“Are you going to confront Trevor?” I ask, butterflies humming in my stomach.
“No.” Millie doesn’t elaborate, but in that moment it’s like I can read her mind.He won’t tell me the truth anyway.
Millie
“Okay, so the first order of business is we can’t get caught.” Frankie walks quickly down Main Street, her eyes focused straight ahead, trying not to let Erica out of our sight. We’ve been following her as casually as we can for the past three days, but we haven’t seen her do anything more interesting than meet up with Lucy for ice cream or play Skee-Ball with Dylan at the arcade. No sign of her hanging out with Trevor.
“This is getting ridiculous, Frankie.” The humidity makes my T-shirt stick to my skin. Beads of sweat roll down my back. “Honestly, I should just talk to Trevor.”
Frankie stops in her tracks and spins around. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. The more I think about it, the more horrible I feel. He must be terrified and isolated. He’s going to have a baby, and no one knows.” When I say the words out loud, there’s a tightening in my chest. Just because I’m mad that Trevor didn’t clue me in doesn’t mean that I want him to suffer alone. “Maybe he needs someone to talk to, Franks.”
Frankie rolls her eyes. “Don’t you think he would have actually, I don’t know, talked to you if that were true?’
“Maybe he’s scared.” My voice is small, but I mean it.
“One more day,” Frankie says, exasperated. She ducks her headtoward mine. “If we don’t find anything out, then you can talk to Trevor. Okay?”
“Fine.”
Up ahead, Erica tosses a Popsicle stick from Scoop DeVille into the trash and hops on her bike, heading down Main Street.
“Come on,” Frankie says, and we take off after her.
“She’s probably going home.” I expect her to make a hard left onto Pelican Island Road, which would lead up toward her house on Highland Drive, but she doesn’t. Instead, she makes a right, which takes her past…
“Is she going toourhouse?” Frankie asks. “Or to the Silvers’?” Frankie picks up speed, and I reach one hand out to her.
“Slow down,” I hiss. “She’s going to see us.” There are lots of cars on the road, but a pair of bikes is more obvious. Thankfully, Frankie coasts down the hill, and from our perch above Erica, we watch her keep going, our house already behind her.
Frankie’s brows narrow in determination, and then she comes to an abrupt stop.
“What are you doing?” I ask, whipping my head around as I brake, too.
“Look,” Frankie says, pointing to the space behind me where Erica is hunched over in the bushes, her bike leaning on the ground beside me. “Gross.”
I swat Frankie’s arm. “She’spregnant. It makes you nauseous.”
Frankie grimaces. “Still. Gross.”
I watch Erica retch into the bushes, and I suddenly feel so sad for her, going through this all alone. It takes everything in me not to step forward and rub her back in the way that Mom does for me when I get a stomach bug.
“Duck!” Frankie says. She yanks on my shirt, and I fall back into the brush with her, thorns sticking into my side.
“Ouch! What are you doing?” But when I glance back at Erica, I see she’s wiping her mouth on the back of her arm and swiveling her head around like she hears something. Like she’slookingfor something. My stomach lurches.
“Did she see us?” I ask, my voice strained.
“I don’t think so.” Frankie slowly pokes her head out, and her shoulders drop. “She’s going.” We stand and brush ourselves off, watching Erica pedal away until Frankie motions for me to follow her. “Come on,” Frankie says.
We ride in silence for another half a mile, the air still and tense around us. The heat is oppressive, and sweat builds under my arms, dripping from my neck, my hairline, the insides of my thighs. Blisters start to form where my ankles rub against my sneakers, and all I want is to go home and jump in the pool. I’m about to say as much when Erica makes a wobbly right turn on French Moor Drive.
I slow down and call to Frankie. “We have to wait.”
“Why?”
“It’s a dead end. She’ll see us behind her.” Frankie knows this. Everyone on Pelican Island knows every square inch of our town, can tell you which cul-de-sacs are waterfront, which beaches are made of rocks and which of sand. French Moor Drive is one of those old roads that used to belong to one single family back in the 1800s before it was parceled off into three eight-acre plots.
