“I’ll be right there,” I said. A minute earlier, I would have complained, cajoled, done anything to stay on the phone with Lucy. Now, I was thrilled to have an excuse to end the conversation.
“And one more thing,” my dad said, looking around exaggeratedly. He turned in a half circle from side to side, Gelsey swinging around as he did so. “Have you seen your sister? I can’t seem to find her anywhere.” This caused Gelsey to go into shrieks of laughter, and he flipped her around, tossed her up in the air, and caught her before putting her back on the ground, now laughing along with her as he headed inside.
“I should go,” I said to Lucy, grateful for a reason to get off the phone.
“So you’ll talk to him?” Lucy persisted. “You’ll see if he likes me?” I swallowed hard and tried to see if I was brave enough to just tell her now that I liked Henry. But I was afraid she would accuse me of something she’d been saying since we were little—that I was copying her. That I just liked whatever and whoever she liked, did whatever she did. And as I thought about my wispy bangs, I realized that she wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Right,” I said, regretting the word even as I was saying it but somehow not able to take it back. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Definitely. Miss you!”
Lucy hung up, and I walked slowly inside to join my family around the coffee table. Warren was quoting from something called The Art of War, and my dad was going over strategy with Gelsey (they were on a team) while I just stared into space. My mind was spinning with justifications for what I’d done—or, more accurately, hadn’t done. She’d caught me off guard. I didn’t even know what might happen with me and Henry. Lucy might not even be back until the summer was over. There was no point in causing trouble or making anyone feel bad.
“Ha!” Warren said triumphantly, and I looked down at the board to see that, right under my nose, he had just swept away most of the armies that I thought were safe.
chapter twenty
AS I WOBBLED DOWN OUR STREET ON MY MOM’S OLD BIKE, TRYING to do everything I could not to topple over, I realized that riding a bike was, in fact, something you could forget how to do. In my defense, it was a bike I wasn’t used to, and nothing like my old mountain bike that was now Gelsey’s. It was a beach cruiser, and heavy, with a sloping crossbar and no handbrakes. Though I’d stuck a flashlight into the bike’s white metal basket as kind of a DIY bike light, once I made it to the street, it became obvious it wasn’t going to be necessary. It was an incredibly clear night, and the moon that had been shining through our downstairs windows was lighting up the road.
I made slow, wavering process down the street, the bike threatening to fall over every few seconds until I got the pedals going and straightened out a little. But by the time I turned off Dockside, I was feeling better about my progress. The streets were empty, and I had them to myself as I swerved across both lanes and made figure eights. The wind was lifting my hair, and I could feel it stream behind me as I coasted down the small hills. I pedaled faster, picking up speed, until I realized where I was—at the top of Devil’s Dip.