“Ask what?”
Maddy raises her brows. “Have you and Luke…you know?”
“Have we what?” I say, playing dumb, but I can’t keep a straight face.
“Out with it!” Maddy says.
“No,” I say. “We haven’t…yet.”
Maddy squeals again, and I reach for a pillow and pretend to smother her. “But soon!” she says, her voice muffled from beneath the pillow. She wrenches it free. “I hear Luke’s an experienced…lover.” She draws out the last word so loud I shush her.
“My windows are open, Maddy. He could hear you,” I whisper-yell.
“LUKE’S WHAT?!” she shouts. I scream and wrestle the pillow back to smack her with it.
Abbi comes back in.
“Sera,” she says as Maddy and I hiccup through our giggles, “I don’t think you should be getting so worked up.”
As if agreeing with her, EBE coughs through an irregular beat and my watch beeps once. Maddy pales a little and apologizes.
“Oh, don’t apologize for making me laugh, Mads. God, Abbi, come on, learn to have some fun,” I say, tossing the pillow her way. It smacks against her shins and falls to the floor. She doesn’t smile.
“Take it easy,” she says, like a warning. I sit up and flash her a look.
“Or what, Abbi?”
She opens her mouth, closes it, and then pivots and leaves, slamming my door behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sera
I’m feeling fine in the morning, but Abbi insists on coming with me to work. When I say that Luke will probably join me later in the day, so she doesn’t need to, she goes over to Paula’s to confirm. She comes back, head all high, and tells me that Luke has a commitment all day (like I’m not aware he’s taking his brothers to see his dad) and she’ll take me. I guess I shouldn’t have lied, but her worrying is getting under my skin. At least she and Cam are going away to Maine for a couple weeks. She leaves right after she takes me to my appointment in Boston tomorrow, and I think we could both use the break.
The kids at camp like Abbi, though not as much as they like Luke—a feeling I can relate to these days. Since it’s an easy day, with the kids glazing their slab pieces before moving on to a free-choice project, she’s clearly bored. I keep catching her picking up her phone and putting it down as she paces around the room. When Jayda comes to get the kids for their beach time, she swoops in to help. When I say I’m fine to do it, shelooks at me incredulous, annoyed that I’d be so silly as to consider taking a three-minute walk in the heat.
I use the ten or so minutes of silence to sit and watch the wind playing with the seagrass atop the dunes. The camp cat comes and finds me, an orange flash of personality who gets renamed every year. He’s showing some age, a little whiter around his chin than I remember, but he’s just as lithe and feisty, playing with my smock strings like he’s a kitten. I lean down and scratch his head.
“You’re going to outlive meandthe universe, aren’t you?” He meows in agreement and then trots off as Abbi returns.
“How are you?” she asks, reaching for my watch. I pull my arm away from her.
“Leave it, Abbi. You just checked after lunch. I’m feeling the same.”
“I just want to look. You need to stay healthy to be ready for a transplant.”
Suddenly I’m furious, the rage boiling up in my chest and spilling over, and I’m surprised by how much I’ve been holding in.
“Will you just fucking leave me alone?” I snap. “Jesus.” I drop my head into my hands and groan, trying not to simply scream at her to leave.
“You have a headache, don’t you?” Abbi doesn’t even pause for me to answer. She just marches back into the barn. I follow at her heels as she goes to the cubbies, where my things are stored, and starts packing my bag up.
“What are you doing?” I go over and wrench my bag from her hands.
“Sera!” I’ve broken one of her fingernails, and she prods at it before shaking it off. She opens her palms toward me like I’m a rabid skunk. “Take a breath; you’ll cause an incident.”
“I can’t keep my cool when you act like this, Abbi. Why can’t you just let me make my own decisions?”
