Page 15

The twilight brushed its deep purple on the world.

The palm trees in the Rivera-Sanchezes’ front yard were dark against the sky. The violet haze crept to the ground like a fog. It was a scene from a Photoshopped postcard at the pier shop, except this was real. I knew it was the sky’s way of welcoming them back to North Carolina.

The summer hadn’t felt like Piper Island without Holden and Haven. Now that Hadley was with her dad, I needed them back. I’d survived eighth grade with thoughts of our days traipsing everywhere the light spilled. I missed smelling like sweat and salt water until it was time to smell like shampoo and sleep. I missed my best friends.

Everett and I hadn’t had a bad time. I’d argue we had too good of a time, but I needed to be careful not to get too close to a jellyfish, lest it stung. Could jellyfish sting themselves?

How else was I supposed to protect myself?

Sitting on my best friends’ front porch steps, I watched the sky darken like some unnamed constellation flipping a switch on the sun. With darkness came mosquitoes and cooler air perfect for counting down the seconds. I confused the neighbors’ headlights for their van so I closed my eyes until another set of headlights streaked past my eyelids.

I stood up, waving at them through the windows. The car stopped and I ran down their steps. Haven spilled out of the car into my arms.

We exchanged hellos and comments about the small changes to our appearances. She looked so high school with her new braces. I had a new freckle on my cheek. She was trying out curtain bangs. I’d finally switched to a middle part. Puberty was almost done chewing, ready to spit us out as two beautiful jellyfish.

Holden was still asleep, drool dribbling down his chin. We tickled his cheek awake. He was the same level of crabby halfway out of dreamland, but he looked the oldest of all of us. The year flattened his cheeks into a real-life jawline. He put the two minutes Haven had on him to shame. Graduating from middle school turned us all into adults.

I hugged him and hoped he lost some crabbiness while in my arms.

“You’re so tall!”

He was a whole head taller than me now, nearly two heads taller than Haven.

“You sound just like our family.” He laughed tiredly and patted the top of my head. “And you are exactly the same height.”

“Thanks. I missed you, too.”

“Good.” He winked and headed inside with his luggage.

I helped Haven with hers, then we went back out to the front porch. A foil pan sat between us on the stairs. Someone inside turned the porch light on for us, purple fog snapping into yellow.

“This is my abuela’s recipe for tres leches.” Haven peeled off the top sheet of foil and handed me a fork. “Lemme know what you think.”

The tres leches was half-eaten, probably wrestled between the twins in the car. It looked like some of my childhood birthday cakes: yellow cake topped with white cream. The only difference here were the cherries lined up in rows and vacant red-stained spaces where cherries used to be. I grabbed a forkful and took a bite. It was nothing like my childhood birthday cakes. It was spongier, and moister. It melted on my tongue like caramels.

“Do you like it?”

“Anything with sugar is a friend of mine.” I scooped more on my fork to prove it, and because it was true.

“That’s what I told Holden! He swore you wouldn’t like it. Clearly, I know you better.” She ate her own forkful. “I think he just wanted to eat your share.”

“I’m glad he didn’t. How was Mexico?”

“It was good, but I can only handle my whole family for so long. Mom kept making us talk to great-great aunts and third cousins I don’t ever remember meeting. They made us talk about college and careers like we’ve got a clue about it. And they kept saying, ‘You’ve gotten so tall!’” She made her voice high-pitched. “‘I remember when I could hold you in my arms. I used to change your diapers!’”

“Well, now I feel bad for mentioning it to Holden.”

Haven laughed. “He’ll survive.” She took a huge bite. Her face brightened and she chewed a little more quickly, swallowing to say, “I went shopping for my quincea?era dress!”

“Did you find one?”

“Not a good yellow one, but it’s not until next May. I wonder how much taller we’ll be then.” Haven rolled her eyes with a giggle.

She told me about her older cousin, Isabella, who came down from California. Haven wanted to be just like her when she was older. She told me about all the late nights they spent dancing to loud music and driving down desert roads with the windows down. All the love they ate in the form of food. So. Much. Food. When she finished, she nudged me with her elbow. “Now, come on, tell me what you’ve been up to.”

I told her about my school year and the two weeks without her. How nice it was to be back, how Hadley was now with her dad for the summer, and how I’d been spending my time. This included my day at the aquarium with Everett. I told her how stupid his humor was, but not how much it made me laugh. I told her how comfortable it felt, but not the reason why. I told her he was a great guy, but not how much I liked him.

“Do you like-like him?”

I nodded so slowly I barely felt it. My face scrunched up like my last bite had been laced with poison.

“Then why do you look like you stepped on a jellyfish?”

Leave it to Haven to read my mind twice.

“Speaking of jellyfish, he was looking at the moon jellies at the aquarium. Then we looked at each other and it was a really nice moment until I ruined it with something stupid. We hung out a couple days later, biked and went to the beach. I didn’t do anything stupid then, but I don’t know what to do.”

I got antsy, squirming under the grasp of what had been holding me down for years.

“Why are you so afraid to live?” Haven whispered. I spotted it as a foggy shadow on the stairs in front of us.

I didn’t want to get into it. I’d lived this long without getting into it. It had been long enough that getting into it might feel a whole lot like living it again. Haven had heard snatches of it throughout the years, enough to make a rough sketch of my past, but I’d never filled those blurry shapes with details. But there was something about this summer night, eating tres leches with Haven. Her love in the form of food between us. Being with her made the evening smell like summer stars and sweets.

So why not a secret?

“My dad cheated on my mom.”

It slipped from my mouth the way the sun sets on a lavender night, slipping completely away before you could even notice it was leaving. Then my past came out all at once, a storm cloud flooding the present. I couldn’t look at Haven, so I talked to her shadow instead. To the curve of her nose and all the wispy flyaways and the empty fork in her hand.

“When my mom started to suspect it, she confronted him and he started to make her believe she was crazy for thinking such a thing. Things got bad after that, because Mom knew he didn’t love her anymore. She knew this, and he wouldn’t admit it.”

Haven cleared her throat, then fixed her hair behind her ear and sat up a little taller.

“Fighting became a daily thing. Sometimes they’d fight all through dinner and I ate alone so my food wouldn’t get cold. And because I didn’t know what else to do. I fell asleep to screaming and crying matches. There’s only so much that plugging your ears can do. Dad slept on the couch when they managed to end the fights without one of them storming out. I don’t know where my mom would go, but I knew my dad went to his girlfriend’s.

“One day, he left while I was at school. Right after he dropped me off. Left all his stuff at home, so I thought he was just running late from work or something. The next day after school, he was still gone.”

My eyes started to sting. My words came up thick and full of air.

“The last thing he ever told me was that he would never leave me. Then he just…never came back. He left.”

My tears came on fast, like the slippery moon behind a sunset. The first one ran off my cheek faster than I could wipe it.

“That’s really confusing when you’re nine.”

“Quinn, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me to her.

We were an indistinguishable black blob silhouetted against the front porch light. It was warm in her embrace, in the cloak of summer air.

I breathed in and out. Swallowed the thickness from my throat. “I still haven’t seen or heard from him since he left five years ago. I tried texting him recently, but nothing. Mom’s never been the same. And me, well, you know.”

I knew I didn’t have to say it. To be me was to be a girl afraid of commitment. A girl disgusted with affection and disgusted with being disgusted. A girl who ruined moon jellies because it was easier than the stings that might come after.

“I know. But you should know that it’s not your fault. I know it’s hard to believe, but not every relationship is like that.” She brushed loose hair out of my face. My hair unstuck from the dried tears on my cheek.

“You are worthy of love. Pinky promise.”

She held her curved pinky out to me, glowing yellow under the front porch light.

I finally looked at her, gave her a soft smile and my curved pinky.

I hoped what she said was true. I hoped pinky promises held the same power as cheek eyelashes, flickering birthday candles, dandelion puffs to the wind. Shooting stars. Fountain pennies.

Haven kept her pinky around mine until I let go. Both of us reached for the tres leches at the same time. We laughed between bites.

“There’s this thing my mom always says: ‘Los amigos van y vienen pero la familia siempre se queda.’ Friends come and go, but family always stays. I love it, but I’ve always had one problem with it. The way I see it, being family has nothing to do with staying. What stays is love.”

She put a lone cherry in her mouth, smiling around it like she’d said something so groundbreaking and magical that I could wish on it. Maybe I would.

“Oh yeah?”

Haven sat up again and pulled her hair behind her ear. “For us, it goes a little something like ‘La familia va y viene pero las amigas siempre se quedan.’”

Family comes and goes, but friends always stay.