“Yeah,” I say, my stomach fluttering. “That was weird, right?”
She laughs. “So weird. But so perfect. Is he always like that?”
“Pretty much. Jackson’s always been a bully. It’s nice to see him get what’s coming to him, for once.” I lean toward her, lowering my voice. “I bet you anything that shirt cost a couple hundred dollars. He’ll try to play it cool, but believe me, this is killing him.”
Ari flops onto the towel and pulls a soda from the small cooler we brought. She pops the tab, then holds the can up toward the water, as if in a toast. “Nice work, ocean.” Then she glances around. “I just hope that girl’s okay.”
I don’t respond. I’m distracted, looking around at the beach towels and blankets and chairs that have taken over the shore. I’m distracted by Jackson, using the corner of a towel to get water out of his ears.
“I’ll be right back.” I turn and hike up the sandy beach, seeking solitude along the rocky cliff side. It’s too early for the infamous make-out sessions to have begun, and it’s easy for me to find an empty alcove among the towering rocks. I lean against a boulder and press my hand to my chest. My heart races underneath my skin.
“This is just wishful thinking,” I whisper. “A fairy tale. Brought on by end-of-year stress, and all those fantasies of wanting to punish people when they deserve it, and … maybe a slight concussion.”
Despite my rational words, my brain shoots back a number of counterarguments. The song. The car accident. The wave.
But every time I start to think—maybe it was me—I chastise myself. Am I really considering the possibility that I sang a karaoke song, and now I have … what? Magic powers? Some sort of cosmic gift? The completely preposterous ability to bestow the justice of the universe?
“Coincidences,” I repeat, beginning to pace. Sand gets into my sandals and I kick them off. I march back and forth between the rocks. “That’s all this is. A bunch of bizarre coincidences.”
But—
I pause.
Too many coincidences have to mean something.
I push my hair back from my face with both hands. I need to be sure. I need proof.
I need to see if I can do it again, on purpose this time.
Gnawing on my lower lip, I peek out through a gap in the rocks, surveying the crowded beach. I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Inspiration, I guess. Someone here must be deserving of punishment for something.
My gaze lands on none other than Quint. He’s helping a few of our peers set up a volleyball net.
Ha. Perfect. If anyone deserves cosmic retribution for their behavior this year, it is definitely Quint Erickson.
I think of all the times he was late. All the times he slacked off. How he left me to fend for myself on presentation day.
How he absolutely refuses to help me redo our semester project.
I squeeze my fist tight.
And wait.
“Hey, Quint,” says a girl from our class, striding over to him. I perk up. What is she going to do? Slap him for some mysterious melodrama I’m not aware of?
“How’s it going?” says Quint, returning her smile.
“Good. I brought some homemade cookies. Want one?” She holds out a tin.
“Heck yeah, I want one,” he says, taking a cookie. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” She beams at him before walking away.
I’m dumbfounded.
I mean, I guess the cookie could be poisoned? But I highly doubt it.
Quint devours the cookie, then finishes staking down the net.
I keep watching for another minute, utterly confused. Soon it becomes clear that nothing horrible is about to befall Quint. In fact, once the volleyball game starts, he scores the first point for his team, receiving a round of whoops and high fives.
Pouting, I finally relax my fist.
“Well. There’s that,” I mutter. The disappointment is hard to swallow, but I’m not sure if I’m more disappointed in the universe, or myself, for almost believing something so absurd.
I roll my shoulders. Enough of that. I’m going to spend the rest of the evening reading the book I brought, eating s’mores, listening to Ari as she tries to piece together the right chord progression for her newest song. I am going to relax.
I grab my shoes and start to slip them back on.
“Please. He’s such a nerd. You know he plays Dungeons and Dragons, right?”
I freeze. I don’t have to look to know it’s Janine Ewing, her voice carrying easily into this little alcove. I can’t see her, or who she’s talking to, but there are only a few boys she could be talking about. Jude and his friends—Matt and César, also sophomores, or Russell, a freshman who joined their group a few months ago.
“Seriously?” says another female voice. Katie? “That weird role-playing game from the eighties? That those kids play in Stranger Things?”
“That’s the one,” says Janine. “It’s like—really? You don’t have anything better to do with your time?”
I peer through the gap in the rocks to see Janine and Katie just a few feet away from the cliff side, lounging on an assortment of vivid beach towels in bikinis and sunglasses. And … oh. Maya is with them, too. Together, they look like a sunscreen advertisement, and not in a bad way. Maya especially looks like a Hollywood starlet. She’s the sort of girl who could have just stepped out of a makeup commercial. Dark skin warmed by the setting sun, thick black hair left natural and curly, framing her face, and a smattering of freckles that are so stinking charming they could inspire whole sonnets.
Unsurprisingly, Jude isn’t the only guy at school with a schoolboy crush on her.
“Isn’t Demons and Dragons some kind of devil-worship game?” asks Katie.
I roll my eyes, and to Maya’s credit, she slides her sunglasses down her nose and gives Katie a look that suggests she agrees with me on just how unnecessary this comment was. “Dungeons and Dragons,” she says. “And I’m pretty sure that’s a rumor started by the same people who thought Harry Potter was evil.”
And I have to admit, while I often question Jude’s mindless devotion to her, Maya does have her moments.
She nudges her glasses back into place. “Anyway. Lay off. I like Jude.”
My eyes widen. Pause. Rewind. She likes Jude?
Does she mean that she like likes him?
I become giddy. I strain my ears to catch every word they’re saying. If I could go back to Jude with empirical evidence that his feelings aren’t unrequited after all, I would be a shoo-in for the Best Sister of the Year Award.
“Of course you like him,” says Janine. “Who doesn’t? He’s so nice.”
“So nice,” Katie agrees emphatically. So emphatic it almost sounds like an insult.
“But he’s also…” Janine trails off. It takes her a long moment to find the words to elaborate. “Just, like, so into you. It’s kind of creepy.”
I make a sound of derision. Jude is not creepy!
I duck back behind the rock before they look back and see me, but their conversation doesn’t falter.
“He does sort of stare at me sometimes,” Maya concedes. “I used to think it was flattering, but … I don’t know. I don’t want to be mean, but you’d think he’d get the hint that I’m not interested, right?”
I flinch.
So much for that plan.
“It does come off as sort of obsessive,” adds Katie. “But in a sweet way?”
I peer through the rocks again, scowling. Jude is not obsessed!
At least, not that obsessed.
He just has a crush on her. It’s not a crime! She should be over the moon to have caught the attention of someone as kind and wonderful as Jude!
“Again, I like Jude,” says Maya. “But it makes me feel a little guilty, to know how he feels when … well, it’s just never going to happen.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about!” says Janine. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, I know. I guess it isn’t my fault I’m not interested in him.”
Katie shushes her suddenly, but it’s with an almost-cruel giggle. “Shh, Maya, god. He’s right over there. He’ll hear you.”
“Oh!” says Maya, clapping a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t know.”
But Janine just nudges her with an elbow. “Oh well. Maybe he’ll take the hint.”
I glance around and spot Jude walking past. I barely catch a glimpse of his expression as he turns away to head back toward our spot on the beach, and I can’t tell whether he’s heard them or not. I can’t tell if the darkness crossing his face is embarrassment, hurt … or just the shadows as the sun sinks into the horizon.
It doesn’t really matter. It was a mean thing to say. This whole conversation feels born out of cruelty, an unnecessary dialogue intended to mock Jude, for no other reason than to boost Maya Livingstone’s inflated ego.
And for her to be mean to Jude, of all people. Patient, thoughtful Jude, who is beloved by all. Who has no enemies. Who can slip into any conversation, sit at any lunch table, attend any party.
And yeah, maybe he plays D&D on the weekends, and reads books with dragons on the covers, and was legitimately excited to go to his first Renaissance Faire last summer. He even wore a tunic and, in my opinion, he looked downright chivalrous in it, too. But I hate to think what Maya or her friends would say if they ever saw the photos.
I stare daggers at the top of Maya’s head. How dare she hurt him like that?
My fist tightens.
This time, I feel it. The tiniest, almost imperceptible jolt in the base of my stomach. Like the flip of your insides when you do an underwater somersault, but more subtle.
Except, still, nothing happens.
I wait. And I wait.
The sun disappears, casting the sky in shades of violet. The first stars begin to blink and shimmer. The cliffs are lit in flickers of gleaming orange from the bonfire.