Page 27 of Summer of Salt

And Prue

still

held

my

hand

and the ocean had never looked so beautiful

and the smell of salt had never seemed so warm and good

and I thought:

possibly this is the best night of my life.

“It’s really beautiful here,” Prue said.

“It is,” I said, but what I meant wasyou’reso beautiful here.

“If she doesn’t show up soon, he’s going to want to leave,” she said.

“Your brother?”

“He’s already searching for the next place to go, the next rare bird he can study,” she said in way of an answer.

That stock, empty, fake response again, because I didn’t know what else to say. “She’ll turn up.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

She has to.

Prue lifted her feet onto the bench, pivoted, and leaned against me, her back against my chest.

And we sat like that for a long time, long enough for my heart to slow down. And then Prue finally got up and walked closer to the cliffs, the magic cliffs you could not fall off, not even if you wanted to. I got up too, and went and stood a few feet away from her.

And then she said:

“I’ve been trying to get up the courage to do this for a few weeks now.”

And then I said:

“Do what?”

Prue took one step toward me, another step toward me. The grass stretched on for a million miles; it would beyears before she reached me. She covered her face in both her hands and took another step. I wanted to move, but I thought if I did that, I would explode. My whole entire body would erupt into stardust. Maybe we aren’t meant to be so happy, so warm, so absolutely, batshit joyful. Prue was right in front of me, I could smell her clothes, the lavender laundry detergent the inn provided to its guests.

I raised my hands and closed them around her wrists, gently prying her fingers from her face. Her eyelids were squeezed tight. She needed sleep. I could feel the exhaustion coming off her in waves.

And because she had crossed all of that distance, because she had come so close, I thought I could at least be the one to do the rest of the work, and so I kissed her. Lightly. Like how I imagined a bird would kiss another bird.

And she kissed me back. Like how a bird might ask for more.

When we pulled away, I was light-headed from holding my breath and Prue was smiling.

And I think—Ithink—she would have kissed me again, had Harrison Lowry not chosen that moment to come jogging across the back lawn of the inn, binoculars bumping against his chest and a complicated camera in one hand.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he said. “Are you coming or not? Hi, Georgina.”