Lies Between Us

Chapter 1

Millie

I did not plan to start the summer by dangling out of a second-story window.

But on this breezy night, all that separates me from plunging to my death and living to see my eighteenth birthday is the grip my older sister, Lucy, has on my wrists from inside my bedroom.

Frankie, the youngest, suggested this was the best way to sneak out of our house. Maybe for her.

“It’s easy!” Frankie calls from fifteen feet below. “Swing your foot over to the ladder thingy and hold on.”

“It’s called a trellis,” Lucy says above me.

“Whatever.” Frankie blows a raspberry, clearly not caring a bit about our safety.

“She’s insane,” I say through gritted teeth as Lucy readjusts her clutch on my wrists, inching her fingers down to get a better hold. “Don’t you dare let go.” I kick my feet back and forth, hitting nothing but wind.

I make the mistake of glancing down and suck in a big breath of air. Crap. The ground is very, very far away. “I can’t do this.”

“Why did we let Frankie go down first again?” Lucy says, her breath heavy above me.

“Because I was the only one who volunteered.” Frankie laughs and plops down on the grass.

I shake my head. “Unbelievable.”

Lucy knits her brow together in determination. “I won’t let you fall, Millie. Just get it over with.”

“Easy for you to say.” I grunt and fix my gaze on the trellis beside me. “You’re not the one who’s half-in, half-out.” I swing my leg with as much strength as I can muster, and with a rush of relief and a small miracle, my foot latches on to a section of wood. “I got it!”

“I’m gonna let go,” Lucy says.

“Wait! Let me get my grip.” I release one of her hands and grab a slat of wood, then redistribute all my weight and scamper down to the earth, wisteria and ivy crunching underfoot as I leap off onto the grass and roll over to Frankie.

“Oh my god,” I say, pressing my cheek to the cool ground. “Never again.”

Frankie leans back on her elbows, and we both look up to see Lucy crawling on the roof on her hands and knees, securing herself to the same pathway I took with what looks like no effort at all.

“Why is that so easy for you?” I ask.

Lucy looks back over her shoulder at me, and her lips spread into a smile.

“Wait a second. She’s done this before.” Frankie smacks the backside of her hand against my shoulder.

“Gotta get to Ethan somehow,” Lucy says as she hops off the framework, landing on the grass on one dainty foot.

Of course. Lucy sneaks out to see him without us. I tuck a stray curl behind my ear. “Mom and Dad don’t even care.” I glance up to our parents’ bedroom window and see their light still on, the silhouette of Mom reading in bed dark against the linen curtains. “It’s practically sanctioned.”

“Zip it!” Lucy says. “Don’t ruin it for Frankie.”

“Are you serious? They really know?” Frankie asks, turning to me.

“But that doesn’t make it any less fun,” I say. “I promise.”

Lucy skips ahead toward the hedge that separates our home from the Silvers’ property next door and waves her arm for us to follow.

I grab Frankie’s hand and pull her with me as we take off after Lucy through the grass.

The stars are bright, illuminating us against the dark sky.

When we get to the archway, I pause and close my eyes, inhaling.

Summer nights always smell the same: of sea salt and burnt driftwood, cut grass and lingering barbecue.

Of beginnings. When I blink my eyes open, I see the moon glinting off the Long Island Sound, right over the boardwalk that leads to the beach.

The bonfire we made only hours before is gone, but a tiny plume of smoke drifts into the air.

We’d left a few blankets out there, rocks stationed at the corners to keep them secured, and I wonder who forgot to clean up.

Alex, maybe. Probably Frankie. Goose pimples rise on my arms, and I shiver even though it’s warm out, the breeze only a gentle suggestion.

Everything about this moment is perfect. I wish I could bottle up this feeling—the humming in my stomach, the fluttering in my heart. Every little indicator that reminds me this is what’s important in life. My sisters, the beach, and the boys who live next door.

“Millie, let’s go,” Lucy whispers, and I follow my sisters through the archway that connects us to our next-door neighbors, a label that’s never felt quite right. Friends doesn’t feel intimate enough. And yet the Silvers aren’t family either.

There is no word in the English language to describe the connection between our two households—whose last names are conveniently (and ridiculously) the Golds and the Silvers—whose members spend every Friday Shabbat dinner together, have open invitations to each other’s snack pantries and sports equipment and first aid kits.

Whose lives mirror one another’s in peculiar and almost cosmic ways.

The Silvers are as much a part of my life as the cicadas that sound right after Memorial Day or my membership to the Pelican Island Tennis and Beach Club.

Lucy leads us to the pool house at the far end of their property, past the newly lined pickleball court, the crystal-clear infinity pool, and the tiny putting green Gil installed last spring when he and my dad decided their short games needed work.

“So, Mom and Dad let us come over here this late?” Frankie says. “We’ve been sneaking out after Shabbat every year for…ever.”

“They think it’s cute,” Lucy says. Her voluminous hair falls down her back as she stands up straight, facing the side of the pool house. “Besides, it’s not like they have anything to worry about. When was the last time something bad happened here?” We don’t answer because the answer is never.

Lucy raises a fist and knocks three times, then waits.

The lights are off inside, and the only sound comes from the tiny waves lapping at the shore.

I shiver in my oversize T-shirt and sleep boxers, the unofficial uniform of Friday nights, when the six of us meet here.

Tonight, my top says I Believe in Happily Ever After, a merch tee I snagged at the romance bookstore in Brooklyn the last time we schlepped into the city.

“Why do the boys insist on all this hoopla?” Frankie says. Her corkscrew curls are tied into a bun on the top of her head, sticking out every which way, and she fiddles with one, pulling a tendril from its secure station until it springs back into place.

“Because it’s fun,” Lucy says, knocking her with an elbow. “We get to pretend like we’re in a secret club.”

“We are in a secret club,” I respond, though I flush when I hear desperation in my voice.

Shit, it’s happening again. The wetness in my eyes, the soreness in my throat.

The sentimentality I can usually push down has been rising to the surface so often, ever since Lucy and Ethan’s graduation last week.

The countdown to their departure has begun, and I hate that it’s all I can think about.

I’ve never known life without Lucy sleeping on the other side of my bedroom wall and I don’t want to.

When I think too hard about what it will be like without her asking me if I want to take a bike ride, singing Taylor Swift in the car, or communicating with me using just her eyes from across the dinner table, my brain gets hazy, like I can’t quite picture that version of reality.

If I had it my way, we’d stay these exact ages forever: Lucy, eighteen. Me, seventeen. Frankie, fifteen.

We had one perfect school year, when we all went to Pelican Island Academy’s high school at the same time.

Lucy drove us every morning, dropping Frankie off at the freshman circle before we parked in the senior lot, separating only when I had to go off to junior assembly.

We saw each other in the halls, the bathrooms, at homecoming and pep rallies.

I got to play on Lucy’s varsity tennis team, and though Frankie sulked about being on JV, we all got to wear those uniforms together. And now it’s over.

Lucy knocks again. “Let us in!”

Finally, a voice rings out from inside the pool house. “What’s the password?”

“Oh my god, Alex, who cares?” Frankie steps forward and presses her face to the window.

“Nuh-uh, the password,” says a different voice.

I can’t fight the smile forming on my face. “Pennywise.”

Lucy groans. “You used that one already, Trevor.”

Laughter erupts inside the pool house and then finally the lights switch on and the door swings open, revealing all three Silver boys in various states of repose around the small room.

Alex, the youngest, is perched on top of the counter in the kitchenette, kicking his socked feet against the cabinets, twisting a Rubik’s Cube around in his hands, even though he’s crossing his vivid blue eyes at Frankie.

Like Frankie, he’s the physical outlier of his family: He’s got the same features as his brothers—a round chin, sharp cheekbones, a nose that makes a near-perfect forty-five-degree angle—but he’s the one who towers over the others, whose light eyes are so bright they seem to pierce your skin.

Trevor’s laid out on the couch, my copy of the first Bridgerton novel in his hands.

He pushes himself to sit up, his mouth forming a lazy smile.

“Catch, Millie!” He tries to fling the book to me, but his face contorts into a wince as it falls to the floor at his feet.

Ethan, the oldest boy, who’s leaning against the doorframe, rushes to scoop it up.

“Dude, careful,” Ethan says.

Ever since Trevor messed up his shoulder in a bike accident a few months ago, he’s been itching to heal faster than he should, tossing balls and books and all sorts of stuff his physical therapist says he shouldn’t.

The only person he’ll listen to is Ethan, who’s giving him a stern look, a whole conversation passing between them.

“I know,” Trevor says, sulking, and Ethan’s face relaxes.

It’s always jarring to look at them side by side.

To everyone else, they’re nearly identical, with their dark curls and broad shoulders.

But when you know them as well as we do, it’s obvious they couldn’t be more different.

That if I was faced with the question Which one would you give your heart to? there was only one answer.

Heat flames up my cheeks, down my neck, and there’s a flicker in my core as I watch Ethan flip through the book—my book.

The pages make a pleasant whooshing sound when they move through space.

He looks up at me and smiles, a dark lock of hair flopping down to cover one of his eyes.

When he pushes it back, his T-shirt rides up a little, revealing a sliver of skin, and a lightning bolt strikes my stomach.

He extends his arm to me, the book in his hand. “Here you go.”

I take it from him and hug the copy to my chest. “Thanks.” The word comes out chalky, like all my words do when I’m talking to Ethan.

It’s a sickness, I know. One I’ve tried to rid myself of for the past five years. But I can’t help it.

I’m desperately in love with my sister’s boyfriend.