And yet, I couldn’t deny what had happened on the dance floor earlier. It wasn’t how Ambrose appeared when, in my panic, everything had gone wavery, that whooshing about to begin in my ears that would take me down. Nor was it the way he’d sat with me afterward, peppering the night with his prattle as I tried to fill my lungs with air. Instead, it was a beat in between, something small: when he took my hand and began to pull me out of the crowd, and I felt myself—my prickly, antisocial self—squeeze his fingers once, tightly. He squeezed back. Like a question and then an answer or call and response, without either of us saying a word.
I stayed at the party for another hour or so, for Jilly more than myself. I had pledged to make memories; I wanted to at least try to have them be good ones. So we danced, just the two of us, and toasted our futures with beer from a fresh keg when it arrived. I didn’t see Ambrose again, although I had to admit I did look for him every time I saw a flash of pink feathers in my peripheral vision.
At three thirty a.m., we piled into a rideshare with some guys Jilly knew and headed home with all the windows down, the night pouring in. I was dropped off second, and my house was dark. Once inside, I could see William asleep on the couch, where he often crashed when he and my mom stayed up talking late. His shoes were off, arms folded over his chest; he literally slept like a dead person. I picked the afghan off a nearby chair, shaking it out, then covered him. He didn’t budge.
I knew I should be tired too, as I’d been up close to twenty-four hours straight. But even under the covers in my cool room with the fan on, I wasn’t able to sleep. Finally, I picked up my phone from where it was charging on the nightstand and opened up one of my news apps. The story was right at the top, as I knew it would be, the featured picture that of a brick building, ambulances lined up beside it. I scrolled down past the bullet points of the story, then the introduction, looking for the only words that mattered to me.
ELIZABETH HAWKINS, 17.
DEMETRIOUS BARCLAY, 16.
SIERRA COPELAND, 17.
MARCUS SHEFFIELD, 15.
WILLA MARTIN, 16.
In the coming days, there would be pictures, remembrances, funerals. But tonight, there were just these names, no faces yet to match, the barest of bare facts. That was the way it was when it wasn’t personal, when your own heart didn’t lurch at the sight of that particular combination of letters. When they were just other people’s children, brothers, sisters, loved ones.
ETHAN CARUSO, 17, seven months earlier, was different. He had been mine.
CHAPTER
6
THE SAND was chilly on my feet as I stepped onto it that August night. With the music still audible from the patio, I hooked the straps of my shoes onto my thumb, then slid my phone into the pocket of my dress. Ahead, the beach was flat and dark, dotted with the lights from hotels and, farther along, houses. Thinking I’d only go a little way before I turned around, I started walking.
If he hadn’t been wearing that white shirt, bright almost to the point of glowing, I might not have even seen him. But he was. The boy who had asked me to dance, standing by the water’s edge. I couldn’t miss him. No, more than that. I can never picture him in anything else.
The real surprise, though, was that he saw me. When you come across someone on the beach at night, contemplating the ocean, you don’t exactly interrupt. It’s one of those unwritten rules. So I’d just walked behind him, keeping my head down, when I heard him say, “All done for the night?”
It’s funny, the little details you remember from the things you cannot forget. The sand cool on my feet. The weight of my shoes, shifting as they swung in my hand. And again, that shirt bright in contrast to my own black dress, so dark I wondered later how he’d even seen me at all.
“Yeah,” I answered. “I got off early, for once.”
“Is it early?” He looked back behind him, over the dunes, where the party was still going on, shadows of figures distantly visible moving above. “Man. It feels late to me.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to this, and felt like maybe I should keep moving, give him the space he’d clearly come out here to claim. But he was the one who had started talking.
“Weddings take a lot out of you,” I answered. “Or so I hear.”
“You hear? You should know. You go to tons, right?”
“I work at tons,” I corrected him. “It’s different from being a guest. You’re at a distance, an observer. Almost scientific.”
“Huh,” he said. He had a bit of a Northern accent, enough to notice. “I never thought about it that way. Then again, I mow yards for my job.”
“That’s not emotional?”
“Maybe for the grass.”
I laughed. “I never thought about it that way.”
“Oh, the world of landscaping is fascinating. Except that it’s totally not.”
We stood there for a second, both of us facing the crashing waves. Out on the horizon, I could see a fishing boat, its lights twinkling as the water shifted.
From behind us, there was a loud whoop, followed by cheering, and we both turned to look. In profile, I saw he had long lashes, a jut I hadn’t noticed to his chin. “Your family’s having fun,” I said.
“My dad’s family,” he corrected me immediately. O-kay, I thought. He gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s just . . . complicated.”
“Family usually is,” I said.
“Is yours?”
I considered this for a moment. “Not really.”
He laughed. “Oh, I get it. You are still on the clock. Counseling morose guests gone AWOL from the ceremony, just part of the job.”
“No, no,” I protested, holding up my hand. “I just mean . . . my family is only me and my mom. Well, and William. Not much to complicate.”
“William?”
“Her best friend, my godfather-basically-my-father-except-he’s-not,” I explained, using the term I’d come up with back in elementary school during Meet My Family week, when this issue first arose. “My real dad died when I was three.”
“Wow. Sorry.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t really know him, at least that I remember. So it’s not like I miss him or anything.”
He slid his hands in his pockets, leaning back on his heels. “My dad and I used to be super close. I was his little buddy, all that. Then, three years ago, he ditched my mom for his secretary. Such a stereotype. He couldn’t even be original about cheating.”
His voice was tinged with disgust, saying this. Now I said, “I’m sorry.”
A shrug. “Not your fault. And yet you manage to apologize anyway. He never has. Weird how that works, huh?”
“Definitely,” I said. “How’s your mom doing?”
“She’s fine,” he replied. “Remarried, too, by this point. She’s over it.”
“And you?”
Silence. Then, “Not quite there yet. Even though I did agree to take this road trip with him, to this wedding, and be a groomsman. It was supposed to be this big re-bonding experience.”
I dug a toe into the wet sand, wiggling it until it disappeared. “And how’s that going?”
“I’m out here, alone, in the dark. Or at least I was until you came along,” he replied. “You tell me.”
“Ethan!”
The voice was behind us, coming from the steps that led up to the hotel. When I turned, I saw a heavyset woman in a green metallic dress, her hair done in an updo, peering down at us. The boy beside me said, “Yeah?”
“You’re missing everything!” she called out. “Joe and Margy will be leaving soon!”