Page 109 of One Last Time

It hadn’t been easy, but they’d managed to cancel the sale and keep the beach house.

I knew we all had to let go and grow up and move on—but I was so, so glad we didn’t have to lose the beach house to do all that.

I helped the three of them finish packing up the car.

Lee rolled down his window, the back seat piled up with pillows and a comforter beside him, and his backpack. “Just as well you didn’t come with us. There’s no room for you.”

“Just as well,” I echoed. “Call me later, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. I promised, didn’t I?” He grinned. “And hey! When you get home, check your garage. I got you a little going-away gift.”

“In the garage?”

He grinned and reached out to tweak my nose. I stepped back and blew him a kiss, then watched the car drive off, taking him to Berkeley.

Just because we were growing up didn’t mean we had to grow apart. My relationship with Noah might have ended, but my friendship with Lee would last forever, whatever happened, wherever life took us.

If there was one thing in life I could count on, it was that. It was him.

Once they were out of sight, I walked home.

How many thousands of times over the years had I walked to Lee’s house? I could walk this route blindfolded.

I wondered when I’d walk it next.

Back at home, the house was empty. I went inside to find the keys for the garage and hauled the door open.

And right there, in the middle of the garage floor, taking up so much space and standing proudly, in all its bright pink-and-blue glory, speckled with rust and starting to fall apart, was ourDDMmachine from the arcade.

“He didn’t,” I whispered, stepping inside slowly, reverently. “Oh, Lee, you didn’t.”

A note was taped to the screen, and I pulled it off to read it.

Shelly—Until our next dance. Your best friend forever—Lee.

I clutched the note to my chest, tearing up all over again and running a hand over the old game.

Classic Lee.

Epilogue

Laughter filled the air and chatter bubbled all around us. Electronicdings andschwoops sounded every so often. A ball collided hard with a wooden target board, followed by a splash and a chorus of cheers as a teacher plummeted into a dunk tank. Grass was trampled into the mud by hundreds of feet and the sun beat down on us. Music was being pumped out of speakers nearby, but you could barely hear it over the sound of everything else.

A hand clutched my arm, turning me around, and a face I knew better than my own beamed at me. “There you are!”

“Hey, you guys!” I took turns hugging Lee and then Rachel, like I hadn’t just seen them a couple of days ago, or video-called them just last night to make sure we were still on for the day.

Rachel looked around, awestruck. “I can’t believe how…I thought it would’ve changed a lot more.”

“It has,” I told her. “They got a brand-new moonwalk this year.”

But I knew exactly what she meant. I’d felt it, too. Coming here today had been like stepping into a dream.

The annual Spring Carnival. Our school was still running it, after all these years. This year, they were raising money for a climate-change organization. A lot of the booths were the same ones we’d known; kids were still hooking the exact same rubber ducks from a pool that we had used.

It had been six years since we graduated high school. Six years since we’d all been back here together.

I’d been back a couple of times. Parent–teacher conferences for Brad that Dad and Linda couldn’t make it to that I’d filled in on. Those had been weird as hell—but being at the carnival today was something else entirely.