Chapter 9
SPENCER
EIGHT YEARS AGO
“Dude, I’m starving,” T.J. complains, rubbing his stomach. “Let’s stop and eat.” He points to some of the stands on the beach that serve food and hops off his skateboard.
“I could eat too,” Jason, another of our friends, agrees.
Soon the whole group is complaining about their stomachs and we’re ordering food.
We grab one of the empty picnic tables and cover it with all the various items we bought.
My skin is slick with sweat from our time spent at the skate park this afternoon and I have more than one scratch on my arms and legs.
For sure I’ll get a massive bruise on my shin from a fall, but I don’t care.
Part of skateboarding is knowing you’ll get injured.
If you’re not okay with that then don’t get on a board.
Grabbing a basket of fries, I drench them in ketchup and stuff a few in my mouth.
Finishing our lunch, we skate around the area, goofing off and shoving each other off our boards.
Basically, just being douchebags—especially considering we ditched school to ride around on our boards.
If my parents find out they’ll be majorly disappointed, but everyone deserves to play hooky every now and then.
Flipping my board up, I catch a glimpse of blond hair in my peripheral and look closer, thinking it’s Harlow ditching too. But it’s not. The girl looks a lot like her, though.
She meets my eyes and quickly looks away, her cheeks turning red.
“Hey.” I smack T.J. in the chest. “I’ll be right back.
“Where are you—” Jason starts, but I ignore him, walking over to the girl.
Standing in front of her, my shadow covers her thin body as she sits at the picnic table.
Clearing my throat, I greet her with a simple, “Hey.”
Real smooth. She probably thinks I’m a creep. The way she has her head angled, I can’t quite see her face completely, but there’s something familiar about her.
“Hi,” she replies and I can tell from her tone that she’s not amused.
“You look familiar. Did we go to school together?” I narrow my eyes on her, trying to piece it together.
She shakes her head adamantly. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s your name?” I ask at the same moment I realize this has to be Willa, Harlow’s sister. I haven’t seen her in years, not since her family pulled her to be home-schooled so she could do her dialysis treatments easier.
“I’m not in the habit of giving my name to strangers.”
I laugh in amusement. She has a similar spunk to Harlow. “I’m Spencer.”
“Willa.”
“Willa … Willa … yeah, I remember you.” I stall, thinking of anything I can say that doesn’t have to do with her disease or even her sister.
I don’t want her to say something to her sister and Harlow to think I’m stalking her family.
That’d be creepy. Finally, my brain grasps on something.
“You had that really cool birthday party at your house when we were in grade school, right?” I pray I’m remembering right.
“The bouncy house?” I squint in memory. “Your house is right on the ocean?”
Memories start to come back to me in bits and pieces.
“Y-Yeah, that’s right. That’s me.” I don’t know whether she’s shy or just uncomfortable so I take a step back.
“Harlow is your sister too, yeah?” I confirm, sticking my hands in the pockets of my shorts.
She nods, not opening her mouth to utter a word.
“I thought so.” I smile at her. “You guys look alike. I miss seeing you around.” As soon as I say it, I know I mean it.
I can’t imagine going through what she is.
She’s a lot stronger than anyone else I know.
T.J. chooses then to walk up and tap me on the shoulder. “We need to go.”
“I’ll be there in a sec, T.J.”
He nods and then looks to Willa, giving her a small smile and wave before walking back to our friends.
“Well, it was good seeing you, Willa. Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime.”
“Maybe.”
But her tone says she doubts it, which only makes me grin.
I don’t know what it is, maybe a gut feeling, that tells me that girl and I need each other. I could be wrong, but I think the two of us are going to be good friends.