Nantucket Blue

Forty-eight





ZACK WALKED NEXT TO ME with his arms folded over his chest. I told him the whole story of how I’d liked Jay since the eighth grade, and how when you go to an all-girls’ school you do a lot more imagining of boys than getting to know them. I told him that in one way I was sorry that I’d kissed Jay, but that it also helped me realize that my feelings for him were made up and the ones I had for Zack were real. In a weird way, I explained, the whole thing with Jay was what let me fully open up to Zack.

“But it wasn’t just the kiss. He asked you out and you said yes,” Zack said when we reached the Steps Beach rock. We kicked off our shoes and left them by the twisty wooden fence.

“It was what I had wanted for so long,” I said, following him down the steep staircase to the beach. “It was like I thought I had to. But as soon as I saw you, it was so clear how wrong I was. Does that make any sense to you? Can you understand that?”

“I don’t know,” he said when we reached the sand. I wanted him to take my hand, but he didn’t. He kept walking.

“I wish you would’ve answered my calls,” I said. “I wish you’d called me back. Or at least texted me.” I stopped walking. I didn’t want to chase after him. It took him a few paces to notice. When he did, he faced the water. “We had sex, Zack, and you didn’t call me back. It was my first time and you didn’t call me back. I don’t even know how you felt about it. I mean, I don’t even know if it was any different with me.” I tried to gauge his expression, but he gave me nothing.

“I didn’t know what to say,” he said, and bent down to pick up a stone. “Jules showed me all those notes you’d written about Jay, and said you had this whole plan about getting some other guy to like you first so that Jay would notice you.” He shook his head, skipped the stone. “That’s messed up.”

“I wrote that in, like, March.” I walked over to him, my heels sinking into the cool, soft sand. “You could’ve at least given me a chance. Did you really think I was using you? Did it feel like I was using you?”

“No”—he looked into my eyes and sighed—“it didn’t.”

“So, can you accept my apology?” It felt like we were staring at each other for hours, but it was probably less than a minute.

“Yes,” he said. Finally, he wrapped his arms around me. I breathed in his T-shirt; I inhaled his Zackness.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve called.” I stood on my tiptoes and rubbed his back, but when I looked up at him, he turned his face away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Cricket. You helped me forget about my mom. But in the past few days…” He shut his eyes. He held his breath. “I’ve started to think about everything I’ve lost.” I pulled him closer. He was shaking. “I miss her. I miss my mom.”

“Me too.” I held him tighter. We stood holding each other for a long time. When his breathing seemed more even, I loosened my grip and looked up at him.

“Want to go swimming?” I asked.

“If we go swimming, I’m going to want you, and I just… Not right now. I know it’s crazy.” He pushed my hair behind my ear and stared at me.

“Do you want to just sit here?” I asked, trying not to let the rejection sting.

“Yeah,” he said. We sat. He flopped back in the sand. A horn sounded.

“Last ferry of the night,” I said.

“People are heading home. Summer’s over.”

I didn’t want the summer to be over. I didn’t want Nantucket to be over. I was going to have to face my senior year without my best friend, without Nina, without the Claytons’ house to run to when I couldn’t deal with my own.

I was going to have to apply to college. This time next year, I’d be heading in a completely new direction.

I lay back next to Zack because, more than anything, I didn’t want this to be over. I wanted to kiss him, but for the first time since we’d started this whole thing, I was unsure of what to say or do. His eyes were shut, and he was wincing against an invisible blow. For a moment I could feel him slipping away, into a heartbreak that was both enormous and private.

I put my hand on my chest. Was my heart breaking, too? I didn’t know. I missed something, longed for something I couldn’t quite name. I got up and walked into the surf up to my ankles. I stood still and quiet in the ocean mist. The water was warm, but a deep chill passed through me. Was it ghost girl making contact? Was it Nina trying to tell me something? Was it the part of me that she’d promised would stay on Nantucket leaving my body and stepping into the night air?

“It was different,” he said. I turned, surprised to see Zack standing so close. I hadn’t heard him approach.

“Good different?” I asked.

“Good different,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, smiling. “Well, that’s good. Especially since, you know, the other girl was French and everything. Historically speaking, I think the French are the best secret lovers.”

“Well, she had nothing on you. With you, I was like, okay, this is it.” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. There were those flutters. The sparking. The humming. This was not a broken heart. It was alive and jumping. I thought he was crying for a second, but when he pulled me closer I realized that he was actually laughing.

“What?” I asked. “What’s funny?”

“I don’t know,” he said, facing me and brushing the hair out of my eyes. “A few minutes ago I was going to break up with you.”

“Why?”

“I thought I needed to in order to, I don’t know, deal with everything.”

“I don’t want to break up,” I said. I had come this far. I had marched to Fitzy’s house despite being told no one wanted me there. I had stood up to Jules. I wasn’t about to hide my feelings now. “Do you?”

“No,” he said. “I’m just so confused.”

“What would the worry doctor say?” I asked.

He thought about it for a minute. Then he took a deep breath and said, “She’d say, Zack, life is messy.” He was speaking in a British accent.

“She’s British?” I asked.

“Australian,” he said, but continued in the British accent. “She’d say, Life is full of conflict and complexity. The loss of your mother is going to be very painful, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to go through it. And it will hurt.”

“Of course.” I nodded. A twist of pain.

“But I’m also hearing that you’re in love,” he continued. “And love is a rare and wonderful thing. There is nothing in the world that feels better.” He took my hands and dropped the accent. “So maybe I’ll just feel both at the same time.”

“I want to be your girlfriend, not just your secret lover.” I had never had a real boyfriend before.

“Me too,” he said. “I want that, too.”

And then we kissed. Our kissing was urgent and sweet. It was mixed with laughter. We stumbled backward until we were up to our knees in the ocean, until the bottom of my shorts were wet. When we finally stopped kissing, I looked up at the sky. There were so many stars out there. Packs of them in swirling, looping galaxies. You can’t see stars like this in a city, not like you can out here on a rock in the middle of the ocean.

Feelings find each other, I thought. Let one in and the others follow. At that moment it seemed that all our feelings were shimmering above us, around us, in a new and stunning constellation.





Acknowledgments





THANK YOU to my wonderful agent and friend, the incomparable Sara Crowe. I love being on this journey with you and am very lucky to have you on my side. I am so grateful to my editor, the excellent Emily Meehan, for believing in this book and challenging me to make it better. It’s an honor to work with you. A special thanks goes to Elizabeth Holcomb for her careful copyediting, and the entire team at Disney-Hyperion for their hard work and enthusiasm.

Thank you to Kayla Cagan and Vanessa Napolitano for their friendship, wisdom, and guidance as, chapter by chapter, they helped this story grow from an idea into a manuscript; and to Elena Evangelo and Brandy Colbert for their assistance with revisions.

I am indebted to the people who educated me about beautiful Nantucket, especially Eileen McGrath. Not only does she know everything about the island, a half hour in her company is a tonic for the soul. Thank you to the Island Reef Guest House for providing an affordable place to stay on Nantucket while I researched, and to Bob Crowe for his hospitality and generosity. Thanks to Ethan Rutherford for our many conversations about writing and publishing, Richard Rushfield for his insight into journalism, and Melissa Pennacchia Nash for sharing her knowledge of lacrosse.

Thank you to my family: my mom, my dad, Gifford, Maryhope, Elizabeth, and Meredith. I also thank my aunt, Mimi Freeman, for her faith in me from the start. Thank you to all the teachers and friends who have supported my writing over the years, especially Hettie Jones, Alison Singh Gee, Gay Cima, Robert Florin, Jim Hines, Maria Collins, Larkin Hatchett Peters, Paola Fantini, Alice Johnson Boher, Kate Snow, Gina Hirsch, Lisa Bastoni Boucher, Patty Smith, and, of course, Izzy Smith Haring.

And to my husband, my sweetheart, Jonathan Davis. I value your brilliance, humor, and love beyond words. Thank you for everything.