“What? How’d you get this?”
Frankie shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. This photo wastaken the night of Billy’s party,” she says, her words rushing together. “I wanted to find out who was there.”
Suddenly, I’m annoyed. “You’re not acop. Stop meddling.”
“Millie, look,” she says, and hands me back the screen so I can see the zoomed-in corner. “I’m trying to figure out who this is. At first, I didn’t recognize him, but I’ve been looking at this picture like every minute since the shiva, and the more I study it, the more I think it might be…” She trails off, her voice urgent, and I take it from her and hold it close to my face.
It’s only a second before I understand what she wants me to see. My stomach tenses when I zoom in on the face. The curved jaw and the dark hair. The sloped shoulder, the tiniest shadow of a scar. It could be Ethan, but of course I know it’s not.
“Is it…?” Frankie asks, forcing me to finish her sentence.
When I speak, it comes out chalky, like I can’t believe I have to say his name out loud. “Trevor.”
Lucy
The drive to the town hall is only seven minutes long, and on the way, I pass every important landmark on the island. I cruise by my high school and its expansive grounds, the recently renovated triplex, and the entrance to the golf course before careening toward the Tennis and Beach Club.
As I pass over the train tracks, I notice there are nearly twice as many cars as usual in the parking lot, nearly a dozen people gathering, huddled up near news trucks. An unsettling feeling takes hold of my stomach as I get to the end of the block and pull into the municipal lot behind town hall, which is bursting with reporters.
When I get out of the car, I grip my tote bag close to my chest and flick my eyes to the entrance, now flanked by policemen. “They’re everywhere.” Olivia steps out of a black sedan next to me, pushing her sunglasses up onto the crown of her head.
“The police or rubberneckers?” I ask.
“Both.” She grimaces. “It’s all because of that one story in theTimes’ Metro section. People hear ‘rich white boy murdered in a beach town’ and come running.”
“Ick.” I scrunch up my face and hold the straps of my bag tighter.
“Did you see news crews trying to get B-roll of the Beach Clubon your way in? It’s nuts.” Olivia shudders. “It’s like we’re living in a documentary.” She holds up a loyalty card to Sweet Pete’s, the café on the corner. “I am most certainly not caffeinated enough for that. Want a coffee?”
We still have another fifteen minutes before our workday starts, and the answer is obvious. “Yes.”
Together we walk into the café, and I get a whiff of her perfume, sweet and floral as it lodges in my brain. Inside, the shop is packed full of people wearing ill-fitting button-downs working on their laptops. “Doanyof these people even live here?” Olivia asks.
“Definitely not,” I say, and Olivia snorts as we get behind a family of four fighting over which pastries are the best.
“Luce?” I look up and see Ethan turning around with a cold brew in his hand. He’s wearing lifeguarding trunks and a thin white T-shirt, his sunglasses perched on top of his head. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh!” I say, my cheeks flushing. “Coffee.”Duh.
His eyes drift to Olivia by my side. The corners of his mouth tug into a smile, but it’s a fake one, not the kind that lights up his whole face. “Hey, Olivia.”
“Hi,” she says.
The tension’s palpable, thick and heavy between us, and I fight for something to say. “Weird weather, huh?”
Ethan cocks his head at me and laughs softly. “This is bizarre. Right? Sorry. I don’t mean for it to be.”
Instantly I relax, grateful that Ethan’s got the social graces of a born networker, and I can feel Olivia ease up, too.
“Very much so.” Olivia shrugs. “But, hey. Just about everything else this summer is bizarre, so…”
“Very good point.” Ethan sips his cold brew. “Anyway, I gotta get to my shift.” For a second, I think he’s going to brush past me, maybe lightly touch my hand as a goodbye, but instead he steps forward and wraps his hand around the back of my neck. His lips meet mine, and he kisses me hard, his tongue pushing forward, grazing my teeth.
Ethan’s never been big on PDA, and I’m so shocked that it takes me a moment before I step away, out of his grasp.
“Bye, Luce,” he says, leaving before I can say anything.
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and a prickle of shame fills my chest. Olivia doesn’t say a thing as we move up in line, which almost makes it worse.
