“Thanks.” I take the shoes, slip off my sandals, and begin putting them on.
I’m grateful for the shoes. The Cove will be filthy and wet.
“I wish I’d known sooner,” I say, thinking out loud. “I would’ve brought my camera.”
“Who wants to take pictures?” Lyla shoots back. “Go find some dark little Tilt-a-Whirl car when we get there and show Trey what it means to be a man.”
I lean back in my seat, casting a knowing smile. “I think plenty of girls have already done that.”
Trey Burrowes isn’t my boyfriend, but he definitely wants the perks. I’ve been keeping him at arm’s length for months.
About to graduate like us, Trey has it all. Friends, popularity, the world bowing at his precious feet… But unlike me, he loves it. It defines him.
He’s an arrogant mouth-breather with a marshmallow for a brain and an ego as big as his man-boobs. Oh, excuse me. They’re called pecs.
I close my eyes for a second and breathe out. Misha, where the hell are you? He’s the only one I can vent to.
“Well,” Lyla speaks slowly, staring out the window. “He hasn’t had you, and that’s what he wants. But he’s only going to chase for so long, Ryen. It won’t take him long to move onto someone else.”
Is that a warning? I peer at her out of the corner of my eye, feeling my heart start to race.
What are you going to do, Lyla? Sweep in and take him from under me if I don’t put out? Delight in my loss when he gets tired of waiting and screws someone else? Is he doing someone else right now? Maybe you?
I fold my arms over my chest. “Don’t be concerned about me,” I say, toying right back. “When I’m ready, he’ll come running. No matter whom he’s killing time with.”
Ten laughs quietly from the backseat, always in my corner and having no idea I’m talking about Lyla.
Not that I care if Trey comes running or not. But she’s trying to bait me, and she knows better.
Lyla and I are both brats, but we’re very different. She craves attention from men, and she’ll almost always give them what they want, confusing shallow affection for real feelings. Sure, she’s dating Trey’s friend, J.D., but it wouldn’t surprise me to see her go after Trey, too.
Winning a guy makes her feel above us all. They have girlfriends, but they want her. It makes her feel powerful.
Until she realizes they want anyone, and then she’s right back where she started.
Me, on the other hand? I’m weak. I just want to get through the day as easily as possible. No matter who I step on to do it. Something I learned not long after that picture of me sitting alone on that bench on Movie Night was taken.
Now I’m not alone anymore, but am I happier? The jury’s still out on that.
Reap, reap, reap, you don’t even know, all you did suffer is what you did sow.
I smile small at Misha’s lyrics. He sent them to me in a letter once to see what I thought, and they make a lot of sense. I asked for this, didn’t I?
“I hate this road,” Ten pipes up. His voice is filled with discomfort, and I blink, leaving my thoughts.
I turn my head out the window to see what he’s talking about.
The headlights of Lyla’s car burn a hole in the night as the light breeze makes the leaves on the trees flutter, showing the only sign of life out on this tunnel-like highway. Dark, empty, and silent.
We’re on Old Pointe Road between Thunder Bay and Falcon’s Well.
I turn my head over my shoulder, speaking to Ten. “People die everywhere.”
“But not so young,” he says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Poor kid.”
A few months ago, a jogger named Anastasia Grayson, who was only a year younger than us, was found dead on the side of this very road. She had a heart attack, although I’m not sure why. Like Ten said, it’s unusual for someone so young to die like that.
I’d written to Misha about it, to see if he knew her, since they lived in the same town, but it was in one of the many letters he never responded to.
Taking a right onto Badger Road, Lyla digs in her console and pulls out a tube of lip gloss. I roll down the window, taking in the crisp, cool sea air.
The Atlantic Ocean sits just over the hills, but I can already smell the salt in the air. Living several miles inland, I barely even notice it, but coming to the beach—or the Cove, the old theme park near the beach where we’re going—feels like another world. The wind washes over me, and I can almost feel the sand under my feet.