Because my tournament would take all day, I’d already picked out the skirt and tank top I wanted to wear when I saw him. I set those out next to my shoes so I’d be ready to go as soon as I was home. My whole team had been working hard to make it to regionals, but that morning I was just as excited forthe day to be over so I could finally find out if Luke was feeling the way I was.
I was tired in the first few games, and slow, but we were winning, so it was fine. I had a headache by the time our last game started, and we were down by five with very little time left. The other team sent a serve flying over the net. I lunged for it even though it was in my teammate’s zone and collided with her. She was pissed for two seconds, until she realized something was really wrong and shouted for our coach. I was way too dizzy to get up. The sand beneath us was pulling me down, the sky twisting up, my headache radiating down my neck. Then I passed out.
I came to in the ambulance. I was going through my third echocardiogram with the stone-faced tech at exactly the time Luke had told me to meet him. In that minute, my whole heart felt heavy and sick. Something was wrong with me, and though it would be a week before I met with Dr.Lee and got the confirmation of how bad it was, I couldn’t fathom telling him one of our worst fears was coming to pass. I always thought this would be something we’d weather together, but I felt so alone, and I wanted Luke, myfriend, not the flirty boy who might break my heart. So I texted him that I couldn’t do this. I didn’t want him to look at me differently. Like my whole family had been looking at me that whole night.
Back at home, my parents started packing up to leave the Cape a couple days early. I wanted to mope by myself, but Abbi wouldn’t leave me alone.
“What’s wrong, Sera?” she whispered, climbing into my bedlong after we were supposed to be asleep. “Other than the obvious,” she added as I wiped my eyes. “Spill.”
“I was supposed to meet Luke tonight.” I gulped down tears and curled into a ball. “Ilikehim,” I whispered to my knees, “and I think he was going to tell me he likes me too, but what does it matter now? I’m going to die, and there’s no time.”
Abbi, blunt as usual, told me I was being stupid, that we didn’t know anything yet, and if anyone would get it, it would be Luke. She said I shouldn’t give up on something before I’d really tried. So, under strict orders to be no longer than an hour, she covered for me while I snuck out. It was past midnight, but I tried the Beach at the End of the Universe first. When Luke wasn’t there and didn’t reply to my texts, I asked Maddy where everyone was, and she sent me the address of a house party in Dennis.
When I got there, the house was packed, different music playing on each floor, kegs in the tiny kitchen, beer pong on the porch. The space around the backyard firepit teemed with people, but I spotted Luke right away, the back of his hair standing up to the left like it always did. I had this brief moment of pure joyful anticipation, like everything would be all right after all. That’s probably why I didn’t see Izzy at first. But I couldn’tnotsee her as soon as Luke leaned down to kiss her. I froze. Suddenly I was second-guessing everything—every small look and touch that had happened since the start of the summer. None of it had meant anything. Fighting tears, I rushed back through the house and out the front door before Luke saw me.
My family and I left the Cape two days later. I thought about trying to talk to him. To ask him if he’d ever really liked me at all. But I just couldn’t. I needed to—I still need to—protect my heart.
Maddy interrupts my thoughts with my turkey burger, and I thank her before she’s off to help two new tables.
I stay until close, committing to the idea of three self-portraits and drafting a few paragraphs for my essay. I also start a shared doc for Maddy and me to make plans for next summer in Europe. I watch the girl in the corner scrawl something on her receipt before she pulls up her hood and heads out into the rain. When Maddy locks the door behind her, I leave my stool to help her wipe down the tables and flip the chairs onto them. She lines the ketchups up on the counter and has me marry all the low bottles while she mops, blasting the new Chappell Roan as loud as the old speakers can handle. Once everything is tidy and the kitchen staff is gone, she turns the lights off and I go wait on the front step for her to set the alarm. The rain has finally passed, but the air is still wet, the street soggy, like all of Northport is sitting inside a huge cloud.
Maddy wipes her bangs out of her face and sighs.
“I’m sorry,” she says, fiddling with her keys. “For pushing you about Luke. I just really love you both, and I like a good story, and you two could make a really good one.”
“Not all good stories make good realities,” I say.
She nods. “Like his parents.”
“Yeah. What went down there?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t really know. I think Mr.Tisdalecheated, but all I know for sure is he left, and Luke was…furious, but really sad too. You should ask him about it. He was always more open with you.”
“I don’t think he wants to tell me,” I admit.
“A lot has changed, huh?” Maddy says, then throws an arm around my shoulder and squeezes me to her side as we walk around the back to her car. “I’m glad you haven’t.”
“Never.”
“Okay. No yelling at me. But if this summer, heck, if the next few years are supposed to be about going for what you want while you can…are you sure you don’t want to give things a shot with Luke? I think you’re just being a chicken,” Maddy says as she unlocks her old Toyota sedan and we climb inside.
“I’m not being a chicken. I’m being practical.” I cringe as I remember Luke saying the same thing about his family situation and how badly I wanted to argue with him. But this isn’t the same. I don’t want to languish. I want to be all in. “And I want a new beginning. Anything could happen with Jackson, but at least it’ll be different.”
“Okay. Okay. Fine. I hear you. I’ll drop it. Enough moping about the past. Go have your romance with Jackson, and I’ll start looking at the map I know you’re dying for me to put notes on.”
“Really?” Maddy nods, and I do a little dance in the passenger seat. “Okay, now spill. What did Sienna write on her receipt?”
Maddy pauses, then reaches into her pocket and pulls the receipt out. I snatch it.
“Her number?!”
“Her number.” Maddy grins, and I poke her on the shoulder,demanding she text her, until she does. “There,” she says, throwing the car into reverse, “now we’ll both have hot summer people blowing up our phones.”
*
At home I find Mom on the back porch reading and sipping wine. Dad’s in the living room watching the Sox game, and Abbi’s in the kitchen making sundaes with Cam. The house is quiet but not silent. Lived-in and still at the same time, like a snapshot. After all the rain today, the air smells fresh and clean. I used to love quiet nights on the Cape, but there’s something missing from this one. Maddy’s questions have me thinking about Luke. On rainy days when we were little, he’d come over and we’d camp out in my stairwell, pretending we were hiding from dragons or stuck on an infinite staircase. Two summers ago, we spent a lot of those rainy days watching old movies, the space on the couch between us shrinking, me waiting for it to disappear. I try thinking about him as just a friend, but my mind can’t untangle our friendship from all those deeper, heated feelings of want and hurt.
I slide onto the love seat next to Mom. “What are you reading?” I ask. She pulls me into her like I’m still five and tells me about her book—something historical about siblings getting through a war.
