I crane my neck to see Emma frowning as she looks up at the weather vane. I follow her gaze, seeing the arrow pointing straight behind us.
Emma turns toward the helm as Gigi gets to her feet.
“Everyone stay where they are,” Gigi says. “I’m going to grab a quick video pan of all of us.”
“Hey, Adam?” Emma calls, pointing toward the large sail. “We’re heading straight downwind, and the mainsail’s luffing.”
Gigi shrieks as a gust of wind comes over the side of the boat. I spin to see her sun hat fly off. She twists and lurches forward, reaching for her hat blowing toward the bow.
“Gigi, watch out!” Emma screams as Gigi steps onto the elevated roof of the saloon while her hat lifts higher into the air.
And that’s when I see it. The boom swings over our heads from the force of the wind, straight toward Gigi. Gigi turns to the sound of Emma’s scream as the boom smacks her in the temple.
I gasp as Gigi stumbles backward, falling off the raised platform onto the deck. Her selfie stick clamors to the deck beside her.
“Gigi, don’t!” Emma cries.
I grip Beth’s arm as we watch Gigi roll to grab her phone before it slips over the edge.
The boat turns violently, heeling toward the ocean on our side. Keeping hold of the lifeline, Emma reaches for Gigi with her other hand.
“Gigi!” Adam yells, rushing toward her in my periphery.
But he’s too late. Gigi rolls under the lifeline—into the water—as the bow lifts over a large swell.
Chapter Ten
October 2004
The night of Emma’s “accident,” Beth drove me home to Courtney’s house. I’d planned on telling the truth after Beth and I had visited Emma in the hospital. But after seeing the pain Emma was in and the strained look on her mom’s face, which mirrored the look my own mom so often wore, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. Her mom had raised Emma on her own, just like my mom had raised my older sister and me. Emma probably knew as well as I did how much harder this injury would make life at home, what with her mom juggling a job and raising Emma alone. And even if I did convince Emma that Courtney was to blame, it wouldn’t be for long. Courtney would use that photo she took to ensure I went down for what she’d done. Unless I could convince Courtney to do the right thing.
After hearing Courtney come home from the football game, I went to her room. She was reclining against her cushioned headboard, writing in her diary when I reached her half-open doorway.
“Hey,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
“Oh. Hey, Palmer.” She set down the leather-bound diary open on the bed beside her. “Sure, what’s up?” Her sweet, innocent smile made my stomach twist. She had to know what I needed to talk to her about. Did she really have no remorse over Emma lying in a hospital bed because of what we’d done?
“Emma had to have surgery on her broken ankle. It’s bad, Courtney. She’s still in the hospital.” I sighed, collapsing on the end of Courtney’s four-poster bed. “I feel horrible.” My gaze dropped to my hands in my lap. “We have to come clean about the dish soap. We can’t let Bryson and Jake get blamed for that.”
“Nothing is going to happen to them.”
I turned to face her. “How can you say that?”
Courtney flicked her eyes toward the ceiling as if I were the dumbest person in the world. “Because they’reguys.” She tossed her pen onto her diary that lay open on the bed between us.
I looked down at the lined pages and gasped. I slid the diary closer to me. “Courtney.”
She had drawn a picture of me pouring dish soap on the locker room floor. Courtney stood beside me, covering her mouth. Emma was on the floor, her face contorted in pain with her ankle bent in a way that wasn’t right. Courtney had always been a good artist, but if it weren’t already clear enough who the people were, she’d written our names above our heads.
I looked up and gaped at her. “Why would you draw this?”
“That’s private.” Courtney snatched the diary off the bed and snapped it shut before setting it inside her nightstand drawer.
“What if someone finds it?”
She shrugged. “Relax. They won’t.”
I felt my eyes narrow. “You drewmesquirting the soap. You were the one who did it.”
