“I don’t know. Maybe you’re smart—smarter than me, anyway. Because it’s pretty terrible, watching someone you care about drive away.”
“Being smart has nothing to do with it,” I admit, doubting my decision to cut off contact a day early. But, no—I’m surviving. I look at the cracked sidewalk, avoiding Ryan’s gaze. “My heart physically cannot handle another encounter with him.”
He slips his hand into mine. “I don’t want you to be sorry later.”
“I won’t. Yesterday at the beach… He knows how I feel.”
But does he? Did I tell him how deeply he’s affected me? Did I tell him I don’t want him to go? A thousand times I talked about how we’ll never work, but did I ever tell him how often I wish we could?
He’s leaving, he’s leaving, he’s leaving.
Oh God, this is agonizing.
Iris pokes her head out the door, jingling her keys. “Ready to head for the airport?”
Ryan juts his lower lip out in a pouty face so ridiculous I can’t help but smile. I throw my arms around him. “You’re going to have a blast at A&M, and you’re going to come back to stay with Iris the first chance you get. Xavier and I will come to Texas and kidnap you if you don’t.”
He laughs, weepy-sounding. “I’ll miss you, neighbor. Make some friends at that new school of yours, but don’t forget about me.”
“Never.”
He gives me one last hug. He draws back and removes his glasses, then uses his T-shirt to polish them. “Go inside,” he says with a valorous smile, “or I’ll never get out of here.”
I back slowly toward our gate. “Good thing we skipped the drawn-out goodbye.”
He smiles his golden Ryan smile. “See you soon, Elise.”
elise
My mom’s waiting in the foyer. She sees my face, my tears, and sweeps me up in a hug.
It’s been a long time since she’s held me this way, a long time since she’s shown affection that wasn’t motivated by panic or guilt. I hug her back, an instinctual reaction because she’sMom, but my head’s spinning.
She must sense my internal chaos, because she eases back and blots my face with the sleeve of her blouse. “You’ll see Ryan again.”
“I know,” I say, leaning in to her, trying to counteract the weightlessness I’m experiencing. After a summer characterized by bests and worsts, I’m back where I started—a loner in a rented cottage, and I have no idea what to do with myself.
She takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen. She sits me down at the table, where I lean over to stroke Bambi’s head. I watch Mom fill the coffeemaker with water and scoop ground beans into a paper filter. She finds the perfectly imperfect mug Nick made and spoons sugar into its bottom, humming as the kitchen fills with the aroma of coffee.
After a few minutes, she brings my mug and one for herself, then sits down with me. “Rough day.”
It’s not a question, but I nod.
“Things will improve. Summers are funny that way. They’re days unaccounted for, a time-out from real life. As soon as school starts, you’ll be yourself again.”
She’s trying to help, but she’s only succeeding in making me want to cry all over again. I don’t know who I am anymore—I’m not the girl who pulled a stranger out of the surf, who left him sitting alone at a picnic table. I’m not the girl who took him to cemeteries and kissed him in turrets. I’m not the girl who opened her heart because her soul told her she should.
That girl who used to make wishes and count on them to come true—where did she go?
My mom has no clue what happened to me this summer, during those days unaccounted for, and I so desperately want my brother. He was always better with emotions—better withlife. If he were alive, here in Cypress Beach today, he’d be beside me, acknowledging my feelings instead of attempting to wave them away.
“School’s not going to make me feel better,” I tell my mom.
She sips her coffee, then changes the subject. “I sent my manuscript to my editor today.”
I dig up the wherewithal to smile. “Congratulations.”
She puts down her mug, then straightens the pile of napkins in the center of the table. She’s focused on her task when she says, “I want us to spend more time together, Lissy. I want to come to the beach with you and Bambi. I want you to show me more of your photographs. I want to hear about the classes you’ll take this fall. And I’d like for us to go to Sacramento together, to see Nick. I’ve been thinking about what you said, how I haven’t been present, and you’re right. Since your brother… I haven’t been myself.”
