We’re folded into a group around the fire, and Jena waggles her eyebrows at me in a way that feels a lot like a visual I told you so . But I have to admit: I am glad I came. It feels good to be around these people. It’s familiar—even if the lake house was nicer.

Seriously, what’s Beau supposed to do when it rains? I turn and look back up at the porch. There’s a wall of windows, and a group watching a movie in the living room, but there are forty people out here. There’s no way all of us would fit inside what looks like a ten-by-twenty living room kitchen combo.

I hear Jena’s voice like a ghost in my mind: Snob.

Eh. Maybe she has a point. I mean, it is a beachfront property. Sure, it looks like the house a single mom might move to in a Nicholas Sparks novel. But it’ll do for tonight.

Besides, the lake house is gone. I can’t keep comparing everything to the past. Not when there is so much to look forward to in the future.

I talk with about thirty people in rapid-fire succession for the next two and a half hours, but I remain very aware of the time. As much as I’m having fun, I know what got me here, and it’s not Tracey McIntyre’s high-pitched “I’m so excited about Dartmouth!” monologue. I try to pay attention to what she says, but I watch the side gate from the corner of my eye. The second Dylan arrives, my spine straightens.

I nod, emphatically, at whatever Tracey is saying, but she could be confessing to a murder for all I know. All my attention is on Dylan—but I don’t turn my head. I don’t give any indication that I know he’s here. Goodwins don’t drool, they don’t chase, and they don’t make themselves look like lovesick idiots.

Tracey blinks at me expectantly, her blond hair a golden halo under the globe lights. She must have asked me a question.

“Oh my god, Trace, I’m so sorry. I totally spaced out for a second. It’s been a day, you know? What did you say?”

She grins, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I get that. I asked if you were excited about Yale. That was your top choice, right?”

More like my only choice. “Yes! I’m so excited.”

“Do you know what your major will be?”

I open my mouth to answer before I fully hear the question—and when I do, my thoughts skid to a halt. I’ve been so laser focused on getting into Yale, I haven’t come remotely close to deciding what I’ll do once I’m there. I spent almost all last summer researching Yale’s best majors and the jobs associated with them. But it seems like accomplishment is my only actual interest. I know how to do well at Waldorf. I know how to volunteer and raise money for a good cause. I know how to organize people and places and things, but I don’t know how that translates to a Yale degree. Or anything beyond it.

I force a smile—this is a problem for later. I don’t have to know what I want to do today, or even this summer. I have time to figure it out. “I want to study law,” I say, the lie effortlessly falling from my lips. “Like my dad.”

Tracey nods enthusiastically. “Oh, right. I should have known! You Goodwins are born lawyers. I bet your dad is so excited for you. Did your parents freak out?”

I almost strangle the life from the cup in my hands and force myself to lighten up. “Absolutely. They were thrilled.”

“Mine too! When the portal came back with my acceptance, we danced around the whole house. My parents had a huge congratulations banner hidden in the pantry with like a thousand balloons. Even my little brother was excited. Today is the best day, isn’t it?”

I feel like I’ve swallowed a rock.

Someone—thankfully—calls her name, and Tracey gives me a little wave before sprinting across the sand toward another group. I slip into a vacant Adirondack chair by the fire and kick off my shoes. Sand pours from the flats, and I set them by the leg of the chair and stretch my toes toward the fire.

My parents had a huge congratulations banner hidden in the pantry…we danced around the whole house.

The idea of parents who celebrate their kids’ accomplishments, instead of moving on to the next goalpost is…hard to imagine. I can’t even picture my dad dancing. He’ll probably get that judge appointment and head straight to the office to sketch out a game plan for obtaining a seat on the state supreme court.

I sigh. Whatever. I don’t need balloons anyway. They’re bad for the environment.

I spot Jena on the other side of the fire with a few of our friends from the dance team. They’re laughing at something on Jena’s phone. My mom talks a lot of shit about Jena “settling” for culinary school, but at least she knows what she wants. My entire life has been a hustle to reach milestones to bolster the Goodwin name. It’s like a chess game of achievement. Meanwhile, Jena found her passion and she gets to follow it and do what makes her happy. What’s that like?

I wonder if Jena’s parents got her balloons.

I didn’t even ask.

“You look way too sad for a girl who just got into Yale.”

I look up into Dylan’s beautiful face. He stands by the arm of my chair, wearing basketball shorts and a gray hoodie. A strand of dark hair falls across his forehead and brushes that spot between his eyes. He shakes it out of the way.

I force a smile and look away, like my heart isn’t beating out of my chest.

Be cool, Brooke.

“I’m not sad. I’m just realizing that next steps are hard.”

He crouches down beside my chair and props an elbow on the armrest. “Brooke Goodwin is scared of what comes next? I thought Goodwins were always prepared.”

I laugh. “Prepared, yes. Fearless, no.”

His warm brown eyes and his smile make me feel like I’m going to melt out of this chair. “You seem pretty fearless to me. Besides, if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that you can find a way through even the toughest of situations.”

He winks at me then stands and walks toward Beau and Felix on the other side of the fire. Jena waves her hands over her head to catch my attention and obnoxiously mouths I TOLD YOU SO over the flames.

I wave her off, preoccupied by what Dylan said. You can find a way through even the toughest of situations. What does he mean by that ? Is he talking about Claire? I watch him laugh at something Felix says, his whole body rocking with humor, and I cast it aside. There’s no way that’s what he meant. September was as hard for Dylan as it was for the rest of us, but he’s never been anything but nice to me about it. He even stood with me at the memorial.

As the person to my right vacates her chair, Jena skips toward me and slides her lovely self into it. “So, what did he say?”

“That I look sad for someone who got into Yale.”

She blinks at me. “He did not.”

“Oh, he did.”

“He has a strange way of flirting. Maybe Felix can give him some pointers.”

I look at Dylan, who’s still laughing with some guys, and shrug. “He wasn’t flirting. He was just being nice.”

Jena scoffs. “Yeah, okay. The guy who repeatedly asked me if you’d be here tonight—who made a beeline for you almost as soon as he got here—is totally oblivious to your gorgeous ass. I’m sure.”

I turn my back on him, curl up in the chair, and shiver. The fire is dying down. “He’s never made a move. He’s never asked me on a date. I thought he might during the party”—I don’t have to say which one—“but then it all went to hell and the aftermath was rough . I couldn’t be the girl who swoops in and tries to make something happen after that.”

“And now? It’s been six months. What’s stopping you now?”

Yale’s dancing bulldog flashes in my mind. Maybe it’s been long enough, and maybe he is okay now, but it always feels like the wrong time. “There’s no point. I’m leaving soon.”

Jena’s gaze slides away from me, and she lowers her voice. “There is if he’s going to Brown. Which he is. He’ll be an hour and a half from Yale, and you’re fresh out of excuses. Now shush. He’s coming.” Then louder, she says, “Why yes, I was smart to drag you out tonight. Thank you so much for admitting I’m always right about everything.”

I laugh. “Yeah, okay .” But my mind is reeling .

Dylan got into Brown?

“You’re admitting defeat, Goodwin? That doesn’t sound like you.” Dylan says, coming back around the fire with a grin.

“There’s a first time for everything!” Jena says, hopping up. “I’ll be back. I need to…ah…tell Felix something. Seat’s all yours, Miller.”

As she passes, Dylan gives her a little mock salute and sits beside me. “Sorry about that. Felix is being needy today,” he says.

“Am not!” Felix yells over the fire. Jena is wrapped around his torso, and the two of them look like the happiest people at the party. I watch them whisper to each other, and the longing in my chest is so strong it almost hurts.

I shake it off and turn back to the boy. The boy. The one who’s been stoking that longing since long before Claire got her claws into him. He’s watching me, and the intensity sends a shiver down my back.

“Felix is always needy,” I say, and curl a little tighter in my seat.

I should have packed a sweatshirt. My mind mentally picks through the mess in my car’s backseat, wondering if my peacoat is in there somewhere, but I think it’s hanging behind my door back home. I’m ill prepared for the coast tonight.

“Here.” Dylan scoots to the edge of his plastic Adirondack chair and pulls his gray hoodie over his head. He’s wearing a long-sleeved sage-green T-shirt underneath. He holds out the hoodie to me. “You look cold.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. I might have something in my car. You’re going to be freezing without it.”

“Nah. I run hot.”

Tell me about it.

“Please,” he says. “I don’t want you to be cold.”

I take it from him, desperately trying to play it cool. But on the inside? I’m screaming at the top of my lungs because Dylan Miller, the object of all my dreams, took the clothing off his back to keep me warm.

I slip it on and inhale the scent of his body wash before popping my head through the neckhole. The warm cotton soothes the goose bumps on my skin and—after quickly fixing my hair—I snuggle into its warmth and lean back in my seat. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He looks out over the party, and I scramble to pull his attention back to me, but I’ve got nothing.

After a beat of silence, he asks, “Do you want to go for a walk? Down the beach?” He nods past the party to where I hear more than see the water.

“Sure,” I say, too quickly. I sound desperate. I clear my throat and try again. “Any excuse to be near the water. I love the ocean.”

He stands and holds out his hand. I let him help me up, and we follow the sound of the water to the wet sand, stopping a few feet short of the waves before we head down the beach at a slow pace. I stuff my hands in his sweatshirt pocket and grip them tight. I’ve waited so long to have a moment with him, I can’t mess this up.

I clear my throat. “Jena says you got into Brown?”

His smile is blinding even on the darkened beach. “I did.”

“That’s incredible, Dylan. Congratulations!”

“Me? What about you, Miss Yale? I don’t think I actually congratulated you yet. You must be so proud of yourself.”

I stop to pick up a tide-smoothed rock and throw it into the waves. Relieved, yes. Proud? Not yet. “Sort of? It feels a little strange, to be honest. I’ve been working toward this for years, and now here we are. It’s like jumping off a treadmill at top speed and not knowing how to walk on still ground anymore.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been a little disoriented since I got my acceptance. We’re on the grind for so long, and then there’s this lull when we have our yes, but we can’t do anything about it until the fall.”

I stand up a little straighter. “Yes! Exactly that.”

He smiles at me again, and we slip into this effortless conversation about leaving Waldorf and what it’ll be like partying on the East Coast this fall, which leads to talking about books and movies and which places we want to travel to most: Peru for him, Greece for me.

Slowly but surely, all the hope that had been smothered since September flares back to life. It’s so easy with him. It’s always been easy with him, but this is the first time he seems to feel it too.

Maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to give up everything in my escape from No Caller ID. Dylan could be the one thing I keep for myself when I burn this life of mine and start fresh in Connecticut. Brown isn’t that far from Yale. We could meet up on the weekends. He could come to New Haven, or we could travel together to spend the holidays in NYC or Boston.

The possibilities are intoxicating. And dangerous if he doesn’t feel the same way.

But the way he’s looking at me, angling his body toward mine, leaving the party to wander up the beach and talk, the way he takes my hand as we turn back toward the bonfire…it feels like he might. Especially when we arrive at the fire and he doesn’t let go of my hand. His fingers tighten under the scrutiny of all our friends, and my hope solidifies.

Maybe Dylan is finally going to be mine. Maybe all this pain and suffering really is behind me? Is that possible? That I get Yale and Dylan in the same night?

We stand there among our classmates, watching Jena and Felix dance together. Felix dips Jena until her braids trail the sand, and Jena shrieks until he pulls her back up. I start to laugh when the warmth of Dylan’s face near my ear makes my entire body seize.

“Do you think they’re going to dance this badly at prom?” he murmurs.

A breathy laugh escapes me. “I hope not. We booked The Nines Hotel this year, so they’re going to have to class it up.”

“Is there any committee you’re not on?”

“If there was, I’d probably find a way to get on it.”

He laughs softly in my ear. “How nice is The Nines?”

“Very nice. It’s one of the priciest event venues in downtown Portland. We had to book it last year to make sure we could get it for senior prom.” And even then, my dad had to call in a favor.

“So, your date better have a nice suit, then.”

I can’t breathe. “I-in theory, but I don’t have a date to prom yet.”

“How is that possible?”

Because I turned down everyone who’s asked me. Because I’m waiting for you. He has to know that. Half of the invitations came from his soccer teammates. There’s no way they haven’t talked about it. “I haven’t really thought about a date,” I lie. “I’ve been a little busy lately.”

“Do you have a dress?”

“Yes.”

He tsk s at me. “A dress and no date. Brooke Goodwin, the horror.”

I turn my head and stare straight at him. He’s leaning down toward me, and we’re basically nose to nose. The firelight flickers across his left cheek and dances in his eyes. He doesn’t pull back.

Is he flirting with me?

He rubs a circle on the back of my hand with his thumb, and the simple action gives me a burst of courage.

“Maybe I’ve been waiting patiently for someone to ask me.”

“Someone in general, or someone specific? Because a few guys on the team have been getting shit for asking and getting turned down.”

Ah, there it is.

I don’t break eye contact. “Someone very specific.”

He swallows, and I love that he’s the unsteady one for once. It’s usually me turning to mush when he’s around. Seeing him like this, like he has no idea what to say next, is exhilarating.

I turn the rest of my body until I’m facing him. We’re so close that if he leaned down a few inches, we’d be breathing the same air. “ But , if he doesn’t ask me, I’d rather go alone than with some random guy just to say I have a date. We are getting pretty close to prom. Maybe he doesn’t want to ask me?”

He swallows again and lets go of my hand to brush some hair out of my face. “Maybe he saw you turning down half the school and didn’t think he had a chance. Especially with…all the history.”

A flash of Claire standing in the open door of the lake house almost makes me flinch. I claw my way back into this moment. “Maybe he’s the only one who stands a chance. Maybe he should ask and find out.”

He smiles. “Maybe she deserves a big sign or a flash mob. A promposal, Instagram-ready affair, and all that?”

I roll my eyes. “Dylan, will you ask me already?”

His grin is massive. “Will you go to prom with me?”

I shrug and look off at the ocean. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

The sound that comes out of his mouth is half surprise and half choke, and I laugh so hard I can’t breathe. “Of course…I’ll go to prom…with you,” I gasp between laughs.

He picks me up and spins me around in circles. “You almost gave me a heart attack,” he whispers in my ear.

I think this might be the absolute best night of my entire life.

As shitty as the start of this school year was, it’s going to end with me going to prom with the only guy I’ve ever wanted and then heading off to my dream school. How is this my life?

Fuck Tracey and her balloon. This is the only celebration I need.

Jena must see me in his arms because her squeal carries across the beach. Felix shouts something about Dylan’s nuts being in my hands, and Beau snorts, raising his drink in confirmation. Dylan puts me down, unbothered by their comments, and beams at me. He starts to say something, but the sound’s drowned out by someone screaming.

Our entire group—the whole party, really—turns toward the noise as a figure with long brown hair, dressed in a Carhartt jacket and ripped cargo pants, stumbles into the yard from the side gate. He glares wildly at everyone in turn. “Where the fuck is Brooke Goodwin? I know she’s here.”

My heart stops. I feel the blood drain from my face.

No. No, no, no, no.

He stomps across the sand in his boots, and people scramble to get out of his way, until he finally sets his eyes on me. His sharp features twist in rage.

Claire’s brother.

Brandon Heck jabs his finger in my direction. “How fucking dare you come out here?” he screams. “How dare you celebrate? How dare you be happy? You don’t deserve happiness. You don’t deserve anything!”

He lunges toward me, but Dylan and Felix fling themselves around either side of the fire to block his path. Everyone’s shouting. I hear Dylan tell him to back the fuck up. Felix tells him to leave. Jena comes to stand beside me, but all I see is Brandon’s face, snarling at me between Dylan and Felix’s shoulders.

He looks so much like his sister.

Brandon lunges at me again and the boys grapple to push him away. I take two quick steps back and Brandon clocks the movement.

“You should be afraid of me, you bitch! You don’t get to go to college and watch your dreams come true.”

“Let’s go!” Dylan shouts at him. He and Felix start dragging him toward the house.

Brandon fights back, but he’s no match for the boys, and soon a couple guys from the football team jump in to help—probably for the novelty of saying they were part of the drama later. When they get him all the way back to the side gate, Brandon catches my eye one final time over Dylan’s shoulder and yells, “You’re a fucking monster for what you did to my sister!”

Every eye in the party turns to stare at me.