“Why didn’t you move to Florida to be close to your parents?” she asks just as our ride ends.
“Are you crazy? I was too scared of the gators.”
She laughs as we rejoin the horde on the pier. I half expect Lily to walk me to the end, let me take a picture, and call it a day. Put a check on her friendly neighbor duties and ask me to drive her back home. Instead, she grabs my wrist, tugging me toward the midway games.
“Let’s go,” she says with childlike excitement. “You can’t come to the pier without winning an overpriced stuffed animal.”
Lily insists on trying every boardwalk game we pass. She is a competitive monster in the guise of an easygoing California gal. I let her destroy me at ring toss and water gun races and basketball.
I suck at everything.
“Do you practice these in your free time?”
She beams at me. “I have a kid with lots of friends. We get invited to a lot of birthday parties.”
After an embarrassing number of attempts (and dollars), I finally knock down three milk bottles with a softball, winning a tiny stuffed seagull that’s worth a tenth of what I spent to get it.
“For you,” I say with exaggerated formality, presenting it to Lily like I’ve slain a dragon. “Please take care of him for me.”
“I’ll treasure it,” she says solemnly, then breaks into giggles.
We wander further down the pier, stopping at a battered silver cart for hot dogs. The vendor slathers them with toppings, and we carry our late lunch to the end of the dock, sitting on the sun-bleached wood with our legs dangling over the side.
Below us, waves crash against the support beams, sending up fine mist that cools my sun-kissed skin. Seagulls wheel overhead, eyeing our food with naked avarice. The late morning has shifted to early afternoon, and the pier has grown even more crowded.
I steal glances at Lily as we eat. She looks more carefree, with the salty wind tousling her loose hair—the ponytail a casualty of all the games we played—and a smudge of mustard at the corner of her mouth that I’m dying to wipe. Instead, I point to my mouth, saying, “You have something here.”
She dabs at her lips with a napkin, smiling self-consciously before turning back to the ocean.
“Sometimes I wish I could run away, too,” she says, gaze lost somewhere I can’t follow.
A pelican dives for a fish, then bobs back up, triumphant.
“And where would you go?”
She picks a piece of bread from her hot dog bun and throws it at a seagull. “I’d get in the car and keep driving until I ran out of land.”
I glance at her. “And when you hit the ocean?”
She shrugs. “I’d swim, I guess. Or sink.”
I nod, not sure what to say. The mood has shifted, the easy banter of earlier replaced by something heavier.
“You doing okay?” I ask.
She nods, but doesn’t look at me. “Yeah. It’s just… hard. Some days, I forget I’m not supposed to be happy.”
I nudge her knee with mine, but she talks again before I can speak. “Please don’t tell me Daniel would’ve wanted me to be happy.”
“I don’t need to.” I watch the waves crash, wishing grief didn’t work like the tide—retreating, but always coming back. “You already know that in here.” I point at my chest, not daring to touch hers.
She nods, rubbing a hand over her heart with a tight-lipped smile.
In the silence that follows, the air grows hotter, the crowds swell, and as we finish our food, the heat becomes unbearable. The shoreline breeze that kept us comfortable has dropped, leaving us baking under the unforgiving sun.
“Ready to head back?” Lily asks, fanning herself with her hands. “I’m melting out here.”
I nod, helping her to her feet. We make our way through the even-more-packed pier until we reach the street where we parked. The air conditioning in my truck is salvation. We don’t talk as I drive us back to our apartment complex.
