Prologue
Andy
March
We didn’t have hurricanes in California. Our natural disasters came without much warning: a sudden fire, a surprising earthquake, a drought that would sneak up on you only to be followed by a flood you’d been sure wouldn’t materialize, until it did. But a hurricane—you have fair warning, time to prepare. Time to decide if you want to ride it out or flee.
Luis hadn’t entered our life yet and my sister hadn’t been born when my mom decided to take six year old me on our first vacation. We flew down to Florida where we checked into a room with two double beds and navy blue carpet. The blinds were the stiff ones that run on a bent white rod. The towels in the bathroom were folded into ducks—I was ecstatic.
Cocoa Beach was a wonderland to me, despite the years I’d spent on the coastline collecting shells, learning to bend and glide with the water. For whatever reason, the weathered strip malls, character towels, plastic cups with little umbrellas stirred something in me. We rarely left our little town on the westcoast; the trip was my first taste of possibility, even if it was worn and faded like the Ron Jon’s sign still etched in my memory. Mom wouldn’t tell me she was from there for years; that returning there felt like the opposite to her, but she couldn’t pass it up, for me.
I looked forward to it for weeks, really not caring that I’d be missing the first week of school or the chance to claim a spot at a lunch table. Perfect weather all week; so much bright, white sunlight on that beach that I was sure I was going to peel in one gigantic layer; and then, all of a sudden, a storm was coming. Three days time, on the day we were supposed to go to the Magic Kingdom with the tickets I, later, learned were from the timeshare presentation I missed. She’d dropped me off at the arcade right next door with a bundle of other kids.
So instead of riding rollercoasters, we rode out the storm in a Hilton with hundreds of other tourists, watching the world outside twirl around itself. At some point we made our way down to the lobby, seeking company or maybe safety. I glued myself to the window, abandoning my mother at a table full of other parents and kids.
I couldn’t stop watching that storm.
And I wasn’t the only one—people lined the balconies, ran out from under the awning, cackling into the rough breeze, only to race back under cover. The calm came just as suddenly as the wind had picked up, and I kept hearing, “The eye, we’re in the eye.” People just stood there, in the middle of ahurricane, like they couldn’t be blown away the moment the system changed its mind. They marveled at the sky, grey and pink and orange, in awe.
When Mom was distracted enough, I squeezed through the onlookers, and tried to relax into the calm. But I felt the chaos, like it was just skirting around us, teasing us. Asking us how long we could bear the uncertainty before we balked or ranstraight into it. I stayed out there until my mom’s shouts reeled me back in. Not two minutes later did the sky crack back open, did the hurricane churn the ocean into something horrifying.
It was the most surreal experience of my life; in hindsight, I think I loved being in that hurricane because I’d never felt so lost to something. It was just me and my mom for so long, and even once Luis found us and they had Carmen, we were so insulated. This happy, content, stable unit, despite the thin margins we lived on.
But that storm was dictating everything, putting on a show, inviting us in and showing us, for better or for worse, what was possible. It was a wave I would’ve willingly given myself to, would’ve willingly been swallowed whole by if Mom hadn’t shouted my name.
Total chaos, destruction, a complete reorganization of the world around us. And after the storm: a rebirth, a reset, a silence that was slow to recede—that stays with you long after it’s gone. You’re not the same after a storm, and the feeling never really leaves you. You’re sort of forever restless, waiting for the next storm to throw you off kilter.
Maybe that’s why I’m here to begin with, watching Sloane attempt to destroy herself in this room of beautiful things, like she can’t see she’s the best of them. That she is everything, to me. Because she is a storm I was never going to stay away from, that I was always going to dive into head first.
1
Sloane
September, six months earlier
San Francisco had better bars.The shot glass loses itself in the beer I’m focusing on before bobbing to the surface, and all sound in this Boston pub dulls to a murmur, seems far away, until I pull my attention back to the man trying his hardest to pick me up and chug the drink.
“So an artist, huh?” he asks, finally done explaining how he’s related to the Kennedys. His dark green button up, patterned with fine miniature crosses, is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, but his hair line might be the best I’ve seen tonight. His arms, beneath the hideous fabric, tell me he either was an athlete or still is in some capacity, and I watched him kindly hold the door open for more than a few patrons. Self absorbed, maybe, but he has manners.
“Yes,” I say, leaning a little closer so I can pick out the shades of green in his eyes that, I realize, match his shirt. “I paint. Watercolors.” My phone buzzes for the fifth time in my pocket, and I finally take a peek.
CLEMMIE
You get in ok?
Hiiiii let me know pls
Why don’t I have your location by now?
Sloane, for the love of all things holy, ANSWER ME
Final call. If you’re dead in a ditch I’ll pray for your soul
I smirk down at the lit up rectangle and tap out a quick reply.
Safe and sound
I don’t take her for granted—the girl who let me bully her into friendship as a precocious child—but her faith in me is virtually nonexistent.
