Chapter Two Sera
Chapter Two
Sera
As I try to get out of there, stat, I end up crashing into a woman and her two kids as they come through the door.
I take a few quick steps out of the way, apologizing to her, but that means I’m a few steps closer to Luke.
He’s still looking at me, and there’s no running.
He stands and greets me with an awkward hug.
At first all I can think about is his last message from just over a year ago—please don’t ghost me again, Sera, I just need to talk to my best friend—but then I notice how big he is, and I freeze, arms at my side.
Luke and I have always been about the same size.
The proof lines the walls of both our houses in pictures from the days after we were both born, broken and in need.
That’s the reason our families are so close.
I got a new heart, and Luke had domino surgery, getting the healthy valves from my otherwise useless original heart.
The newspapers loved us, sharing photos of us holding hands in the same crib post-surgery and the story of how our families were brought together by the same near tragedy.
When Luke was discharged and his family returned to the Cape, my mom convinced my dad to rent the place next door to theirs.
Our moms became inseparable as we fought our way to being healthy toddlers and then troublemaking terrors.
My family loved Northport and the Tisdales so much we would’ve moved here full-time, but Dad couldn’t stop teaching at Emerson, so we became part-timers.
My parents bought the house, and we came down as often as we could—weekends, most holiday breaks, and of course, all summer.
Northport is where we feel most like ourselves, and the Tisdales were always part of that.
It was all family barbecues and group bike rides to the beach.
Days spent out on Luke’s dad’s boat and evenings around our firepit. It was perfect—until it wasn’t.
Because suddenly, two summers ago, I found myself looking at Luke differently.
I was thinking nonstop about what kissing him would be like.
Wondering if he’d be any better at it than my ex-boyfriend, Ethan, who never gave me the intense butterflies I was feeling around Luke.
Every time Luke grabbed my hand to get my attention or reached over me to point out something he liked about my painting, my skin would ripple with electricity.
I craved these moments of contact. I began to count how often his eyes found mine in a crowd.
My stomach flipped every time I made him laugh.
It felt like there was an and then about to surprise us.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the way he looked at me when we were alone—like he was thinking that kissing me was worth potentially ruining our friendship—was all in my head. Still, I’d been ready to risk it.
But he didn’t feel the same way, I remind myself. Thankfully I’m over it. I’m over it. I’m over it, I chant to myself to get through the hug.
Luke smells familiar, like sunscreen and salt water but also something new and lightly spicy that I can’t put my finger on.
The contact is a little too sudden, so I don’t have time to raise my arms, and he only holds me for a second before stepping away like I might be diseased.
And, well, I am, but not in a way that’s catching.
The heat of his body lingers on mine, the echo of the contact teasing me with the startling fact that he hasn’t just gotten cuter in the last two years, he’s gotten hot.
He’s taller than me now, and that’s a feat, since at five ten I’m not used to looking up at many people.
I was just as tall as him the last time we were down here.
It made it hard not to stare at his bow-shaped lips, swoopy brown hair, and smooth olive-toned skin.
I shake my head a little to rid myself of that thought.
I force myself to meet his gaze and finally find my voice, squeaking out a hey, or a hi, or a hello. I’m not sure. I don’t hear myself over the blood pounding in my ears.
“Hi,” Luke says, dipping his hands back into the front pocket of his dark red hoodie. “It’s been a while…”
“Yeah,” I manage, and try to smile. “It’s nice to see you.”
He raises both eyebrows at me in a challenge, and I shrug, caught. It’s not nice. It’s complicated. Luke did reach out last year, asking to talk, asking to pick up our friendship. But after what had happened, and with everything going on with my health, I just couldn’t do it.
“I’ll go,” I mutter, turning to leave, feeling my commitment to living every moment in the fullest slipping away. A good wallow sounds great about now.
“You don’t want a blueberry muffin?” Luke surprises me by moving through my awkward attempt to end the conversation and gesturing to the counter.
Of course I want a muffin. What I don’t want is to linger here with him and the sour feeling of what I thought was my healed-over hurt.
I stare at the logo on his sweatshirt for a beat before answering.
It’s the Northport High School mascot, an osprey, but with a baseball bat in its claws instead of the usual fish, and I finally put two and two together.
I wonder if he’s a jock now, not just sitting on the bench to please his dad.
He’s probably popular and well-liked and has no worries beyond which scholarship to accept and which farewell parties to grace with his presence.
He looks like the last time he got bad news he was an infant.
“Aren’t they your favorite?” he adds, looking at me with a quick gut-wrenching smile that doesn’t touch his dark green eyes.
“Only pastry worth having on the whole Cape,” I say, trying to regain some sense of normalcy.
This is my town too. I can be normal. I get back in line, and for some reason he stays next to me.
I order as quick as I can: six muffins, an iced sugary coffee concoction for Abbi, black coffee for my parents and Maddy, per her request, and a chai latte for me.
I force myself to pretend everything is fine.
I read the handwritten chalkboard menus over and over as my foot jiggles.
I can’t keep still. I play with the band of my smartwatch, grateful the medical ID part is on the underside of it.
Then I fiddle with the beads on my EBE bracelet, the one he made me when we were ten.
I’ve only taken it off once since, two years ago for my last volleyball tournament, right before my life imploded. I tug my sleeve down.
When he still doesn’t leave me alone, I step away and turn to face him to give myself some space. “So, how are you?” It feels too rude not to ask the basics.
“Okay.” I’m surprised by the short answer when he so clearly wants to talk. “You?”
“Okay.” Two can play it close to the chest.
“Are you staying all summer?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Will you—”
He’s interrupted when the cashier hands me a pink paper bag.
“I should go.” I pick up one of the drinks, not looking at his face or the confusing expression of hurt there that’s plucking at my heart rate.
But I haven’t really thought this through. There’s too much for me to carry alone. I put the food down. I can feel Luke waiting for me to ask him for help. No thanks. Thankfully someone else calls my name.
“Sera!” Maddy comes rushing up and wraps me in a rib-crushing hug.
“Maddy! You made it,” I say, my mood lifting instantly as I squeeze her back.
“Of course. You bought me coffee before work. You’re an angel.” Maddy’s family runs Waterviews. It’s mostly a traditional American diner, but since Maddy’s mom is Brazilian, they have some South American dishes on the menu too. It’s the best restaurant in town, in my opinion.
“Want to go to Frappie’s after your shift?”
“They closed,” Maddy says with a pout.
“Really? They had the best ice cream on the Cape.”
“We’ll find you a new favorite,” Maddy says as she straightens her oversized wire-frame glasses. “But I can’t go out tonight. I have to watch Marissa,” she grumbles.
“We have all summer,” I remind her.
“Yes, we do!” she sings, and I laugh in relief with how easy it is to be myself with her again. Maddy picks up her coffee and turns to Luke.
“Hey. Are you at the marina or the shop today?” she asks him.
“The marina,” he says, his eyes still on me.
“Cool. Remind Georgie he needs to let you off tomorrow night,” she says.
Luke smiles and says he already did. Maddy grins, and I feel a slight pang at the ease between them.
Maddy turns back to me. “I’m working tomorrow too, but we’ll catch up at the bonfire. You’re still coming, right?”
“At Thirds Beach? Yes,” I confirm. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“You’re coming to the bonfire?” Luke shifts on his feet, and Maddy’s terrible at hiding the grin she flashes between the two of us.
She and Luke have been friends since kindergarten, and she’s been trying to get me to mend our friendship so she’s not stuck in the middle anymore, but I haven’t budged.
“Duh, Sera’s a townie at heart. We couldn’t have our senior bonfire without her.”
Luke is quiet. Obviously I’m not wanted.
“Unless I’m not allowed, for some reason?” I challenge him, not sure why he’s acting like he’s the one who’s hurt.
Luke flushes, stammers that of course I can come. “Just didn’t think you cared about Northport stuff anymore.”
“Of course I do,” I say defensively.
“I gotta run,” Maddy says before we can get into it. “I can help you out with these.” She grabs a drink tray from a pile I didn’t see and fills it for me.
“Thanks. Abbi’s at the bookshop,” I say, picking the food back up and turning toward the door.
“Bye, Luke,” Maddy says as she leaves ahead of me.
I look at him quick, not sure what else to say.
Luke stands there staring at me for another beat before he finally goes back to his table, where a familiar paperback sits, spine up, waiting for him to return to a battle we both know front to back.
Maddy shoots me an Are you okay? look over her shoulder, and I shrug before following her outside.
We find Abbi blowing a kiss to Cam on FaceTime outside of the bookstore. She swoops in to take the drinks from Maddy, who shouts bye to us both and rushes to her car.
“That was not the way I wanted to start this summer,” I say, speed-walking back toward home.
“What happened?” Abbi says. “Wait up, your legs are longer than mine!”
I slow down just enough for her to catch up.
“Luke,” I say, taking a calming sip of my chai.
Abbi smirks. “I thought you were fine, over it, right?”
“Right. I am,” I tell her, while telling myself that nothing ever really happened, so there’s nothing to be hung up on. There’s a brief silence while we both bask in how I am so not over it.
“Maybe you’ll meet someone new. Cam’s coming down tomorrow with some friends.”
“I’m not dating one of Cam’s friends.” I’m horrified. “I’m not a groupie.”
“But you’d make such a cute groupie,” she says, hip-checking me.
I stumble, my mind still lingering in the café. Abbi reaches out and grabs my hand, forcing me to stop walking.
“Hey,” she says, pulling me to face her. “You were bound to run into him eventually.”
I sigh. “I know, but did it have to be right away?”
“Maybe it’s better this way,” she says, reaching up and brushing my hair behind my shoulder. “It’s happened. It’s over. This summer is about having fun. Don’t let some dumb crush from your past ruin that.”
I look into her calm blue eyes. “You’re right,” I say.
She throws her arm around my shoulder.
“I’m always right,” she declares, and I laugh.
Fun, right, I think. That’s what this summer is for. No more moping. I’m going to live every minute of every day to the fullest. I can do that.