43. Summer
Summer
SATURDAY
The shark comes back every time I close my eyes.
A shadow in the dark water, a jaw clamping shut, blood spreading in long streaks… and Jace’s screams—the screams of a trapped animal, like nothing I’ve ever heard.
I wake up with the sheets stuck to my skin and my stomach in my throat.
The fourth time, I give up.
I stay on my back, eyes wide open. The bungalow is pitch-dark. I don’t know what time it is. Three, maybe four.
I think about the kiss.
About the way we moved toward each other. Jace’s lips on mine, his fingers on the back of my neck—then we both pulled back at the same time.
I think about the bet.
“Yeah, it was stupid. We were young. We were idiots. Sorry, okay?”
He shrugged. Echoed my word—stupid—without even rephrasing it. A nothing—something that deserved no more than an awkward half-smile and a sorry he didn’t even mean.
Am I overreacting?
Did I spend six years keeping quiet, resenting him, carrying the shame, over a humiliation that maybe wasn’t even that serious? Or is Jace Walker just a guy who can make love to me at night and erase me by morning?
No.
It wasn’t nothing.
I roll onto my side, pull the sheet up, and close my eyes. The screams come back.
Someone knocks at the door.
Three sharp raps, almost cheerful. I jump, my heart kicks up. Jace?
I shove off the sheet and cross the bungalow barefoot. My hand shakes on the handle.
I open it—and it’s not Jace.
Noah’s standing on the doorstep, a cigarette in his mouth. He’s wearing a faded T-shirt two sizes too small with a Millennium Falcon across the chest, gym shorts, and sneakers that are white in memory only.
“You’re not ready?” he says, giving me a once-over. “I got up for nothing, is that it?”
I blink.
“What time is it?”
“Five.”
“You’re insane.”
He almost smiles.
Noah Walker, up at five in the morning, in workout clothes. The same guy I found three days ago holed up in his cabin, amid the stink of stale smoke, pizza, and empty cans.
I pluck the cigarette from his lips, step forward, and grind it out against the railing.
“Give me a minute.”
I close the door and change: black leggings, sports bra, T-shirt, sneakers. When I come back out, Noah hasn’t moved.
“That was my last smoke,” he sighs.
“Good.”
We start running in silence.
The morning is misty, almost cold. No sound—just our sneakers on the gravel path and Noah’s breathing, short, too fast.
I hold back a smile. The other day, I was the one who went and got him, who made him get moving. Today, he’s the one who came.
We follow the beach along the boardwalk. The ocean is flat, pearl gray. Noah slows after three minutes, speeds up, slows again. I match my pace to his.
The pier emerges from the mist—first the pilings, then the railing and the wet planks.
“Want to stop here?” I ask.
Noah nods a little too eagerly.
“Good idea,” he manages, bent double, hands on his knees.
We climb onto the pier and walk to the end. I lean on the railing, facing the ocean. Noah stops next to me.
It’s the same place as last night.
Jace was here, leaning against the same post. Telling me about the helicopter, the hospital, Noah’s money. His fingers closed around mine somewhere between the trailer and here.
“I saw the video,” I say.
Caught off guard, Noah turns to look at me.
“Shit… he showed it to you.”
He runs a hand through his hair and looks down at the water.
“I didn’t know anything, Noah. Nothing at all,” I say, my voice rough. “I’m sorry. For him. For you, too.”
I hesitate, then ask the question I probably shouldn’t.
“With your grades, wasn’t there some scholarship you could’ve gotten? For pre-med?”
He gives a short laugh.
“I had the grades, but not the rest. The clubs, the sports, the volunteering—all the stuff that looks good on an application. I was working twenty hours a week at the diner, so I didn’t have the time.
And the money was there—what my parents had set aside for school.
Well… it was supposed to be there. I didn’t think I’d need a scholarship that covered everything. ”
He stares at the horizon.
“Anyway, after the accident, my head wasn’t in it. Jace was in the hospital, my mom could barely stand, Avery was ten, and me… I let it all slide. The scholarship applications, the personal statements, the deadlines.”
“What about loans?” I ask.
“Federal loans covered next to nothing. For the rest, I needed an adult to cosign with me. And what was my mom going to take on—more debt?”
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“At least now you know. About the bet—”
“We talked about that too,” I cut in. “It’s settled.”
“So… are you mad at me?” he asks, trying to catch my eye.
“No,” I say. “It’s fine.”
“And Jace? Is he mad at me?”
I stare at him. Why would Jace blame Noah? Jace is the one who made the bet. Noah was just a sixteen-year-old kid who told the truth.
But I don’t want to talk about this anymore. The word bet burns my mouth every time I say it, and the shame is still there, intact under the anger.
“No. It’s fine, Noah.”
He’s about to add something, but I beat him to it.
“Like I said, it’s settled,” I say, sharp.
Noah doesn’t push it. His shoulders loosen and he exhales.
“Jace… does this happen a lot?” I ask. “The pool thing.”
Noah folds his arms on the railing.
“Not as much as it used to. At first, it was constant. He stopped sleeping. He stopped eating. He couldn’t look at a photo of the ocean without it setting off an episode.”
Noah draws a long breath.
“It took him months to get back in the water, even after the PT cleared him. It wasn’t his body that was the problem.
It was his head. And when he did go back, it wasn’t because he was better.
It was because somebody had to keep the surf school running.
Pay the bills. The insurance. The upkeep on the gear.
If Jace didn’t go back, the school went under.
And without the school, there was nothing left. ”
My throat tightens. There’s nothing to say to that.
“And me, like an idiot, I’d have rather we sold the school so I could go to college. I’m a goddamn selfish prick, huh?”
He says it without bitterness, like a plain fact. Which is almost worse.
“No. You’re someone who had a dream and lost it. That’s not the same thing.”
Noah looks down at his hands.
“You’d have made a great doctor,” I add. “Well… you already make a great plumber.”
“Yeah. Instead of healing people, I fix sinks. Real step up.”
“You still save book club nights, though.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. A slightly crooked smile, but a real one.
“You see the way Harper was looking at you Thursday night?” I say.
“Yeah, right.”
“And last night too, at the pool. Before it all went sideways.”
He mutters something I can’t make out, but his ears go red. He stares at his sneakers a little too hard.
“You’re full of it,” he says again.
“I’m telling you what I saw, Noah.”
He shrugs but half-smiles, uncrosses his arms, and straightens up a little.
The mist lifts off the beach. In the distance, the first rooftops of Coral Bay come into view, pale in the morning light.
“Race you?” I say.
Noah shoots me a dark look.
“Why not just throw me off the pier while you’re at it?”
I’m already gone.
“Hey!” he shouts behind me. “That’s cheating!”
I don’t slow down. My sneakers slap the planks of the pier, then the packed sand, then the asphalt of the boardwalk. Behind me, Noah swears, his heavy footsteps pounding, his breathing ragged.
I ease off a little.
He pulls even with me after a few yards—red, drenched, furious.
“Remind me why I came and got you,” he pants.
I laugh.
“I hate you,” he adds.