“Okay, fine, your bi-curiosity notwithstanding, you’re up to something,” Sloane said to her mother.
“Super shady,” Adele said.
Nina blew a silver strand of hair off her forehead. Her cheeks were rosy from the stove’s heat, her eyes bright behind her tortoiseshell glasses. “You’re both ridiculous.”
“Are we?” Adele said. “I’m still trying to decide if my fifty-four-year-old mom just came out to me.”
“We need a rainbow cake,” Sloane said.
“Streamers,” Elle said.
“A sign in the yard,” Manish added.
“I see, we’re all jokesters now,” Nina said, but she was smiling.
“Some confetti at the very least,” Sloane said, “and I—”
“Sloane!”
It took Charlotte a split second to realize she’d yelled, her throat buzzing a little with the effort. Five pairs of eyes settled on her—six if you counted the dog’s—wide and worried. Which was the last thing she needed, to be honest—concernfrom the people she was supposed to be leading.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…” She pressed her fingertips intoher collarbone. “I’m not feeling great. Could you show me where I’m staying?”
“Yeah, of course,” Sloane said. She came closer, placed her hands on Charlotte’s shoulders. “You okay? You need some ibuprofen or anything? Water?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Just my room.”
Sloane nodded, then glanced at Manish and Elle. “Yeah. Sorry, I should’ve done that first. We’re all upstairs.” She looked back at her mother, who was now scooping chili into bowls. “We’re not done, Nina Berry.”
Nina just laughed and shook her head.
Charlotte didn’t waste any time, turning and hurrying toward the staircase near the front door. She just needed to be alone for five damn minutes to get herself together, without wine and cheese and mothers confessing queer inclinations.
Then she’d be fine.
Then she’d be ready.
“Snick, stay!” Nina called out, and Charlotte heard the jingle of the dog’s collar at the same moment the front door opened, revealing Brighton, her cheeks red from the cold. Her eyes met Charlotte’s.
“Lola.”
Brighton’s voice echoed through her entire body, that name she hadn’t heard out loud in five years. The name no one else called her, ever.
“Charlotte’s a pretty name,” twelve-year-old Brighton had said the day they met on the beach, the warm July sun shimmering over the clear water.
“Thanks. So is Brighton.”
A moving van was parked in the next-door neighbor’s driveway,and Charlotte had already been on the beach, alone, her mother writing in the house and tired of Charlotte’s bored wandering, when a girl around Charlotte’s age had ambled onto the sand.
Charlotte had never seen anyone as pretty as Brighton Fairbrook. Long dark hair tangled by the wind, lashes a mile long, eyes so deep brown they looked nearly black. She seemed almost magical in her white sundress and bare feet, like some sort of fairy or sorceress.
“You can call me Bright,” she’d said. “I like that better.”
“Bright. That’s even prettier.”
Brighton nodded, kicking at the water and then bending down to pick up a smooth stone.
“What should we call you?” she asked.
