“Um, no. Haven’t gotten down to the beach very much.” I will away a blush.
Thankfully, Hana doesn’t notice, or if she does she doesn’t say anything. “I know. I was looking for you.”
“You were?” I shoot her a look from the corner of my eye.
She rolls her eyes. I’m glad to see her attitude is coming back online. “I mean, not actively. But I’ve been down there a few times, yeah. Haven’t seen you.”
“I’ve been working a lot,” I say. I don’t add, to avoid East End, actually.
“You still running?”
“No. Too hot.”
“Yeah, me too. Figured I’d give it a rest until fall.” We walk a few more paces in silence and then Hana squints at me, tilting her head. “So what else?”
Her question catches me off guard. “What do you mean, what else?”
“That is what I mean. I mean, what else? Come on, Lena. It’s the last summer, remember? The last summer of no responsibilities and all that good stuff. So what have you been doing? Where have you been?”
“I—nothing. I haven’t done anything.” This was the whole point—to stay out of trouble, to do as little as possible—but saying the words makes me feel kind of sad. The summer seems to be narrowing rapidly, shrinking down to a fine point before I’ve even had a chance to enjoy it. It’s already almost August. We’ll have another five weeks of this weather before the wind starts cutting in at night and the leaves get trimmed with edges of gold. “What about you?” I say. “Good summer so far?”
“The usual.” Hana shrugs. “I’ve been going to the beach a lot, like I said. Been babysitting for the Farrels some.”
“Really?” I wrinkle my nose. Hana’s always had a thing against children. She’s always saying they’re too sticky and clingy, like Jolly Ranchers that have been left too long in a hot pocket.
She makes a face. “Yeah, unfortunately. My parents decided I needed to ‘practice managing a household,’ or some crap like that. You know they’re actually making me work out a budget? Like figuring out how to spend sixty dollars a week is going to teach me about paying bills, or responsibility or something.”
“Why? It’s not like you’ll even have a budget.” I don’t mean to sound bitter but there it is, the difference in our futures cutting between us again.
We go silent after that. Hana looks away, squinting slightly against the sunlight. Maybe I’m just feeling depressed about how quickly the summer is cycling by, but memories start coming thick and fast, like a deck of cards being reshuffled in my head: Hana swinging open the bathroom door that first day in second grade, folding her arms as she blurted out, Is it because of your mom?; staying up past midnight one of the few times we were ever allowed to have a sleepover, giggling and imagining amazing and impossible people for our matches some day, like the president of the United States or the stars of our favorite movies; running side by side, legs beating in tandem on the pavement, like the rhythm of a single heartbeat; bodysurfing at the beach and buying triple cones of ice cream on the way home, arguing about whether vanilla or chocolate was better.
Best friends for more than ten years and in the end it all comes down to the edge of a scalpel, to the motion of a laser beam through the brain and a flashing surgical knife. All that history and its importance gets detached, floats away like a severed balloon. In two years—in two months—Hana and I will pass each other on the streets with nothing more than a nod—different people, different worlds, two stars revolving silently, separated by thousands of miles of dark space.
Segregation has it all wrong. We should be protected from the people who will leave us in the end, from all the people who will disappear or forget us.
Maybe Hana’s feeling nostalgic too, because she suddenly comes out with, “Remember all our plans for this summer? All the things we said we’d finally do?”
I don’t even skip a beat. “Break into the Spencer Prep pool—”
“—and go swimming in our underwear,” Hana finishes.
I crack a smile. “Hop the fence at Cherryhill Farms—”
“—and eat the maple syrup straight out of the barrels.”
“Run all the way from the Hill to the old airport.”
“Ride our bikes down Suicide Point.”
“Try and find that rope swing Sarah Miller told us about. The one above Fore River.”
“Sneak into the movie theater and see four movies back to back.”
“Finish off the Hobgoblin Sundae at Mae’s.” I’m fully smiling now and Hana is too. I start quoting, “‘A gargantuan sundae for enormous appetites only, featuring thirteen scoops, whipped cream, hot fudge—’”