Chapter 32
SADIE
This hotel boasts large windows that overlook the ocean, beds with quilts made of cotton, and a bathroom with three shower heads, all of which seem to care whether you like their temperature and pressure.
I stand by the window, letting the breeze from the balcony tease my hair, and for a moment, I swear I can still taste the salt on my lips from the beach.
It's at this moment I choose to turn on my phone and open the group text from my sisters but choose not to read through everything they’ve sent me the last two days. Instead, I snap a photo of the waves changing to a darker hue as the stars and moon replace the sun, and I send it.
The replies come immediately, as if they’ve been holding their phones waiting for me to confirm I’m still alive.
Sophie
WHAT?! Not fair.
Emma
It’s beautiful.
Sophie
Where are you?
I smile before I reply.
Sadie
South Carolina.
Sophie
I’m so proud of you.
Emma
Same.
Sadie
Love you both.
Sophie
Loves!
Emma
My stomach drops slightly when I click over to my text with Grant and he hasn’t replied even though he’s read it, but I push the worry away, remembering the girl in the yellow swimsuit floating on the ocean. Right now, this moment is mine.
“That shower isn’t even related to the shower at the motel,” Milo says as he emerges from the bathroom in athletic shorts, his chest bare. He’s drying his hair with his towel.
I laugh. “Yeah, this place is a bit nicer.”
He nods toward the phone in my hands. “Everything good?”
I smile. “Yeah, just checking in with my sisters.”
He pulls the towel around his neck. “They’ve grown up. I don’t know what I expected, but that night at your parents’ house I was shocked that Sophie had outgrown her knobby elbows and braces.”
My smile grows. “She’s still a force, though.”
“She always was.” His eyebrows rise. “She climbed the water tower when she was thirteen.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
Milo chuckles. “Imagine my surprise when my girlfriend’s little sister appeared on the platform with Trevor Emery.”
“Trevor Emery was in our class!” I exclaim, my hand balling up in a fist at my side.
“I took care of it,” he says softly. “He knew if he dared to even blink in her direction again, he was toast.”
Milo protected my sister without me even knowing.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” I ask.
“I didn’t want you to worry or be burdened with the intense hatred Sophie had for me for a while after that.”
I arch my brows, the past painting a picture in my head of a younger Sophie who sucked in her cheeks and looked at anything but Milo when he was lightly teasing her at the dinner table. I remember thinking it was odd. Sophie never could resist banter. I smile and shake my head. “That girl—”
“Is going places.” He steals my sentence. “I like her van idea.”
“You do?” I hear the surprise in my voice.
“Sophie is bold in a way most people wish they were.”
“Bold or difficult?” I ask.
Sophie’s always had a wild streak—she snuck out, hosted parties, was the girl everyone expected to show up to make things a little more fun.
When my dad had his accident and I came home, I slipped into the role of her second mother since our own was preoccupied with Dad’s recovery.
We had so many fights over what was right or wrong, stupid or more stupid.
I never understood why she wanted other people to have a reason to think less of her.
Now, my stomach knots over those arguments because I wish I would have been a little more like her. Snuck out a time or two, bent the rules slightly, cared a little less about my reputation and more about my own experience—about what I wanted instead of what everyone expected.
“We’re all a little difficult in our own way,” he says.
“I’m not difficult,” I say, my arms crossed.
“No, of course not,” he says before he takes the towel from his neck and attempts to snap me with its end. He narrowly misses.
“Hey!” I exclaim.
He laughs. “Want to go do something?”
It’s Saturday night. A Saturday night I’m not in Dusty Hollow, which means—there are things to do.
“Like what?” I ask, rushing toward the balcony, pressing my thighs into the rails as I look out over the long strip of beach along the ocean. In the distance to my left, I see a Ferris wheel glowing in a rainbow of colors against the night sky.
Milo joins me on my right, leaning over the edge with me. “We could go do that.”
“It’s not too childish?” I ask, slightly sheepish, glancing up at him. It’s hardly anything list-worthy, and I brace for the look you get when you choose something just because you want it.
“I think it looks fun.” He grins down at me, and my body seems to wake up, my toes tingling.
I push away from the balcony railing, practically sprinting back into the room to tear through my suitcase until I find a pair of denim shorts and a red peplum top with thin straps that tie at the shoulders.
I’ve never worn it. It was one of those things I bought on impulse thinking how cute I’d look in it but then never had the confidence to wear it out of my closet.
I take them to the bathroom to change. As I look at myself in the mirror, my exposed shoulders freckled and my hair air dried in natural waves, I know what’s missing.
Before we leave the room, I swipe on a thick coat of red lipstick.