“I’m fine,” I said quickly, automatically. And if my mother had still been deep in writing mode, she would have left it at that. But she just looked at me a moment longer, the kind of look that let me know that she was back, and the slack I’d been able to have all summer was pretty much over.
“We’ll talk later,” she said, her tone leaving open no real discussion of this. “But right now, Frank’s downstairs.”
I stared at her. “He is?”
She nodded as she headed out of my room. “And you might want to rescue him,” she added. “I think Beckett’s down there with him.”
That was all I needed to hear. I pushed myself off the bed, and glanced at the mirror briefly before taking the steps downstairs two at a time. I didn’t look my best, but Frank had seen me, for so many mornings, right after I’d rolled out of bed. And since I had a feeling that he was only there to tell me what I already knew—that we weren’t friends anymore—I wasn’t sure I necessarily needed to look great for that.
I found him and Beckett on the front porch, Beckett showing off his ninja kicks, all of which were getting distressingly close to Frank’s face. Just seeing Frank again was enough to make it feel like one of Beckett’s kicks had landed right in my stomach, and I hated how much I’d missed him. “Beck,” I said, looking away from Frank, not sure I was really up to talking directly to him just yet. “Be careful.”
My little brother looked at me scornfully. “I’m always careful,” he said, before attempting a roundhouse kick that landed him flat on his back on the porch. “Ow,” he muttered.
“Can we talk?” Frank asked me.
Since Beckett was showing no signs of moving from the porch, I nodded toward the driveway. “Want to take a walk?”
“Sure,” he said easily. I looked at him and realized that for some reason he looked happy. Clearly, he had not had the same few days that I had. He had just rolled with it, and probably everything in his life was still going wonderfully.
I could feel my anger start to build as he followed me up the driveway, toward the mailbox. As we walked, I noticed there were only our cars parked there. “Did you walk here?”
He nodded, and smiled at me, like life was just so great. “I kind of felt like it.”
I nodded, swallowing hard, wishing he would just get this over with. When I hadn’t heard from him after his text, I’d assumed that this would be our new status quo—we’d just never speak again, and forget about everything we’d shared over the course of the summer. But I’d forgotten I was dealing with Frank Porter, who probably wanted to make sure that I was fine with pretending that we’d never been friends, so he could cross this issue off, one more thing neatly and successfully resolved.
We had only gone a few steps down the road when he stopped and looked at me. “Listen,” he said. He was smiling again, like he was just so happy he couldn’t hide it, even as he was preparing to break my heart. “Emily. I just wanted to—”
“You know, we don’t have to do this,” I said, cutting him off. I couldn’t do much about this situation, but I could limit the number of times this week that people told me they were done with me forever. “I get it, okay?”
He just looked at me for a moment, his brow furrowed. “You do?”
“I do,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I got the message.”
Now he looked very confused, his head tilting to the side. “What message?”
“That we’re not friends anymore,” I said, and even though I was trying to keep my voice steady, it broke on the last word. “And you know what, maybe we never were. And it’s not like we’re going to be friends when school starts, so it’s probably just better this way.”
Frank shook his head. “What are you talking about? I wanted to—”
“I just don’t need to hear it, okay?” I could hear how high and shaky my voice sounded. “We don’t have to do this.”
Frank looked at me, and I could see some of his sureness—his confidence—begin to ebb. “We don’t?”
I shook my head. I just didn’t want to go along with it. Maybe for once, Frank Porter didn’t get to have everything neatly resolved. “I get that you were trying to be the good guy and come here so we could put it behind us. But I don’t need it.” And then, because I didn’t think I could stay there and look at him anymore, I turned and walked away, back toward my house.
I heard Frank call my name, but I didn’t turn around, and when he called it again, I broke into a run, aware as I did so that it was the first time all summer that I was running alone.
15
The summer had come full circle.
Once again, I was all alone. I had no friends, and nobody to hang out with, but this time, it was all my fault. Once again, I was having trouble grasping how I’d gone from having people to talk to, plans, some semblance of a life—to nothing, all in a moment.
I was going to work and avoiding Captain Pizza, though I had once passed Dawn while she was talking on her phone as I headed into Paradise and she sat outside the pizza parlor. We’d made brief eye contact before we both looked away and she went back to her conversation. I only caught the occasional word, but I could hear how happy she sounded—her voice was suffused with it, and she kept calling the person on the other end “Matty”—which seemed to indicate that the movie date had gone well. I hated that I didn’t know more, that I hadn’t heard the recap, moment by moment. And while I was happy for both of them, it made me feel all that much more alone.
I’d started taking long runs by myself, in neighborhoods I’d never run with Frank, going out of my way to avoid bumping into him. I hadn’t heard from him since the morning I ran away from him. And while I didn’t regret what I’d done, there were still moments when I wondered what would have happened if I’d just let him finish, heard him out. But then I would tell myself, firmly, that I’d done the right thing—Frank, as junior class president, had once convinced me that school really should start fifteen minutes earlier. He was that talented a speaker. And I hadn’t wanted to hear him talk his way out of our friendship, talk his way around the fact he’d kissed me back, talk me into agreeing with him that it had just been a huge, terrible mistake.
Because while it had been a mistake—all the proof I needed was in my current total lack of friends—I wasn’t willing to deny that it had happened, or the fact that it had meant something. I found myself thinking, more than I really should have, of Frank’s hands on my bare back, of his fingers tangled in my hair, of his mouth on mine, of the way he’d run his thumb over my cheek, of the fact that it had been, without question, the best kiss I’d ever gotten.
But none of this changed the fact that I missed him in my life. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on him, how often I’d text him throughout the day, how much I needed his perspective on things, how boring my iPod seemed without his music.
With all the time I had on my suddenly friendless hands, I tried to be productive. I had dropped off both of the disposable cameras to be developed. I’d organized my closet, taken Beckett for a haircut, and finally read the first book in the series Doug was always going on about.
And every so often, I would go to my dresser and pull out the list. I had done it—every single one.
1. Kiss a stranger.
2. Go skinny-dipping.
3. Steal something.
4. Break something.
5. Penelope.
6. Ride a dern horse, ya cowpoke.
7. 55 S. Ave. Ask for Mona.
8. The backless dress. And somewhere to wear it.
9. Dance until dawn.
10. Share some secrets in the dark.
11. Hug a Jamie.
12. Apple picking at night.
13. Sleep under the stars.
All these things that had shaped my summer. I’d finished her list. I was done.
So where the hell was Sloane?
I’d started this believing that, somehow, when I finished, I would have the answ
ers I needed. I would know what had happened to her. But now that I looked at it, I wondered if this had just been a distraction. I’d been avoiding questions like why my best friend had just left me without a word. I’d been thinking, hoping, that this would lead to something. But maybe it was like all her other lists, full of things she must have known, deep down, I would be too scared to attempt.
As I looked down at it, at her careful handwriting, at all my flaws that were exposed on the page, I found myself getting furious. I crumpled the list into a tiny ball, and for good measure, picked up the envelope and crumpled that too. Then I grabbed my keys and took the stairs two at a time, throwing the list and the envelope into the kitchen trash, yelling to my parents in the TV room—my dad scratching his new beard, my mom working on her macramé project—that I was going out.
I drove around town for hours, until the sun went down and the first stars began to shine. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular; I just felt the need to be in motion. I was driving past places I’d gone with Sloane, places I’d gone with Frank, and feeling the loss of both of them so sharply. How was I supposed to keep living in this town when everything I saw reminded me of someone I’d lost?
There was a party going on at the Orchard—I could tell from the cars lining the road. I pulled in, but left my car running, looking at all the people there with their friends—and remembering that, not so long ago, I’d been among them. I turned the car around and left, realizing I should probably stop in for gas, since in my aimless driving I’d lost sense of where my car was with fuel. There was also the fact that I no longer knew who I could call to help me if it died again.
I stopped by Route 1 Fuel, and when I walked into the mini-mart, saw that James was behind the register once again. He was leaning against the back counter, reading a thick book entitled Mastering Sudoku—For the Advanced Player. I hadn’t seen him since I’d hugged him, and hoped this wouldn’t be awkward as I handed over twenty dollars. But he just smiled at me as he put my bill in the register, then nodded out at the Volvo. “Check your oil?”
“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t sure he would have offered if I hadn’t hugged him, but I wasn’t going to turn this down—especially since I had no recollection of the last time it had been checked. “Sure,” I said. I walked outside and he followed, then waited while I tried to figure out how to pop my hood.
“So when were you in South Carolina?” he asked, wiping off the end of the dipstick with a rag and then dipping it into my oil gauge.
I looked over at him and realized he had been reading the bumper stickers along the side of the car. I scanned them, trying to see what he’d seen. “Why do you ask?”
He tapped one I’d hardly noticed, a dark-red sticker, half peeling off and mostly faded. Save the SC Sea Turtles! it read. Next to this was an image that looked familiar—a palm tree and a crescent moon.
“I wasn’t,” I said, turning my attention back to him. “The stickers came with the car. I’ve never been.”
He nodded. “Too bad. It’s really pretty down there.” He closed the hood and patted it once. “You should be okay for another few hundred miles.”
“Great,” I said. “Thanks a lot.” He nodded, gave me a quick smile, and headed back into the store.
I looked at the bumper sticker until a car pulled up behind me, engine idling, clearly desperate to get this specific pump. I pulled out of the gas station and headed for home, trying to sort through why I was sure I’d seen it before. It was in my mind, but just out of reach, until I paused at a stop sign and remembered.
The envelope.
I sped home, barely pausing at stoplights, screeching into the driveway and parking at an angle, not even locking my car as I ran inside and straight to the kitchen. I went directly to the trash, and started digging through it.
It was still there, only halfway down, and thankfully not covered in anything disgusting. I smoothed out Sloane’s list and then the envelope, feeling my heart thud in my chest as I looked at it. There, where the return address was supposed to be, was the same image on my bumper sticker. The image that meant South Carolina.
I took the list and envelope with me as I headed up to my room, needing space and quiet to try and figure this out, not wanting to have to answer any questions. I sat on my bed and stared at the envelope until my eyes burned, trying to make it make sense.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt like I was too close to something. Sloane had an aunt in South Carolina. I knew that. But I couldn’t exactly go knocking on every door in the state, could I? I closed my eyes, trying to think. The answer was there—somewhere—I just had to adjust my eyes to see it properly.
I was waiting outside the CVS when a tired-looking employee holding a to-go coffee unlocked the doors at six a.m. It was likely there wasn’t anything to be found in either of the cameras. But I was all out of other options, and around five, I’d woken up with this, the closest thing I had to a plan.
The photo department wasn’t even open yet, but after the night I’d had, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wait until ten, and I convinced the employee to get my pictures for me. I suspected he did it mostly so that I’d leave the store, and him, in peace, but he rang me up, and I left the store clutching the two photo envelopes.
I waited until I got back inside my car before opening them. The first envelope had the picture Dawn had taken of me riding Butterscotch, so I knew this was the one that had come from my car. There were the horse pictures, and the picture I’d snapped of the highway on Frank’s birthday, but all the rest of the pictures were of Sloane.
Sloane at the drive-in, drinking Diet Coke out of a Twizzler straw, looking at the screen, her expression rapt. Sloane bargaining for a vintage leather jacket at a flea market upstate, looking determined—and then one of her triumphant, modeling the jacket for the camera. Sloane sitting on the roof of my car, wearing her vintage heart sunglasses, extending a bag of chips toward the camera, laughing. Sloane on the picnic table at the Orchard, the Thursday we’d cut class and shared an entire pizza. Sloane at the beach, smiling over her sunglasses at me. Sloane in the morning after a sleepover, yawning, her hair undone and wild.
I looked at the last image for a long moment, then tucked the pictures back in the envelope. They hadn’t shown me anything I hadn’t known before. Nothing that helped with where Sloane was now. Just my best friend, the center of my world for the last two years.
I opened up Sloane’s envelope and started looking through the pictures, and felt my eyes widen.
The first one was of me and Sloane, a selfie that we’d taken the first day of junior year, me carefully dressed, my outfit looking brand-new and stiff, Sloane looking much more relaxed in a vintage romper, smiling at me, not the camera. There was one of a recipe, then one of me, cross-legged on the couch in Stanwich Coffee, hunched over my history textbook. There was one of me and Beckett watching TV. Me and Sloane, almost out of frame, totally out of focus, both of us bent double laughing. Me, my head bent, lacing up my running shoes. Me giving Sloane a cheesy thumbs-up after a race. The front seat of my car, with the pile of snacks for a flea market road trip. Me and my mother in the kitchen, sitting at the table, discussing something, my mother gesturing big while I listened. Beckett, grinning down at the camera from the top of the doorway. The two of us, carrying dripping ice cream cones, both covered with rainbow sprinkles. Me, dressed for the prom, fixing my hair in front of the mirror. Me and Sloane sitting on a picnic table at the Orchard, barely visible in the falling darkness. Me, laughing, holding my hand in front of the camera. Me, driving, hands a blur as I drummed on the steering wheel. Me, smiling at her through the camera, my expression relaxed and happy.
I set the stack down and wiped my hands under my eyes, even though it didn’t do much to stop the tears that had started to fall. All this time, I had just assumed that I’d been the one who cared more. That Sloane had floated above it, not missing me, which was why she’d been able to leave me behind. But this . . .
<
br /> I picked up the pictures again, looking through the images—some carefully composed, some clearly shot in the spur of the moment. Sloane had seen me. She had taken these pictures of me, of us, many of which I hadn’t seen her take. She had needed me as much as I’d needed her. I could see that now, and it made me ashamed that I’d ever thought anything else.
I wiped at my eyes again and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to pull myself together, flipping through the pictures one last time. I stopped on the recipe photo, squinting at it. It was out of focus, but I could see that it was her aunt’s arrabbiata recipe, the picture Sloane had taken but then hadn’t been able to find. Now it made sense, since she’d never gotten the camera developed. I felt my heart pound as I stared down at it.
The recipe was handwritten, but it was written on a personalized recipe card. And the top of the card read From the Kitchen of Laney Alden. In smaller letters underneath that, it read River Port.
Alden was Milly’s maiden name, I knew that much. I could picture the tote that Sloane had hauled to the beach all last summer, emblazoned with her mother’s initials. And Sloane had told me it was her aunt who had given her the arrabbiata recipe. The aunt who lived in South Carolina.
I grabbed my phone and looked up Laney Alden South Carolina. I got seven results, all from people who seemed to live on opposite ends of the state. I typed in Laney Alden South Carolina River Port, and one listing came up—with an address. I looked down at my phone and realized I finally had my answer. It was where Sloane was. I could feel it.
It was seven by the time I got back home. I’d worked out my plan on the drive over—I’d make my parents coffee before they got up, get them in a good mood before I told them the truth—that Sloane was in South Carolina, and they needed to let me go see her.
I’d expected the house to still be quiet, but all the lights were on, Beckett was outside walking along the porch railing, and there were three suitcases lined up by the steps.