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“You’re so fired,” Holden says.

“It’s midnight. Everyone’s sleeping. There aren’t even security cameras.” Mason fumbles with the waterpark keys. The chain-link fence doors creak open loudly in the tension of nightfall. Mason is way too relaxed to be breaking into his place of work with a crew of adventure-hungry friends.

We follow him into Pirate’s Bounty, relying only on the moon and the pool lights so we don’t draw attention to ourselves.

My eyes adjust in the pale moonlight. The usually bustling waterpark bleeds an eerie midnight gray. The usually haphazard chaises are in perfect lines Mason must have straightened out at the end of his shift earlier. The royal blue umbrellas have been wound down and tied with neat bows. The water in the kiddie pool is so still, the moon is a complete circle in its reflection. The racer slides have no line. The lonely mats wait for their victims at the bottom of the stairs. The only thing the same as its daytime state is the chlorine smell.

“This is a bad idea, I know it. I can feel it in my wrists.” Holden anxiously massages his wrist with his other hand.

“For the last time, fisherman wrists aren’t a thing,” Jorge says.

“Then why did I predict the hurricane wouldn’t hit us? And why do I know we’re all leaving here in a cop car tonight?”

“You don’t,” Haven says.

Mason slides open the concession stand and sits on the counter. “To be fair, he did predict he’d vomit up all those hot dogs last year.”

“We all predicted that,” Everett says, close enough to me that our shoulders battle for dominance.

“You whined about it enough,” I joke.

“You people have no sympathy, do you? First, you drag me out here for some sordid midnight affairs. Then, you make fun of me for the result of your prank? What’s next, you’re going to make me walk the plank?” Holden points to the pirate ship structure in the kiddie pool.

Mason rolls his eyes and puts a chip bag in Holden’s hand. He smirks and massages Holden’s shoulders. “Sordid midnight affairs? You wish.”

“We have sympathy. Just not for you.” Haven taps her brother’s nose.

Holden pops open the chips, his paranoia seemingly gone.

Haven doesn’t seem worried either as she grabs a large cup and fills it to the brim with cherry slushy. Her face glows red from the neon sign on the machine that churns ice and syrup all summer long. She’s pleased with herself, since this adventure was her idea.

I’m with Holden. I don’t want the night to end with red and blue flashing lights, but Everett pinky promised me it would be fine. Plus, it’s better to busy myself at night. The demons pull harder when night falls. They’re strong enough when I’m alone, but unrelenting when it’s dark. Night demons project what-ifs on the ceiling like glow-in-the-dark stars, ringing shrill telephones in my head when I shut my eyes.

“This place is so cool at night,” Everett says, eyeing the concessions.

There’s a lot to choose from: potato chips and candy bars shelved on the wall, ice cream asleep behind a sliding glass door, lollipops on a never-ending carousel ride. The bags of cotton candy have lost their fluff, but the popcorn bags are about to burst at the seams.

Mason grabs a bag of cheese puffs. “You know what’s even cooler? Swimming at night.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Haven runs over to the poolside.

We follow her to the perfect lines of chaises. I ruin it and slide one to the edge of the pool, scratching it against the gritty concrete.

“Hey, watch it!” Mason says, then winks so I know he’s joking.

Jorge didn’t wear a shirt, so he’s the first to jump in. His splash refracts the pool lights into orange fireworks.

Mason and Holden jump in at the same time as Haven works out another slushy sip.

Everett unties his Converses. He looks at me and smiles meekly in the moonlight while he takes his shirt off. His chest cuts into a bed of muscle sculpted by the shadows. My eyes wander to places I know they shouldn’t, just like they did last summer. It’s different now, so I look to the constellations instead, pinching my bottom lip between my teeth.

He cannonballs into the pool. It splashes on my knees. I shiver. That’s how water used to feel; it used to kiss the skin I wanted to crawl out of, making me want to stay instead and be kissed by the water forever. I don’t let water kiss me anymore, but I sit by the side of the pool. I listen to my best friends swimming, laughing, and revenge-splashing each other. I throw the cheese puffs Mason brought over into Holden’s mouth. We miss almost every one. Everett fishes them out with a grimace.

Haven swims to the edge where she left her slushy. She swallows a sip, light reflecting on her face from the water. “You having fun?”

“Of course.” I smile.

I’m not lying, but it’s just harder these days to be part of the world happening around me. There is a bit of truth to my words, though; doing something dumb and teenage like this is exactly what I need.

Haven scoops her hair into a bun. Her curly baby hairs pirouette onto her forehead—fitting, since she’s the only person I know who dances through life with the careless whimsy of wispy hair. She searches for rainbows in storm clouds, calls warts “frog kisses,” and can’t go a day without eating a cherry popsicle. She sees the world in yellow.

“I’m glad.” She gives me her cheese-puffiest smile and kisses the air with a loud smooch.

I pretend to catch it, popping it in my mouth like a big fat cherry. That always makes Haven laugh.

She swims back to play chicken. They let me be the judge and I fudge the results in Everett’s favor. I don’t think they notice. Holden’s a cheater anyway. I finish the cheese puffs and muster a beat of courage. I slip out of my sandals, plant myself at the edge of the pool, and cross my legs just before the edge of the water.

Everett swims up. He crosses his arms on the concrete and leans his face on them. He smiles at me as if to ponder the vastness of the universe. I wonder a similar thing when I look into his eyes: Just how far does infinity go?

“I see you’re making your way in,” he says definitively.

“My way ends right here.” My cheeks warm. The edges around my chest are malleable putty, and he could do whatever he wants with it just by existing.

“Let’s go somewhere drier, then.”

I nod. I’m trying to be better at trust.

He hoists himself from the pool. Water slides off his body and darkens the concrete in water droplet shapes. He dries off and wrestles his shirt back on.

His head pops out of his shirt collar. “Race you to the slides!”

Before I have a moment to process, he takes off running. By the time I untwist myself from the edge of the pool, he’s already started up the stairs. I follow, the stairs creaking all the way to the top.

“You win.” I hunch over, panting, my hands on my knees.

He smirks. “It wasn’t a race.”

I shove his shoulder. “Damn you.”

Everett sits down on the wooden platform. I join him next to the dark, gaping mouth of one of the slides. It’s eerily quiet up here with the water off. We lean back on the wooden railing. Down at the pool, we can see Holden and Mason playing Marco Polo. Jorge steals a sip of Haven’s slushy and she tickles it out of his hands.

Before us stretches the navy-blue panorama of the Atlantic Ocean and Piper Island. Beach house windows, streetlights, and neon restaurant signs pepper the horizon. The pier itself has a beating heart, awake now with late night fishermen. Infinitesimal lives spill from tail lights, stoplights, and golden upstairs windows.

What would it be like to jump inside and live a different life?

The moonlight paints a white line from the horizon to the sand, breaking with the roaring waves in its path. Gray clouds muck up the constellations like a bruised banana, but I still find the Dippers, then Scorpio and Sagittarius. I find the unnamed cluster that resembles a pool of fish, then have to look away from the sky.

From here, the horizon looks like it did last summer on the Ferris wheel. Moonlight has always reminded me of Everett. Ferris wheel creaks, string lights, arcade pings, sparkling vignettes of the Boardwalk at night. It makes me want to do something stupid.

Something brave. Something like last summer.

I weave my fingers between Everett’s and hold on tight.

He squeezes back.

My heart thrums in tune with the waves, from my thumb into his hand. Shame joins the symphony of emotions. I’m an idiot—too broken to fall in love, but pieced together just enough to send mixed signals. Regret takes center stage, but I don’t want to let him go, so I brace against the mental image of my heart melting down the slide and into the pool.

We’re more than two people hanging out on a closed water slide under the stars.

We’re more than two people who ride Ferris wheels and sing karaoke.

Or, we could have been, if it weren’t for me.

Everett shifts beside me. His eyebrows furrow when he looks from our hands to my face. “Are you happy right now?” he asks, so close that phantom goosebumps coast across my neck.

“Breaking into a waterpark at midnight is surprisingly fun.”

“It almost makes ruining my college admission and any semblance of a career worth it.”

I laugh. “Come on, you’re supposed to be the adventurous one.”

“I am.” He pulls two lollipops from the concession stand out of his pocket. “That’s why I grabbed these. Don’t worry, I put enough cash on the counter for all of our snacks.”

“So you’re not the adventurous one,” I joke.

“Guilty. We couldn’t be trespassers and crooks.”

“So, not guilty either.”

“Shut up.” He shakes his head with a chuckle and nudges my shoulder.

“Thank you for being cautiously adventurous. Some worker will be very confused tomorrow.” I can’t help another laugh from escaping as I unwrap my lollipop. “To cotton candy!” I say, then whisper, pointing at his lollipop, “And pi?a colada.”

“Did you just say what I think you did?” Everett laughs.

“Pi?a colada,” I say again like a bad word. “I give up, you finally win. I guess it can also be the taste of summer.”

Our summers together have only ever tasted like indecision and disappointment, but right now, we sit under the moonlight, licking the sweet taste of summer off our lollipops, hypothesizing about the lives of the people tucked into the sleepy homes around us.

Our hands are unclasped. We sit only as close as friends do.

Because that’s what we are. Friends. Even though we were once almost more, when summertime tasted like French fries and butterflies and the delusion that nothing bad could ever happen.

From behind a house I’m currently deciding a backstory for, sirens begin to rip across the night. Red and blue lights whiz past all the other lives on the island.

“Run!” I hop up to clamber down the stairs, shouting to the pool. “There’s cops!”

Everett runs behind me, the creaks even louder than the sirens. Everyone else is still peeling themselves from the pool when Everett and I zoom by. We grab whatever we can and run, leaving shoes, clothes, wrappers, and other incriminating evidence behind.

“Run for your lives!” I shout.

I ignore the pain of running barefoot over fallen palms and seashell shards. I check behind my shoulder for glimpses of the flashing lights I don’t want to find. The rush makes me stick my arms out and scream like I used to on the causeway, like I’m on a rollercoaster headed straight for open water, or maybe even the moon beyond that.

We run in and out of the white UFO beams of streetlights. I giggle to myself, watching our flickering shadows grow and shrink with each beam. I lead the pack, stealing glances at my friends’ faces, both stunned and excited.

Everett watches his future flash before his eyes.

Haven tries not to spill her slushy.

Jorge battles with a pile of Haven’s clothes.

Holden and Mason hold hands.

We’re wild teens, howling at the moon in our bathing suits.

I feel it. I hear it. Screams of joy all around.

This is what this summer is all about.

We run past a few houses, across Ocean Drive, and through the pampas grass between the dunes. Our path opens up to the expanse of the beach, which isn’t as stark in the thick of it. Still, this side of the dunes is an invisibility cloak. We trudge away from the public beach access and stop to recover where the sand flattens out.

“Holy shit,” Holden says, panting. “What did I tell you guys?”

Haven gasps. “I left my new sandals!”

“I think I dropped your cover up,” Jorge confesses.

Mason groans. “I’m so fired.”

“I told you!” Holden exclaims.

Stricken with an attack of laughter, I double over with my hands on my knees. I laugh and pant into the sand, finally managing to say, “I can’t believe that just happened.”

Everett laughs beside me, then everyone joins in, including Mason, who is most definitely fired.

This is the first time I’ve been on the sand this summer, my first time hearing the waves grumble from so close to their bite. This reunion isn’t like I imagined it on the drive here—the smell of hot piss and decaying fish, the waves foaming at the mouth to lure in a new victim.

No, it’s not like that. The waves still whoosh. The sharp air still pinches my nose. The sand is still frustratingly sticky, but it welcomes me like an old friend.

Holden and Mason race to the water’s edge in the darkness, Jorge not far behind them. All three of them blindly trust that only flat sand and shallow waves lie before them. They make contact with the water, exclaim about the cold, splash each other, and exclaim some more.

A deep yearning glows within me. What would the ocean feel like right now? I consider testing it out, breaking the rules for just a slice of the past, but I stay on this stretch of sand. I flick on my phone flashlight to hunt for ghost crabs, Everett and Haven following behind me. The ghost crabs are almost invisible, their shells camouflaged against the sand, but their movements give them away. Their bulbous, black eyes widen. They scurry from the flashlight like guilty teens running from the cops.

I giggle to myself, armed with a secret: The cop car veered away from the waterpark before I even made it down the stairs.

Sometimes it’s not trouble you need to outrun.

Age 11, June 12

I kept last summer’s pinky promise.

I didn’t know what magic the Rivera-Sanchezes wielded, but somehow they knocked at the exact moment I sat down with my orange juice after running myself thirsty from unpacking. When I opened the door, Haven and Holden smiled in the shade of Blair’s front porch. I jumped out of my skin to pull them into a hug. I headed out to spend the day with them, but I knew Blair would want me back before dark.

Saray was right; it did feel like only yesterday that I had hugged them both goodbye. Fifth grade was the blur I hoped it would be. The past year made the twins’ features sharper, but it was the kind of growing only noticeable since we had done it apart. Haven’s hair was longer and she stopped braiding it at night so it could curl how it wanted to. Holden had gone through some indecisive haircuts and his hair had settled on something akin to a seagull’s nest. Their faces battled zits just like mine, but theirs were stronger fighters.

I biked next to Haven while Holden skateboarded. When I’d arrived that morning, Blair had surprised me with a sky-blue beach cruiser and brand new books in the basket. Along the sidewalk beside Main Street, we biked past a seafood restaurant named Hammerhead’s, the shopping center, Beachy Keen, and Safari Adventure Mini Golf.

The water tower grew as we approached the park tucked between palm trees and pines. On top of a mound of sand in the distance was a wooden castle playground. It boasted swinging bridges, a never-ending wooden railing, and pointy towers fit to throw Rapunzel’s hair down.

The sand was still wet from morning dew so it was easier to walk on. A swing set squeaked in the distant wind.

Holden had already bounded up the stairs for the highest tier of the castle. He was talking to two boys that looked our age.

“That’s Mason and Jorge,” Haven said, leading me up the stairs. “We grew up with Jorge but Mason just moved here during the school year. Jorge’s the cute one. His parents own that restaurant we passed, Hammerhead’s. Their hushpuppies are to die for. You like hushpuppies?”

“Never had them before.”

“Okay, we have to take you there. And the candy store and Sunset Scoop and the bookstore. Oh, and mine and Holden’s secret spot in the pines by the bike trail. And we can’t forget to get another shell for your necklace.” She pointed to the necklace still around my neck.

“I can’t wait.” I smiled at the thought of this summer. It sounded even better than the last. I loved the way Haven talked like she was too eager to finish one word before the next spilled out like melted honey.

I held tight to the shell, which felt like holding tighter to the memories. Part of last summer’s pinky promise was wearing the coquina necklace to remember Piper Island. I kept that promise, especially when I needed a memory from this stretch of sky. I did have to take the necklace off in bed, but I never forgot to snap it back around my neck each morning.

“Mason’s the blonde. He lives on the sound in this huge mansion. He and Jorge are best friends, but we’re part of the group too.”

I wondered if this meant one day I could be a part of this group.

When we got close enough for introductions, I waved and listened to Haven’s summary of me: my annual visits to Piper Island from Raleigh, Blair’s little blue house on Plover Street, and baby Hadley. She excitedly told them of my obsession with cotton candy ice cream and its shade of blue.

We smiled and waved at each other slowly. I learned that Jorge had been skateboarding since he was in diapers and that Mason’s favorite ice cream flavor was pistachio, which the group loved to tease him about.

Once introductions were over, Holden started a game of hide and seek. While he counted down from thirty, I ran silently through the aisles, across bridges, down ramps to different levels. I scanned the shadows for a good enough clump to hide in. Holden was getting dangerously close to zero so I darted into a room on the sand. It was just big enough to crawl in, so I angled my head to fit. The sand was damp and cold away from the rising sun, sharp against my bare thighs.

Holden was searching, so I pulled my legs closer to my chest, gripping tightly and breathing short, hitched breath on my knees.

I thought maybe I was the only person who’d ever been in here, but there was writing on the walls. It was jagged over the existing wood grain, like it was written over the edge of another sheet of paper. The wooden slats told stories in bleeding marker and pencil scratches.

Some were bad words people at school said when the teachers weren’t around. Some I heard Mom say to Dad when she thought I wasn’t around. Most of them were written by couples, hearts drawn around their names, dates faded to match their age, even notes that felt too personal for a public hide and seek spot on an island.

Pedro + Kendall; D + L; Holly + Charlie; Mac loves Milana; T I looked over and saw them cheering for me through the rain falling in sheets.

Because this was Piper Island, we lay on the sidewalk and let the rain melt us into one unit of friends old and new. I couldn’t make out the sky from the rest of the world, everything bright white. I opened my mouth for the rain droplets and attempted to keep my eyes open, but trying made me laugh, breathless from the cold air and rain. If it weren’t for my new friends laughing and yelling sweet nothings into the void, I wouldn’t have been so keen on being soaking wet. Instead, I would have thought about one of my mom’s tales of snotty noses after cold rain. Could my friends change other parts of me, too?

Before we headed home, I ran to the castle one last time through thick ribbons of water. The sand there was dark brown and flattened from the rain.

I found relief in my first hide and seek room. I wiped the sky’s happy tears from my eyes and found a rock in the sand. The drier sand in there stuck to my skin like bandages.

On a space mostly untouched by names, I carved my own name. I added a plus sign, then scratched out an empty line below it. I wrapped it all in a heart, jagged in a war against the wood grain.

I left it open for the name of a boy who would one day love me.

I hoped once he wrote it, it would never fade.