Page 5

We climb into the Jeep, and Danny starts the engine before carefully pulling out. I wonder what Luke will do next. Will he kiss that girl as if she matters, or will he kiss her the way Justin kissed me, mostly to keep her quiet so she can’t refuse?

“You’re quiet,” Danny says.

I turn toward him. “He doesn’t seem like someone you’d be friends with.”

Danny shrugs. “I might not approve of everything he does, but he’s a good guy, and he’s had a hard life. Like, unimaginably hard. He’s been homeless since he was sixteen…I guess his stepfather was beating his mom and they kicked him out when he tried to stop it. Can you imagine…homeless at sixteen?”

I laugh quietly. “Well…yeah. I left home at fifteen.”

“You left by choice,” he corrects, and my teeth grind. I wouldn’t say I had much of a fucking choice, given that I moved out after my stepbrother dislocated my shoulder. Danny is almost willful, at times, in his re-envisioning of my past.

“He doesn’t seem to like me much.”

Danny shakes his head. “He’s just a quiet guy. It’s not about you.”

I want to explain there’s something hard in Luke’s face when he looks at me, something that isn’t there when he looks at everyone else, but I’ll sound crazy if I keep arguing this. I just choose to hope, instead, that he decides to leave once the weekend is through.

* * *

When we wake on Saturday to go to the beach, there’s a heavy breeze, and I deeply regret taking the day off, which I only did because I thought it would just be me and Danny. Late May in Northern California is hit or miss anyway. It can be balmy in the shade, or so breezy even the sunlight can’t quite keep you warm. Today will be the latter, and with Luke acting like I poisoned the town well, the small appeal this trip held is completely nullified.

Danny and Luke come downstairs just as we finish pulling breakfast together. Luke’s eyes are barely open, but I still spy that ever-present disdain in them when I look his way.

“Do you have your suit on, hon?” Danny asks me. “We’re taking off the second we’re done eating.”

I can’t. I can’t spend the whole damn day with a guy who hates me for being pathetic and needy and sucking up to the people who’ve taken me in. I can’t.

“It’s pretty cold out,” I hedge. “And the wind is gonna kick the sand everywhere.”

“It’ll warm up,” Danny says. “You’ve got to come. I haven’t seen you in months.”

That’s how Danny gets his way—by being the one person who wants me around. I studiously avoid Luke’s gaze as I agree.

They eat while I scrub the pans, and I’ve just sat down at last when Danny asks his mom if there’s any more juice.

“I’ll get it,” I say, rising again and walking out to the fridge in the garage. When I return, Luke’s eyes meet mine and he raises a brow. As if to say, “I know exactly what you’re doing.”

I raise mine right back: Fuck you, Luke. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that I do my best to be helpful around here. To pull my weight. Maybe I’m doing it to convince them I’m not a bad person, or maybe I’m doing it to convince myself. Either way, it’s none of his concern.

I walk outside to Luke’s beat-up, ancient Jeep after breakfast, shivering in my hoodie, with a book and towel pressed to my chest. Luke looks at me, eyes beginning at my ankles and climbing up.

“Where’s her board?” he asks.

Danny laughs and wraps an arm around me. “Juliet doesn’t surf.” He tried to teach me once, last summer, and it didn’t go well. “Believe me, it’s safer for everyone if she stays on the beach and looks pretty.”

A muscle flickers in Luke’s cheek, silent objection either to my failure to surf or the fact that Danny thinks I’m pretty. “Maybe you should take her in the truck. If she’s already cold she’ll freeze once we’re on the road without the top on.”

“You’ll be fine, right?” Danny urges, giving my hip a gentle squeeze. “We’re only going ten minutes down the road.”

I nod. If Danny drives, his parents will have to share a car, and every inconvenience they suffer will, essentially, be all my fault. I try to avoid being at fault as often as I can.

I wedge myself into a tiny corner of the back seat, where the boards bang against my shoulder and the breeze from the open windows makes it impossible to follow much of the conversation.

My phone chimes with an incoming text. When I discover it’s from my friend Hailey, I slide a little lower in my seat. I already know anything she’s saying to me won’t be fit for other eyes.

Hailey:

SO…How was it?