He glanced up, a look of surprise flitting across his face. Then he broke into a sheepish grin. “Honestly . . . kind of great. I mean, I never wanted to hurt her, but it feels like I’ve been carrying this huge weight around.”
Mackenzie picked a piece of flaking paint off the metal railing. It felt like there was a big pink elephant sitting between them on the boat that neither of them was talking about. Mac was scared to ask the question, but she’d made this mistake before. It was what had happened the last time she had a chance with Blake. She’d pined away, staring after him in the hallways, never saying how she really felt. This was her chance. She took a deep breath.
“What does that mean for us?” Her voice almost disappeared in the wind, but she forced herself to meet his eyes.
He gazed steadily down at her. “I think that’s up to you. I think you already know I’m kind of crazy about you.”
For a split second, she thought about Claire. It was easy to picture her face, shocked and hurt and tear-streaked. But it was easy, too, to remember her smug expression when she’d shown up holding hands with Blake at the spring concert last year.
Before she could change her mind, Mackenzie leaned toward him, pressing her lips to his. The wind whipped around them, the sea spray cold on their cheeks. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close.
Her heart trilled in her chest. In that moment, she couldn’t have said which was better: finally getting the boy—or beating Claire to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AT 7 AM ON WEDNESDAY, Julie woke up to birdsongs outside her window. She blinked sleepily in the sunlight filtering in through her curtains, rolling over to see if Parker was awake yet.
Only Parker was gone. Her bed had been neatly made, the pillow fluffed, and her things were nowhere to be seen. She reached across to the nightstand for her iPhone and pulled up Parker’s name. Where are you? she texted. Call me.
Julie felt a pull in her chest. Where did she go? Lately, Parker was spending more and more time by herself, letting Julie in less and less. Julie wanted to think that Parker’s therapy with Elliot was working, but after picking Parker up from the cemetery on Saturday, she wasn’t so sure. Parker had seemed . . . unhinged.
Half an hour later, Julie finished wading through the wreck in the hall, trying to clean out the litter box, when the doorbell rang. Julie breathed a sigh of relief. Parker must have forgotten her key again.
She pulled her bathrobe around her shoulders and pushed her way through the hallway, trying to quell the anxiety she always felt at the sight of the towering boxes stacked against either wall. Mewling cats wove around her feet and watched from the heights of garbage everywhere. One fat, crusty-eyed tabby snored wheezily from where it’d nestled in an upturned sun hat.
“Julie! Who’s at the door?” Her mother’s voice was shrill and frightened from her bedroom.
“I’ve got it,” Julie called back, pulling the door open quickly. Then her jaw dropped.
It was Ashley.
“Julie!” Ashley crowed loudly. She had that same strange, pointed smile on her face from when she’d tried to crash Julie’s date. “How are you?”
Julie’s heart thudded. Ashley had seen the overabundance of lawn decor in the yard. The stacks of car tires and extra porch furniture. The Christmas decorations that were still up from two years ago. A cat wandered across the grass, pausing to pee. And two stacks of boxes sat by the garage, only because the garage was too chock-full for them to fit inside. They were all mushy and almost moldy from sitting out in the rain.
“H-how did you know where I lived?” Julie blurted.
Ashley cocked her head. “Why? Is it a secret?”
Of course it’s a secret! a voice in Julie’s head shouted. She never put her real address for the school manual. She even received her magazine subscriptions and college brochures at a PO box. Could Ashley have followed her circuitous route home? She’d always taken extra turns just in case someone from school was behind her.
Ashley waved her hand around the house, and then pointed inside, that saccharine smile still on her face. “I had a really long chat with your mom the other day,” she said sweetly. “She told me about all her cats. And she told me about California.”
Julie’s mouth dropped open. “Y-you spoke to my mom?” she said weakly. Her head was spinning. She’d been here before? Jesus, her mom had let Ashley inside? She’d told her about how they’d been evicted?