Page 18

Day falls into night during its balancing act with fate.

Saray Rivera-Sanchez’s fiftieth birthday party started hours after the streetlights cut on, the front yard bursting with cars. Their backyard glows from the string lights hanging from a mammoth white tent. Rows of white tables wear plastic tablecloths. Family and friends multiply before my eyes, filling the chairs and talking amongst themselves. There are more people than there is space to move. The music is loud enough for the mainland to hear. The table beside the DJ is covered with tin foil trays of what used to be steaming corn, tamales, and pulled pork.

Everett and I sit at a table near the edge of the tent, sipping the last drops from our sweaty soda cans. Haven brings out a sheet cake decorated with yellow piping and fifty lit candles. The guests sing a birthday song I don’t know, but I clap along to the beat, hoping the candles don’t erupt.

When the song ends, Saray blows out the candles and some partygoers chant, “Mordida! Mordida! Mordida!” before Holden pushes her face into the cake. Though she was expecting it, leaning before the cake with her hands behind her back, Holden timed it in the middle of the word to catch her off guard.

I join in on the booming applause and laughter while Saray licks the frosting from her lips.

Holden cuts the cake and brings us our pieces first. It’s their abuela’s tres leches, cherries and all. While we pick at our slices, I notice a smear of frosting on the corner of Everett’s lip. I wipe it off with my thumb. He smiles at me in silent appreciation. If I had told myself about this moment—this soft explosion in my chest—the last time I ate tres leches, I would have been sure I was dreaming.

But this is real.

The guests slowly unwind from dinner, dessert, and drinks. They dance the grass into disarray. Santiago is going to throw a fit in the morning, but in the meantime, he and Holden are the number one culprits.

A song comes on that makes a few more stragglers jump up and rush to the makeshift dance floor.

Everett raises his eyebrows with a smirk. “You want to pretend to know this dance?”

I want to tell him that sounds like my worst nightmare, but I don’t want my mood ring to change colors. “Maybe later,” I say, hoping to buy myself the courage.

Everett doesn’t prod and heads for the dance floor.

Holden pulls Everett in with him and Jorge. Jorge pretends he doesn’t know the moves, but Everett really doesn’t know the moves, and Holden laughs as Everett stumbles over his own feet. I bite my smile down and scratch a few lines in the tablecloth to distract myself from him, calm myself down. Everett’s just as dorky as he was last year at karaoke, mouthing along to the song even though he didn’t know Spanish. My phantom friends from that night tease me from the treetops.

He’s always been yours. Why don’t you grab him before he slips away? The universe is not transactional.

I’ve ripped my section of the tablecloth to shreds, my cheeks now a rosy mess, and I decide to divert my attention to the rest of the party.

A little boy sprawls out on a few folding chairs, drooling onto the grass despite the pounding music. A few other kids play tag in the dark pockets of the yard. That used to be us, turning the real world into our own imaginary universe.

The twins’ tio from the infamous quincea?era incident is here from Mexico, and I see Haven hand him more beer before he’s done with the last. Their tio has a beer in each hand now, doing some hip gyration next to their abuela, who already took a few shots with Santiago. Mason brings Santiago and Saray another round of shots. Holden attempts to take one before Saray slips it from his hand and scolds him. Holden laughs and kisses Saray on the cheek as if to say, “I’d never do that.” Santiago rolls his eyes and gives his son a noogie.

Haven joins them, an already half-eaten slice of tres leches in her hand. Holden tries to steal a bite from her fork, but she swats him on the head. She offers him a stray cherry, pops it into his mouth, and wipes the leftover frosting on his shirt.

The Rivera-Sanchez family slips back into the line dance like they never left.

A heartstring plucks within me. What would it be like to have a family so vast and playful?

Watching the twins and their family sparks something within me. My family may not be vast or playful, but they’re mine. And I do love them, even though it’s hard to say sometimes. Although it’s inching toward midnight—Mom will certainly think I’m wasted and Blair will wake up despite needing the sleep—I grab my phone and send two identical texts, ten letters from the heart.

I almost put my phone away until an idea pops into my head. I’m trying to be more vulnerable in my life, more open. There’s still family out there who I can show this part of myself to, even if the feeling isn’t mutual.

I type out a third text, same as the other two. This time, to the only number not saved under a name. My thumbs grapple with what my brain wants them to do, but they manage. The cursor leaves and comes back and leaves and comes back. I finally hit send when the cursor comes back. For good luck.

I picture my father getting the ping on his phone. I picture what his new life might look like. Does he still eat fluffernutters? Does he watch the stars at midnight? Does he think of me when fireflies flicker in the darkness?

Am I a name or a number in his phone? Does he have the number memorized like I do?

I picture him reading the three words sitting on his lock screen.

I love you.

It’s too late to take it back now. I’ve sliced open my chest and invited the world in. Suddenly, being exposed on the dance floor is the least of my concerns. Suddenly, it’s all I need to steady my mind from the spiral and keep me from crying at a birthday party that isn’t mine. I brush my bangs out from behind my ears, smooth the wrinkles in my dress, tack a smile on my face, and walk toward the chaos.

This summer, keep doing that living you do. Maybe fall in love while you’re at it?

So what if I’m a few summers late? The universe isn’t keeping score.

When Everett notices me walking over under the string lights, happiness strikes across his face.

“Let me show you how it’s done,” I say with a smirk.

Everett pulls me to the dance floor, our smiles a secret language. Haven squeals and feeds me the final cherry from her tres leches. Holden and Jorge show me the moves to the line dance. Mason fixes my dress strap when it falls off my shoulder. We’ve made this backyard our own imaginary universe, but there’s nothing imaginary about it. The world has long been ours, even beyond the days of playground hide and seek, routine bike routes, and picnics by the marsh.

It’s never been the warm, sunny ocean that’s kept me here summer after summer. It’s always been my friends who have churned like the tides into family. It’s true what Haven once whispered in the faint porch light: Family comes and goes, but friends always stay. They’re forever tied with the taste of cherries, forever tied with the vision of falling but the faith that you won’t.

The vision of people leaving but the faith that they won’t.

The six of us dance like we’re wearing headphones and we don’t care that the world can’t hear the music. But everyone does hear it and moves with it beneath the string lights. I turn my smile to the lights, greet them like constellations I simply haven’t met yet. I dance next to people I’ve never met, but they cheer for me in the middle of a dance circle even though all I offer is something like a car dealership inflatable in a windstorm.

I’m a part of the magic and whirlwind of joy. I’m a part of the family, vast and playful.

The desire to check my phone is a distant mirage. When I remember, I stare at my phone on the table and the dark trees behind it with guilt that loves to chew me up. It’s an old friend that usually demands too much from me, but finally it gives me a break. Guilt leaves me weightless on the dance floor. Guilt sits in the white chair at the edge of the tent and watches me laugh at myself for skipping a few moves, watches Everett bring me right back like he’s a professional now.

Guilt keeps its distance even when the song ends. I’m so high on the moment that I grab Everett’s bicep before he leaves for the table. “One more song!” I scream over the music, close enough to his ear that I know he feels my warmth. I wonder if it makes him shiver despite both of us having worked up a sweat.

He nods and moves us near the center of the makeshift dance floor.

As if the DJ were in cahoots with him or me or both of us, a slow song teases from the speakers.

Haven gasps and grabs Jorge for a slow dance. More people join in: Saray and Santiago, Jorge’s parents, other couples who I don’t know. Holden and Mason sit down a few chairs apart. The empty chairs put a spotlight on them. Holden crosses his arms, a vacant expression on his face, a complete shift from the Holden next to me moments ago. When he locks eyes with me, he raises his eyebrows: proud, knowing, and slightly teasing.

I stick my tongue out at him. His smile almost convinces me that he’s okay. Maybe it is real, but he’s good at smiling his pain away. He wears a shield of bravado. The real Holden is soft, kind, but still strong. He kisses worms before sending them to their death. He’ll squash anyone who crosses his sister. He’s the first to cross his own sister, but then make up for it with a cold can of soda and a sloppy hug. He’ll pick you up off the floor even when he’s in pieces himself.

We’re the same in that way, linked forever by the swapping of a tequila bottle and sound secrets.

A part of me wants to run down the street into the calm, safe darkness. I want to run away from the slow song and its implications, but I push those feelings away. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to let people in and trust that they won’t hurt me. I need to slow dance for Holden and Mason, even if it means leaving my body for a song or two.

I grab Everett by the shoulders and guide his arms around my waist. He takes over after that, pulling me closer into the spicy smell of him when he knows it’s okay. His hands were made for the crook of my waist. My eyes were made for looking into his. We were made to sway in tune with the cicadas, katydids, and locusts. There doesn’t have to be guilt when there’s this. Hearts thrumming against each other. String lights carving the smiles on our faces. Limbs going where they’ve never been before.

With my head on his chest, our lungs breathing as one, I feel it. Safety. Tethered, but with Everett as my anchor. Heavy, but just because this feels permanent. If I were weightless, floating in the middle of the Atlantic, Everett would be my buoy.

I find a spot for my lips beneath his ear and whisper, “I’m not drunk. Just so you know.”

He does the same to my neck. “Wouldn’t it be wild if tres leches made you drunk?”

In the middle of this dance floor, Everett makes himself a carousel and twirls me. My sky blue babydoll dress goes with me, but Everett brings us back. I careen into his firm chest, erupting into laughter in the arms of Everett Bishop.

It’s okay to be happy.

Age 16, June 16

I hadn’t seen Everett since last July.

It was two days since sophomore year ended, one since I made the drive down. Being here made his absence tug at me even harder. The last time I talked to him was at Kelsie’s last summer.

“I’m sure Everett is coming.” Haven stepped in line with me on the road, her wedges clicking along the asphalt. When we got there, her gold eyeshadow caught in the front porch lights.

Of course he was. The bonfire tonight would look a lot like Kelsie’s party, with most of the local high school in attendance. It was at a senior’s house whose parents were in Spain for two weeks.

I was ready to do everything opposite of last summer, rewrite a new itinerary in the purpling sky.

I’d grown a lot between last summer and now; had a lot of time to think about who I used to be and what Holden said when he was too drunk to stop himself. Tonight, I was wearing a crop top. I curled my hair while Haven straightened hers. My eyelids were golden sparkles.

I looked hot.

Tonight, I was going to erase “almost” from the phrase “almost kiss.”

As we got closer to the house on the sound, it got more congested with parked cars and bodies and bikes. I was still an amateur when it came to alcohol, parties, kissing. Love.

In the backyard, teens danced to blaring music, threw cornhole beanbags across the yard, sipped from red cups. Everything glowed yellow from the back porch light and the fairy lights strung about. Beyond the yard, the water neared black in the dying day.

We were in the thick of it, swarming around buff guys in football jerseys, girls wearing sun dresses under the moon, lanky kids in sweaters and flannels as if they forgot it was June. In the growing darkness, I looked around the swimming faces for Everett.

Haven and I walked to the bonfire. It was too hot for the summer, but at least the glow helped me make sense of the faces around us. Still no sign of Everett.

A new song played from the speaker hidden in the darkness.

“I love this song!” Haven grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a clearing in the yard. “Let’s dance!”

My nerves elevated in the middle of strangers. Haven moved my arms in sync with the pounding stereo. A breeze from the sound blew hair across my face, swirled adrenaline around me. I threw my arms to the sky, let them glow in the firelight.

This summer, I wanted to complete a new itinerary. Fulfill the prophecy Blair once scribbled in the title page of a summer romance.

I resigned to become part of the music. Songs played that I knew the words to, but I wasn’t sure how. I jumped up and down to the thrumming songs, pounding my arms to the beat, going crazy when the chorus hit. I didn’t know if it counted as dancing, but it was what everyone else was doing. I lost myself to heavy breathing, the shared belting of nostalgic songs, laughter unheard over blaring music.

I didn’t feel like Quinn.

I caught myself smiling under a million stars.

I wanted to be part of this hive mind forever.

“Hey, girls. Beer?” Mason flashed a white-toothed smile and held up three red cups.

Haven thanked Mason with a kiss on the cheek, then brushed her long, no-longer-straight bangs out of her face. She chugged it in about one breath. Lines of beer dribbled down her pink dress.

I grabbed a cup from Mason. The amber drink was a foamy ocean behind a crashing wave, begging me to keep not being me.

Haven wiped her mouth, cupped her hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to drink it.”

I knew I didn’t have to drink it, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to. I wanted to drink this beer. Despite my mom, who’d kill me if she could see these thorns I had for eyes. Despite Blair, who might make me drive her around the island again even though I got my license last October.

For Haven and Mason.

For Quinn, who hadn’t truly lived a day in her life.

Before I could decide against it, I inched my head back to chug. It was disgusting. I might as well have licked the floor of a gas station bathroom. My throat clenched in an effort to dam the flooding river, but I didn’t stop until there was no more to drink. I swallowed the final trickle, then shivered the taste from my mouth.

I resisted the urge to vomit, drew in a sharp breath, turned the cup upside down, and screamed, “Let’s party!”

Haven, Mason, and some other people cheered. We refilled our cups and kept dancing, hands pulsing in the sky to the beat. Mason grinded behind Haven, running a free hand along her waist. Honey-dipped light cast shadows on my best friends’ faces. I would forever remember this moment from the smell of pine trees, beer, and marsh. Red plastic cups and plastic faces and plastic music in the air. Warm beer bubbling within me.

A brunette boy staggered by us and cut between Haven and Mason, pulling Mason closer to dance. It looked like they’d danced together before. Mason ran knowing hands under the boy’s shirt, planted alcohol kisses on his lips.

He pulled back, shouting over the music, “I’m gonna go with Luke!”

“You boys have fun!” Haven yelled behind her.

Beer unraveled me. I was both living and dying at the same time. Alive from the fire burning in my stomach, dead from the same fire that made me someone I wasn’t. I was free. I’d never been afraid of anything in my whole life. I could stand unwavering in a thunderstorm, float on a roaring ocean.

Ride a rollercoaster.

I imagined myself as one of the trees, eavesdropping on the sea of drunk, dancing teenagers. We were happy from up there, happy from down here too, the excitement palpable. Even if summer didn’t last forever, this moment spent dancing, with beer glazing over all my problems, would live forever in my head.

I turned around.

Stopped dancing.

The music stopped pounding.

My rollercoaster came to a halt.

Everett.

He sat on a chair by the bonfire, Kelsie Miller across his lap, their lips running wildly over each other’s. Kelsie’s dirty blonde hair fell into her forehead. It was more blonde than dirty, streaked in natural and maybe not-so-natural golden highlights. Her freckles were pronounced, sunflower seeds on a sunny afternoon. The sun favored her, and so did Everett.

Tonight ran off the rails. The boy I wanted to make things right with had other plans.

Haven turned me around, steadied me. She looked me in the eyes, sorrow drowning her face. “Let’s go somewhere else, okay?”

I nodded and let her guide me to a space far away from the fire. We sat side by side on a small stretch of beach. The air felt colder down here. The sand was almost too squishy to sit on. Probably riddled with fiddler crabs. It smelled like dead fish and seagull shit. In the buzzy background, everyone else was still having the time of their lives.

The moon reflected a million tiny, choppy moons on the sound.

“Listen, Everett sucks.”

I knew Haven didn’t mean it. I knew she didn’t believe it. I knew I didn’t believe it.

“I’m sure he’s still into you…He’ll come around…Drunk kisses don’t mean anything.”

None of Haven’s attempts to comfort me worked. My eyes pooled with tears, but I blinked them away before it revealed too much emotion.

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I’m fine.” I shook my head, looked down at the water lapping the shore. I brushed a line into the sand.

I was not going to cry about a boy. He was not that important to me. It wasn’t like I’d spent the entire school year thinking about him, imagining his warmth beside me on lonely, sleepless nights. Seeing beautiful shapes in the clouds and wanting to text him all about the stories they told.

This was what having a crush did—it made you feel like crying on the sand, wanting more beer like it hadn’t already killed you.

Haven used the glowing orb of the party to pick through the shells around us on the sand. Most were chipped mussels or clams with skin that peeled like dehydrated paint, but a few coquinas lived to tell the tale. She found one with a purple underbelly.

“Look, it’s got a hole in it. Wanna make it the seventh shell?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want this to be the moment I wear on my neck for the rest of my life.” My eyes stung. I wiped them before any tears could form. Stop being a baby.

“Fair enough,” Haven said. “It’s a pretty shell, though.”

I grabbed the shells already on my neck, hoping they would teleport me to better days when I wasn’t a complete idiot. I wanted to go back to before Everett tried to kiss me at Kelsie’s. Before I started my descent for him at the aquarium. Before we met at the Boardwalk. I wanted to relive the moment I got the first shell, tell myself not to be such an asshole.

Then I’d be the one making out with Everett right now.

“Hey Haven, can I steal you from Quinn for a bit?”

I heard him before I saw him, then looked behind me at the silhouette of Chance Walker. Just when things couldn’t get worse, he had to encroach with two cups of beer.

Haven’s eyes asked what her mouth didn’t. Can I go?

If she were more sober, maybe she’d remember the taste of cherry vanilla ice cream, how she once talked about him on my kitchen floor. But she was drunk, and Chance had a love potion just for Haven. I could’ve been less drunk myself, so who was I to judge? I nodded and offered her a fake smile.

They walked away. The look in Haven’s face sang louder than the speakers still playing to the stars. It told me she was sorry, that she’d make it up to me.

I lay back on the cold sand. Beer burned inside me and sloshed in my stomach. The stars filling the sky started to dance wherever my eyes looked, doubling up over each other, riding their own rollercoaster until I was too dizzy to watch. Thousands of constellations spread in front of me, but everything blurred together. I couldn’t find a single one. Even Scorpio and Sagittarius hid from me.

Hadley would have been so disappointed.

I pulled myself back up, staring forward at nothing. The darkness enveloped me in the unknown. My head spun. I had just flown to the moon and back. I was living in a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from, no matter how many times I opened and closed my eyes.

“Quinn?”

I must have been imagining Holden’s voice. Haven said he was staying home for the night since he couldn’t handle another day with everyone from school. I thought it might have had something to do with Mason and Luke.

But he was real, standing next to me in the sand, shoulders slumped. His hair was longer than I remembered, messier, but still swept around like it had been at Kelsie’s last summer.

“Holden.”

He sat next to me, his words slurred. “Are you drunk?”

“A little. Beer. You?”

“Some beer, some of my dad’s tequila.” He placed a bottle of tequila in the sand. “Let’s add it to the list of reasons he’ll want to kill me.”

I picked up the bottle. A cool breeze hit the glass and lit my fingers up. I flooded my mouth with stale tequila, let it burn a trail down my throat. It tasted like nail polish remover. I almost vomited, but I exhaled steadily to ride out the feeling. I should have taken it as a sign to stop, but I took another large swig, barely leaving time to swallow before more streamed in. It made the pain more bearable, but I didn’t know which pain I was trying to mask.

“Save some for me.” He took a sip so large I was sure he was going to lose his stomach on the sand. The distant fire lit up his glossed-over eyes and the heartache brewing inside them. “Mason’s with Luke again.”

I couldn’t blame the crack in his voice on the tequila. “I’m sorry.”

The air fell silent between two drunk teenagers living inside their own drunk minds. What would Holden have thought if he could read the thoughts plinking in my mind? Everett had moved on from me. He and Kelsie kissed by the fire. He unknowingly broke my heart, and I deserved every bit of it.

Holden looked at me again. “I wish I had a shooting star to wish on.”

“What would you wish for?”

“You want the truth or a joke?”

“The truth,” I said without thinking.

“Acceptance.” It was a whisper drowned out by the crickets and the distant roar of the fire and everyone around it. “You?”

I knew he wanted the truth. My truth wasn’t that hard to conjure. I shrugged. “Trust. Let’s find us a shooting star.”

We didn’t find any shooting stars. The stars knew when people wanted them and stayed still in defiance. All the sky sent us were airplane headlights and swirly, twinkling stars. Constellations teased their horoscopes like unattainable prizes, but they didn’t give good horoscopes to people that didn’t recognize them.

I didn’t know how much I’d had to drink.

Holden left not long after the fruitless shooting star search. I didn’t know where he went, but I hoped maybe he didn’t need a shooting star after all.

I made my way across the yard. I didn’t know where I was going. The world spun around me. It was like I was in the fun house at the Boardwalk. One tiny shift threw the whole reflection off balance. I could fall asleep in the middle of this crowd. Someone would catch me. I could run into the crowd and start a line dance. Someone would follow. I could run through the fire and make it across without catching it. Run across coals and it wouldn’t even hurt. Ride Tsunami and feel on top of the world.

I wanted to disappear.

I wanted to shout for everyone to hear.

Partygoers sauntered around me like I was going the wrong way down a one-way street. They danced, tossed their heads back, glowed in the string lights that were now a wet, streaky windshield, blurry across the whole yard.

Haven and Chance were by the fire. At least, I thought it was them. She leaned into him, her neck craned for his sloppy, blurry kisses. Her rollercoaster had rolled backwards. She’d thrown everything away for the boy who stopped her momentum in the first place.

She probably knew more than me about romance, but I knew more than her about how to stay safe on a rollercoaster. I knew more about precaution and security, even if that meant she knew more about happiness. I didn’t know which fate was worse. I didn’t know if my caution and security had run off anyway, leaving me with nothing.

Everett and Kelsie weren’t in the chair by the fire anymore. They were probably long gone now, riding a rollercoaster somewhere far from here.

On the way inside to the bathroom—that was where I was going—I ran into a guy. Or he ran into me? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. He was really hot. Instead of ignoring me, he looked at me and smiled.

“You wanna dance?” he shouted over the music. His hair was the color of coffee beans. His teeth glinted in the firelight. “Name’s Charlie.”

Sounded fun. I nodded. “Quinn.”

I was still nodding when he wrapped his arms around my waist. Slow, sleepy nods. Stop nodding. Perk up. Half a second later, maybe even a whole second, his hands made sense of my waist. They inched up above my chest. Tickled at my neck.

His cheeks were red from the heat, from the dancing he’d clearly been doing all night. The alcohol I smelled on his breath. Red was my favorite color. Heat. The color I saw through my eyelids when I sank into the feeling. Golden-red. Flames.

My heart ran a marathon in my chest. Couldn’t stop spinning. My head, my heart—spinning. This random guy. What was I doing? He was hot. He didn’t matter. He was really hot. It was just fun.

I put my palm on his cheek, around his neck, down his back.

Something shifted in his eyes. He kissed my neck, mapping out its pale skin. It felt like fizzy soda popping from a fresh pour. Kissing wasn’t something I did—I’d ever done—but here I was, turning his face to mine.

Everett’s forehead kissed against mine. He started to say something. I cut him off with my lips. Kissed Everett Bishop. Eyes closed. Mouth gaped. I couldn’t believe it. We’d found our way to each other, the steel fence I built around my heart be damned. Kelsie be damned.

I grabbed his shoulders. Pulled him closer. My fingers explored the skin under his shirt. Our lips were wet and soft and warm. Red. Fiery. We drowned in each other. I didn’t know fire could drown you, but I couldn’t breathe.

“Everett,” I exhaled, gasping up for air.

“What?”

I opened my eyes. Some guy whose name I didn’t remember. He looked like a movie star. I was reeling from a trance. Spinning on the grass. Absolutely not Kelsie.

“You good?”

I brushed my hair out of my face. “Yeah.”

“You okay with this?”

“Yeah, you?” I said, breath mixing with his.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Then his lips were on mine again. Thank God. The kisses were quick. Breathless. Frantic. We were drowning. Had to save each other. I couldn’t follow our hands before they were somewhere else. Waist. Back. Shoulder blades. Neck. Face.

Tongues, arguing for control.

We made out under all the confused constellations. Shooting stars be damned.

Age 16, June 17

Sleep spat me out into morning.

I was in my bedroom but I didn’t know how I’d gotten here. My alarm clock read 11:40am. Oh, God. I shielded the taunting midmorning sun from my eyes. My head thrummed, pinball clinks inside my skull.

Slices of last night flashed in my mind: beer, burnt orange dancing, Mason. Fire. Everett. Kelsie. The sound. Haven. Chance. A different kind of fire. Tequila. Charlie. A third kind of fire.

What the hell had happened?

A fourth fire showed itself when it dawned on me. Charlie was my first kiss and I didn’t even remember the taste. I groaned and covered my hands with my face as embarrassment slithered up my neck. No wonder sleep threw me out of its clutches; I was a mar on the very foundation of humankind, unworthy of dreamlands.

I didn’t need Blair; this shame was punishment enough, the splitting pain in my head a final reminder to never touch alcohol again.

I peeled myself from the blanket. It was time to enter today and face the music. My necklace successfully made it off my neck last night, so I put it back on and headed to the bathroom.

In the bathroom mirror, a hungover, heartbroken, and hideous shell of me stared back. The result of a failed effort to remove my makeup last night, mascara still clumped my eyelashes together. Foundation splotched across my cheeks. My eyebrows were vacationing in two different continents. I wiped everything away until the real me returned.

I ignored the sweaty, wind-spun knots in my hair and bunched it into a ponytail. It made my tornado of blonde hair a sunny day instead.

I stumbled to the living room and found lost puzzle pieces there.

Haven flipped pancakes on a steamy griddle. The kitchen island was partially set for breakfast: orange juice, buttered toast, ketchup for some reason.

Holden snored on the couch, using three throw pillows as a blanket, a plastic popcorn bowl on the floor by his face.

If Blair and Hadley weren’t out of town this weekend, it would have been my ass frying on that griddle. At least one thing favored me today.

“Good morning.” Haven raised her eyebrows. “Or should I say afternoon?”

I slumped onto the bar stool. “What happened?”

“My idiot brother got into our parents’ tequila. I decided to save your ass. I also decided maybe my idiot brother deserved saving too.” She counted each point on her fingers with self-assurance.

“Thank you.”

“That guy you were making out with was hot. Charlie, right?”

I nodded slowly enough to keep my brain from falling out of my skull. It clawed at me for a way out. “You saw that?”

Haven popped a chocolate chip in her mouth with a smirk. “The whole island saw it.”

“Oh, God. Please kill me.”

“My only mission last night was to keep you alive. I’m not going to ruin my hard work now.”

“How did you pull it off?”

“Chance ‘apologized,’ like he’d been doing all year, and said it was summer so we should give us a fresh start. He tried to get me to go home with him. I only had one drink, so I was already sobering up. I left Chance when I saw Holden walking around all mopey about Mason. He can be such a downer.” She laughed. “He smelled like tequila, so I stayed with him and we looked for you so we could go home.” She raised her eyebrows again. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you by the fire making out with Charlie Lowman.”

I groaned again.

“It took some convincing to get you to come with me, then it took an hour to walk back here. Holden vomited in a bush, then you got sick watching him and vomited in the grass. Then you guys ran down the street singing ‘Who Let the Dogs Out.’ I can’t believe nobody called the cops on us. I hope you don’t mind I brought us here. Holden’s going to be grounded for the rest of his life if dad finds the tequila gone. If I’d taken him home last night, they would have known. I just told them we were up too late watching a movie here.”

“You’re fine. Blair would do the same if she were here. I’m never drinking again.”

“I never pegged you for a tequila girl.”

“I’m a nothing girl. Only pancakes and orange juice for me.”

“Same. I shouldn’t have left you last night, I’m sorry. I’m done with Chance. For real this time.”

She held her pinky out for me. I took it.

“It’s okay. You saved my life and my ass, so I owe you.” I mustered the courage to ask the question that I’d been too afraid to ask. “Did Everett see?”

Haven shrugged. “I only saw him one other time after you did.”

“Was he with Kelsie?”

She nodded.

“Do you think he likes Kelsie? Like, he wants to be with her?”

“I think he and Kelsie are just like that sometimes. Maybe Everett was just as drunk and stupid as the rest of us.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. Alcohol was a master of persuasion. Maybe it persuaded Everett too.

Haven slid me a plate. “So you officially like-like Everett now?”

I rolled my eyes, sank my teeth into a plain pancake. Syrup might have killed my stomach. “Let’s not pretend I ever didn’t.”

“You should talk to him. You guys are, like, the worst at talking to each other about what really matters. Maybe you’re jumping to a conclusion you shouldn’t be jumping to.”

I nodded, but the rational part of my brain—the part not taking a crowbar to my temples—knew the truth. People were not seashells to throw into the ocean when another washed up. I couldn’t expect Everett to ditch Kelsie for me. I’d already had my chance and blew it. Last summer, he wanted me even though I was broken, but you couldn’t take a shell that buried itself in the sand.

Haven drowned her pancakes in syrup. “Besides, I’ve always thought she was just your stand-in. I mean, she looks just like you.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I said, but I’d made the connection myself last night. She had more freckles than me, but our hair was the same sandy shade. Our eyes both tried to be green in the sunlight. But it wasn’t just physical features that made two people similar. Kelsie was her own person, and an arguably better one than me.

“I’ll talk to him,” I declared before the thought died. Just in case. Just for closure.

“Can one of you please kill me?” Holden murmured from the couch, then he doubled over and vomited the night into morning. Well, afternoon.

Venturing into the sunlight was the last thing on my list of things to do today. First on the list was throwing up Haven’s pancakes. After that, I took some medicine, stomached two slices of bread, then lay on the shower floor until the water washed my headache away. I napped on the couch with my hair still in the towel, then ate almost a whole bag of tortilla chips when my stomach hurt, this time from loneliness. My stomach was over the company now. It was a vicious cycle, I supposed.

Now that the evil sun had set, I made my way over to Everett’s. It was cold out tonight, cruel winter in summertime. There was no way that didn’t mean something.

When I arrived, the smell of the ocean on my nose, I knocked on the door. The sound echoed to my toes. I shoved my hands in my hoodie pockets, trying to recite in my head the words I’d thought up on the way here. Words I shouldn’t say took the spotlight instead:

Just making sure you’re not dating a girl who probably makes you happy.

Are you a dumb drunk like me?

You’re never allowed to stop liking me!

The door opened before I was ready. Behind it was his dad, Hank—graying hair, but the same wind-spun curls.

He offered me a meek nod before yelling, “Ev! Quinn’s here!”

Everett was not far behind. He traded places with Hank and closed the door behind us. He was wearing a blue Chicago crewneck. I thought I might die. He positioned himself in the doorframe like he was scared to come any closer. The moths nearly ate him alive so close to the light. It made a more defined line of his jaw, brought out the secret gold tones in his black hair.

“Hey.” Everett cocked his head, furrowed his brows. “What’s up?”

The script wiped from my mind.

“Hi. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch,” I finally managed to say.

“You’re not a bitch,” he replied, but it sounded like he agreed a little.

“I’ve treated you really badly all these years. I’m sorry for that. You deserve to be happy with Kelsie.” The words left my mouth laced in syrup—sweet to the taste, difficult to swallow.

His face flipped through a book of emotions. Sadness, guilt, confusion…happiness? I couldn’t read it. He looked at the houses across the street, his porch swing creaking in the breeze. He stared at my sandals when the words finally came. “I haven’t told anyone yet, but we started dating a few months ago.”

It came out like the slow, quiet release of air from a balloon. One word rang in my ears, popped the balloon. Dating. I felt hungover all over again. I used all my strength not to cry or indicate just how fiercely my heart pounded in my chest.

We were quiet enough to hear the katydids running amok in the trees. I knew the cicada from the katydid from the locust. The katydid’s call was fitting for right now. Messy, loud, curious. Lonely, save for two people on a porch who took turns chirping. I knew that now, thanks to the boy in front of me who I could no longer call mine.

I never could call mine.

“Oh. That’s good.” I packed the words together like building a sandcastle in the rush of a wave. I pretended I wasn’t crushed. I was ready at the exact moment Everett wasn’t.

“You. Uh—you didn’t like me,” he said to the dying welcome mat.

I wanted to dig a hole in the sand so big I could get lost in it. That was where seashells hid anyway. I had to leave. Everett had a girlfriend. I couldn’t be the girl on his porch under the summer stars. I couldn’t tell him how much I’d always liked him. Not anymore. “Well, that’s all I wanted to say. Have a good night.”

His cheeks turned red in the porch glow. “You too.”

“Bye.” I waved at him and managed a smile. It felt a lot like goodbye for the summer.

I walked away from him, heard the door close behind me. I fought the urge to look back at it. I belonged on this side of the door. I belonged to the sand. My heart caught in my chest for every moment I’d had with Everett, now shattered. Caught at the unraveling of happiness and me.

When I made it onto the cold sand on the beach, my knees buckled. I cried into the crook of my arm, biting my lip so hard it bled. Every silent sob was an oxymoron to the sweet summer song of the cicadas and katydids and locusts.

If a girl cried on the beach and nobody heard her, did she even cry at all? A bloody lip, tears streaming, the coastal air—everything was salty at the beach.

Age 16, June 18

Hey, is this Quinn? It’s Charlie from the party the other night. You wanna go out sometime?

I threw my phone at the foot of my bed.

Slunk back into the covers.

The sun rose. Then fell.

Asleep.