“You seemed mad,” Brooks said, a little louder. Eureka’s bedroom door was open—Dad’s rule when she had guests—and Brooks knew as well as Eureka what volume they could speak at to avoid being heard downstairs. “Like you thought the wave was my fault.”
He reclined between the wooden posters of her grandparents’ old bed. His eyes were the same color as the chestnut-colored throw draped over her white bedspread. He looked like he was up for anything—a velvet-rope party, a cross-country drive, a swim in cold darkness to the edge of the universe.
Eureka was exhausted, as if she’d been the one devoured and spat out by a wave.
“Of course it wasn’t your fault.” She stared into her mug. She wasn’t sure if she’d been mad at Brooks. If she had been, she didn’t know why. There was a space between them that wasn’t usually there.
“Then what is it?” he asked.
She shrugged. She missed her mother.
“Diana.” Brooks said the name as if he were putting the two events together for the first time. Even the best boys could be clueless. “Of course. I should have realized. You’re so brave, Eureka. How do you handle it?”
“I don’t handle it, that’s how.”
“Come here.”
When she looked up, he was patting the bed. Brooks was trying to understand, but he couldn’t, not really. It made her sad to see him try. She shook her head.
Rain pelted the windows, giving them zebra stripes. Rhoda’s favorite meteorologist, Cokie Faucheux, had predicted sun the whole weekend, which was the only thing that seemed right—Eureka was content to disagree with Rhoda.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Brooks rise from the bed and walk to her. He extended his arms in a hug. “I know it’s hard for you to open up. You thought that wave today was going to—”
“Don’t say it.”
“I’m still here, Eureka. I’m not going anywhere.”
Brooks took her hands and pulled her to him. She let him hug her. His skin was warm, his body taut and strong. She laid her head against his collarbone and closed her eyes. She hadn’t been embraced in a long time. It felt wonderful, but something nagged at her. She had to ask.
When she stepped away, Brooks held her hand for a moment before he let go.
“The way you acted when you stood up after the wave …,” she said. “You laughed. I was surprised.”
Brooks scratched his chin. “Imagine coming to, coughing up a lung, and seeing twenty strangers looking down at you—one of whom is a dude getting ready to give you mouth-to-mouth. What choice did I have but to play it off?”
“We were worried about you.”
“I knew I was fine,” Brooks said, “but I must have been the only one who knew it. I saw how scared you were. I didn’t want you to think I was …”
“What?”
“Weak.”
Eureka shook her head. “Impossible. You’re Powder Keg.”
He grinned and tousled her hair, which led to a brief wrestling match. She ducked under his arm to get away, grabbed his T-shirt as he reached around his back to pick her up. Soon she had him in a headlock, backed up against her dresser, but then, in one quick move, he’d tossed her backward onto her bed. She flopped against the pillow, laughing, like she’d done at the end of a thousand other matches with Brooks. But he wasn’t laughing. His face was flushed and he stood stiffly at the foot of the bed, looking down at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Brooks looked away and the fire in his eyes seemed to dwindle. “What do you say you show me what Diana gave you? The book, that … wonder rock?”
“Thunderstone.” Eureka slid off the bed and sat at her desk, which she’d had since she was a kid. Its drawers were so full of keepsakes there was no room for homework or books or college applications, so she’d stacked those in piles she’d promised Rhoda she would organize. But what annoyed Rhoda delighted Eureka, so the piles had grown to precarious heights.