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Table of Contents:

Chapter 1. Waking to the Stabbing July Light

Chapter 2. Heart-Shaped Sunglasses 

Chapter 3. Rollercoaster Squeals

Chapter 4. A Midnight Embrace

Chapter 5. Cold Pizza Mood

Chapter 6. A Kiss Beneath the Plaster Rocket

Chapter 7. A Sugar Rush Warning

Chapter 8. Ferris Wheel’s Sway

Chapter 9. Amidst the Concert’s Noise

Chapter 10. Stopping in the Greasy Back Room

Chapter 11. The Oak-Shaded Path

Chapter 12. Tangled Sheets in the Pink Glow

*

Chapter 1. Waking to the Stabbing July Light 

I was going to be fired. Sam would take that rusty pizza peel and wave it in my face while he yelled—assuming I ever showed up. My tombstone might as well read: Here lies Valery. Late because his phone was a piece of garbage.

My eyes snapped open to the cruel, unforgiving light of July stabbing through my cheap plastic blinds, and I knew it. The universe had conspired against me. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand, mashed the home button, and the dead battery icon blinked at me like a mocking little ghost. Eleven-fifteen.

No. No way.

I launched myself out of bed like I was being shot from a cannon. My foot caught in the tangled sheet—of course it did—and I went down hard, my elbow slamming into the floor with a crack I’d feel tomorrow. But tomorrow didn’t matter. Today, Sam was going to fire me, and I’d have to move back in with my mom, and I’d never see Elise again because I wouldn’t have money to buy her soda at the boardwalk.

Okay. Focus. Pants. Shirt. Go.

I yanked on my black work shirt, got my arms stuck in the sleeves, and did a frantic, hopping dance across my bedroom floor trying to pull the fabric over my head without falling over. I fell over. My head hit the nightstand, and my water bottle toppled, spilling lukewarm water all over last week’s laundry. I didn’t care. I was a man on a mission, and that mission was to not get murdered by my boss.

While washing my face, I didn’t look in the mirror. I knew what I looked like. My brown hair stuck up in seventeen directions, and there was probably a pillow crease permanently etched into my cheek. But Elise wasn’t going to see me. She didn’t even know I existed outside of the pizza shop. Why would she? She was a goddess. I was a guy who had just put his shirt on inside-out.

Wait—was I inside-out? I checked. I wasn’t. But the tag stuck out of the collar like a stupid flag, and I didn’t have time to fix it, so I tucked it in and hoped for the best.

The hallway of my apartment building was an oven. The heat hit me like a physical wall, thick and wet, the kind that made your lungs feel heavy. I took the stairs two at a time—well, I tried. I tripped on the third step, grabbed the railing, and swung myself around the corner like an idiot, my heart already hammering.

Out on the street, the tourists were everywhere. Bright bathing suits, coolers, beach chairs, kids with plastic buckets. I weaved through them like a man possessed, my hands shoved in my pockets, my silver thumb ring digging into my skin. I walked so fast my sneakers squeaked on the hot asphalt.

Then my phone buzzed. Sam.

I answered, the words spilling out in a breathless rush. "Sam, I am so sorry, my phone died, my alarm didn't go off, I'm literally running right now, I'm going to pass out, but I'm coming, I swear, please don't kill me, I'll work double, I'll clean the grease trap—"

"Valery." Sam's voice was flat. Tired. The voice of a man who had seen too many teenage employees fail him. "Just get here. The register needs setting."

He hung up.

I stared at my phone. My reflection in the black screen looked like a haunted raccoon. I shoved it back in my pocket and ran.

And as I ran, my traitor brain did the thing it always did. It thought about her. Elise.

Three days ago. The park. The old oaks. The way she had looked at me like I was something interesting, something worth seeing. She had pulled those heart-shaped sunglasses off her head—pink plastic, cheap, the kind you won at a carnival—and slid them onto my face, her fingers brushing my temples, and I had forgotten how to breathe. I had stood there, frozen, while she laughed and took a photo and called me a "cute disaster."

I had looked at that photo last night. In the dark. Under my blanket. For three hours. My heart had pounded so hard I thought I was having a medical event.

I burst through the door of Sam's Pizza Palace at 11:52. Eight minutes early. Ha. I was a miracle worker.

The bell above the door jingled, and the smell hit me: oregano, fried dough, and the faint gasoline tang from the convenience store next door. Sam was behind the counter, counting out ones. He looked up, and his eyebrow twitched.

"You're not late," he said, surprised.

"I ran," I gasped, doubling over with my hands on my knees. "I think I pulled something. Is my face purple? It feels purple."

Sam just shook his head and gestured to the back. "Apron. Dough. Go."

I nodded, still wheezing, and stumbled into the kitchen. The heat from the ovens hit me like a blast furnace. I grabbed the flour-dusted apron off the hook and tied it around my waist, but my fingers were shaking—from the run, from the panic, from the sunglasses moment—and the knot came undone twice. Three times. I finally gave up and just held the strings in my fist while I grabbed the dough.

My hands knew the motions. Knead, stretch, toss. The dough slapped against the counter, and I fell into the rhythm, flour dusting my forearms, the heat fogging my glasses. But my brain wasn't in the kitchen. My brain was in the park. My brain was watching Elise drink a soda through a striped straw, her copper hair escaping her ponytail, her green-hazel eyes sparkling with that manic, chaotic energy that made me feel like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.

She was leaving at the end of August. The thought hit me like cold water. Three weeks. She'd go back to whatever college she went to, and I'd be here, in this kitchen, kneading dough, and she'd forget I ever existed.

My hand slipped. The dough flew out of my grip, smacked against the wall, and slid down with a sad, wet plop.

Sam yelled from the front. "You good back there?"

"FINE!" I yelled back, my voice cracking. "JUST... RE-ENACTING A SCENE FROM A MOVIE. VERY ARTISTIC."

I scooped the dough off the floor, my face burning. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that the sugar rush was already building in my chest again. Just thinking about her was enough. Just remembering her laugh was enough to make me feel drunk.

I was a disaster. A walking, sweating, dough-throwing disaster. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Chapter 2. Heart-Shaped Sunglasses

Breathe. Just breathe. I was a normal person walking through a normal park. My heart was not going to explode out of my chest.

I was cutting through the park to avoid the boardwalk crowds, because the tourists were out in full force and I couldn't handle the sensory overload of neon lights and screaming children and frying oil. The old oaks provided a pocket of shade, a green canopy that filtered the afternoon light into dappled spots on the dirt path. Cicadas buzzed so loud I could feel it in my teeth.

I had my hands in my pockets, my silver ring warm against my thumb, and I was doing a pretty good job of convincing myself I was a normal, functional human being.

And then I saw her.

My brain froze. Complete system failure.

Elise was sitting on the swings. The swings. The ones we had sat on three days ago. Her copper hair was in a low ponytail, but wild strands had escaped in the humidity, curling around her face like little spirals. She wore a cropped tank top and cut-off shorts, and she was drinking a soda through a striped straw, because of course she was. Her heart-shaped sunglasses were pushed up on her head, catching the light.

I stopped walking. My feet glued themselves to the dirt path. My heart launched itself into my throat. My palms went instantly sweaty. My tongue turned to sandpaper.

Okay. Turn around. Walk away. Pretend I hadn't seen her. She wouldn't even notice—

"VALERY!"

Too late.

She had spotted me. Her face lit up like a firework, and she waved her free hand so vigorously that her charm bracelet clacked together like a wind chime. "OMG, I was starting to think you were avoiding me!"

Avoiding her? I had been thinking about her so much I forgot how to make eye contact with my own mother.

My feet moved on their own, traitors that they were. They carried me across the dirt path, past the rusty jungle gym, straight to the swing next to hers. I sat down, and the rusted chains groaned under my weight. The plastic seat was hot from the sun, and I gripped the chains so hard my knuckles went white.

"You weren't avoiding me, were you?" she asked, leaning toward me. Her soda sloshed in the cup. The ice clinked. I caught a whiff of her—something floral, cheap, and utterly intoxicating.

"No!" I said. It came out as a squeak. A literal squeak. I cleared my throat and tried again, deeper. "No. I was just... walking."

"Walking," she repeated, a teasing grin spreading across her face. "You're always walking. Don't you ever get tired? Don't you ever just want to sit still?"

I wanted to sit here forever. I wanted to memorize the way her nose crinkled when she teased me.

She took a long, dramatic sip of her soda, the striped straw bending against the ice. Then, without warning, she held the cup out to me. "Here. You look like you need it."

My brain went into overdrive. Her lips had been on that straw. If I drank from it, I was technically indirectly kissing her. Was that weird? Should I refuse? What if I choked?

I took the soda. My hand shook so badly the ice rattled against the plastic. I brought the straw to my lips—trying not to think about the faint residue of her lip gloss—and drank. It was watered down, the ice mostly melted. It tasted like the most exquisite nectar in history.

"Good, right?" she said, already pulling out her phone. "Okay okay okay, look at this!"

She leaned in close. So close her shoulder pressed against mine, and I felt the warmth of her skin through my work shirt. I stopped breathing. She scrolled through her photos, her thumb flying across the screen.

"Look!" She shoved the phone in my face. Photos of the boardwalk at night, neon signs reflecting on wet pavement. The motel pool—the kidney-shaped disaster at the Starlux. And then a plastic dolphin, its painted eye chipped, held triumphantly in her hand. "Isn't it cute? I spent like twenty bucks trying to win it, and the carny totally felt bad for me and just handed it over!"

I smiled. I couldn't help it. The smile cracked across my face like a sunrise. "Yeah," I said, my voice soft. "It's cute."

"Right?!" She shoved the phone back in her pocket and started swinging. The chains creaked, her legs pumping back and forth, her hair whipping behind her. "Ugh, I'm so bored though. Wildwood is the same as last summer. Same boardwalk, same rides, same everything." She turned to look at me, her eyes locking onto mine. "I need something interesting to happen." She paused, something flickering in her green-hazel eyes. A spark. A dare. "Maybe you're that something."

I was going to pass out. My face went nuclear. I could feel the heat crawling up my neck, flooding my cheeks, turning my ears into burning coals. "Me?" I croaked. "I'm boring. I work at a pizza place. I pump gas. I'm the least interesting person in Wildwood."

She didn't laugh. She tilted her head, that sideways look that made me feel like she was seeing straight through my skin. "You're not boring," she said softly. "You're quiet. There's a difference."

Then she reached up. She pulled the heart-shaped sunglasses off her head, the pink plastic frames glinting in the dappled light. Before I could process it, she leaned forward and slid them onto my face. Her fingers brushed my temples. Her thumb grazed my cheekbone.

My soul left my body.

"OH MY GOD," she shrieked, already pulling out her phone. "You look amazing! Hold still! I need proof that you can look cool!"

I tried to smile. My face did weird things—twitching, contorting, like I was having a minor stroke. It came out as a bizarre grimace that made her laugh even harder.

"You're such a disaster," she said, snapping the photo. "A cute disaster, but still a disaster." She looked at the screen, her fingers tapping away, and then glanced at me over the top of the phone. "There. Now you're officially a mystery."

She slid the sunglasses off my face and put them back on her head, and I felt the loss of them like a physical ache. The real world was too bright. Too harsh. I blinked, disoriented.

"So," she said, and just like that, the conversation bounced to the next topic. "My mom. Ugh. She did it again. Found another guy. Thought he was different." She rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might get stuck. "He wasn't different. They're never different. And she's all like, 'Elise, he's so sweet, he's so thoughtful,' and I'm like, Mom, you said that about the last three guys! And then she gets all defensive and—"

She was off, a freight train of words, her hands gesturing wildly, her bracelets jingling with every movement. I just sat there, nodding, because I couldn't form words. My brain was still rebooting.

"—and I'm just sitting there like, okay, cool, I'll just be over here pretending I don't see the pattern!"

She stopped abruptly, mid-rant, and looked at me. "Sorry. I'm doing it again. I'm talking too much."

"No," I said, and I meant it. "It's fine. I like listening to you."

I liked listening to her more than I liked oxygen. I liked listening to her more than I liked pepperoni pizza, and that was saying something.

She looked at me then. Really looked. Her eyes softened, and for a moment, she wasn't the chaotic, fast-talking girl who flirted with everyone. She was just Elise. My Elise. The girl who had never hidden anything from me because I was safe, because I was her best friend.

"You're sweet," she said quietly. "You know that? Like, actually sweet."

My face went red again. "Uh," I said, because I was a poet. "Thanks?"

She laughed, that bright bark that made my heart do a triple axel. "Okay, come on. Walk me to the motel. My mom wants help with towels or something, I don't know." She hopped off the swing, landing on the dirt with a soft thud, and started walking away without waiting for my answer. "Walk me?" she asked over her shoulder, a grin playing on her lips.

I stood up and followed her. I would have followed her to the end of the earth.

But as I walked beside her, my hands shoved deep in my pockets to hide the shaking, I realized she was walking close. Too close. Our arms kept brushing. Every time it happened, a jolt of electricity shot up my spine, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from making a noise.

Then, without warning, she reached over and grabbed my wrist. "Wait, hold on," she said, stopping short. "Your tag is sticking out." She reached up and tucked the tag of my work shirt back into the collar. Her fingers brushed the back of my neck.

I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. I was just a statue, frozen in the middle of the park, while the love of my life fixed my stupid shirt tag like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"There," she said, patting my chest. "Now you look presentable."

She kept walking, completely oblivious to the fact that she had just killed me. I stood there for a full three seconds, trying to remember how lungs worked. Then I jogged to catch up, my face on fire, my heart pounding, feeling like I had just chugged a gallon of pure, undiluted euphoria.

I was so screwed. And I had never been happier.

Chapter 3. Rollercoaster Squeals

I was going to lose my mind.

Not from the rollercoaster—though that was a distinct possibility, given that the Great White looked like it was held together by rust and prayers—but from the sheer, overwhelming presence of Elise being within a ten-foot radius of me.

I stood in the queue with Marco, the afternoon sun beating down on us like a personal attack, the metal railings hot enough to fry an egg on. Marco talked about something. Probably the fry stand. Probably some drama about a missing bag of potatoes. I nodded along, making appropriate "uh-huh" and "yeah, man" sounds, but my brain did the thing it always did: scanned the crowd like a heat-seeking missile, looking for that flash of copper hair.

Then I saw her. She was a few groups ahead in the queue, surrounded by friends I didn't recognize—girls in bikini tops and boys with too much hair gel. She laughed at something, her head thrown back, her copper hair spilling over her shoulders like liquid fire. The late afternoon light caught her, and she looked like she was glowing.

The sugar rush hit me like a freight train. My heart launched into my throat. My palms went slick. My vision tunneled.

"Bro," Marco said, elbowing me. "You're staring. Like, really staring. It's getting creepy."

"I'm not—" I started, but I couldn't finish because Elise had turned around.

She had felt me looking. Her eyes found mine across the crowd, and her whole face transformed. Her grin split her face in half, and she shrieked my name at a volume that made the people around her jump.

"VALERY!"

Then she was moving. She slid out of line with that effortless, liquid grace, leaving her friends behind, weaving through the queue like a fish through water.

"Oh my god, oh my god, hi!" She was in front of me now, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her green-hazel eyes, close enough that I could smell her—sunscreen and coconut and that cheap floral shampoo I had memorized like a sacred text. "This is literally the best thing that's happened all day! I was so bored, Valery, you have no idea, I was about to jump off the boardwalk, I swear to god—"

She was already pressing something into my palm. A soda cup. XXL. The condensation was slick and cold against my skin, and I stared down at it like a holy relic.

"Here, here, try it," she commanded, bouncing on her heels. "It's literally the best soda I've ever had in my life. I don't even know what it is, it's just like—" She made a vague gesture with her hands, her charm bracelet jingling. "It's so good! Try it!"

Her lips had been on this straw. If I drank from it, I was technically—

"Valery! Drink!"

I brought the straw to my lips. My hand shook. The soda was watered down and lukewarm, the ice long melted, and it tasted like the most exquisite nectar in history.

"RIGHT?!" She vibrated with excitement. "I told you! It's amazing. I've had like three of these already, I'm gonna get diabetes or whatever, but I don't even care. Life is short, Valery, you have to enjoy the small things!"

I opened my mouth to say something cool, something witty, but what came out was: "Your friends—"

She waved a dismissive hand. "They'll be fine. They know I do this. I always abandon them when I see you. It's like a thing now."

It's like a thing now. She grinned at me, and I felt my face go nuclear. The heat crawled up my neck and flooded my cheeks.

"I'm a thing?" I asked, trying to sound cool, but it came out strangled and squeaky.

She leaned in closer—so close I saw the tiny freckles across her nose, the ones that only appeared in the summer—and said, "You're like my favorite thing."

Then she was off. A whirlwind. A tornado. A chaotic force of nature I had no hope of resisting.

"Okay okay okay, tell me everything," she said, pulling me forward as the queue shuffled ahead. "What's been happening? What have you been doing? Have you been working a lot? You always work so much, you need to have more fun, seriously, you're gonna burn out and die and I'll be so sad, Valery, I'll be devastated—"

"You're talking really fast," I managed.

"I always talk fast!" she said, completely unbothered. "It's because I have so many thoughts and they all want to come out at once. Like right now, I'm thinking about how I need to get you to come to the beach with me tomorrow, and I'm thinking about how I really want to ride the Great White and scream until my throat hurts, and I'm thinking about how you look really cute today, actually, like did you do something different with your hair or—"

"I didn't do anything," I said, my voice about three octaves higher than it should have been.

"Well, whatever you did, keep doing it." She bumped her shoulder against mine, and I felt like I'd been electrocuted. Her arm was warm against mine, her skin soft and sun-kissed, and I could feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of her tank top. My brain short-circuited. I forgot how to be a person.

The queue shuffled forward again, and she stayed with me. Her friends had given up on calling her back. They were probably used to this by now. Elise did what Elise wanted.

And what Elise wanted, apparently, was to talk to me. About everything. About nothing. About the girl at the fry stand who spilled ketchup on her white shorts and cried. About the seagull that stole her funnel cake last week. About her mom's new boyfriend, Mark, who was "fine, I guess, but like, he's so boring, Valery, he doesn't get my jokes at all."

I nodded along, my face frozen in a smile that probably made me look like a deranged mannequin. All I could think about was how close she was. Her arm kept brushing mine. Her charm bracelet jingled with every exaggerated gesture. Her hair—that copper river—kept whipping around and catching the light.

Then she leaned in close. Her hand landed on my arm. Her face was inches from mine. I could see the tiny sparkles in her eye shadow, the faint shimmer on her cheekbones. I stopped breathing entirely.

"You know what I love about you?" she said, her voice dropping to something quieter, almost intimate. "You actually listen. Like, you really listen. Most guys just wait for their turn to talk, but you—" She poked my chest with her finger, right over my racing heart. "You actually pay attention."

I felt my face go red. My skin was on fire. I was going to spontaneously combust right here in the queue, and my tombstone would read: He listened too well.

"I just—" I started, but I didn't know how to finish. My brain was a pile of static. All I could think about was her finger on my chest, the warmth of her hand on my arm, the way her green-hazel eyes searched mine like I was a mystery she wanted to solve.

"You're cute when you blush," she said, grinning that bright, chaotic grin that made my heart do triple axels. "You're cute all the time, actually. But especially when you blush."

I loved her. I loved her so much it hurt. I loved her so much I wanted to scream it from the top of the Great White.

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—and then Laurence appeared.

He materialized out of nowhere, cutting through the line with the grim determination of a man on a mission. His whistle still hung around his neck from his shift, and his expression was dark. He grabbed my other arm and pulled me to the side, out of the queue, into the shaded alcove by the maintenance shed.

"Laurence—"

"What are you doing?" he hissed. His voice was low and urgent, his grip on my arm tight. "I saw you with her. I've seen her before, Valery. On the boardwalk. In the arcade. She flirts with everyone. You know that, right?"

I shook my head. "She's different—"

"Different how? Because she talks to you? Because she looks at you like you're interesting?" Laurence's jaw was tight. "I know you're in love with her. I've known for years. And I know she's the first person who's ever looked at you like you mattered. But that doesn't make her safe."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him he didn't know her, didn't know the way she had held my hand in the motel parking lot, the way she had whispered in my ear, the way she looked at me like I was the only person in the world who actually listened. But the words wouldn't come. They were stuck in my throat, tangled with all the fear and hope and desperation I'd carried for weeks.

"I have to go," I said instead. "Work."

Laurence let go of my arm. His expression softened, just a fraction. "I'm not trying to be the bad guy, Valery. I'm trying to protect you."

"I know," I said. And I did know. I hated it, but I knew.

I walked back to the queue. Elise was still there, waiting at the railing, her face bright and expectant. But when she saw me, something flickered in her expression. A flash of uncertainty. A crack in the armor.

"You okay?" she asked, and her voice was softer than usual. Less shrieky. More real.

"Yeah," I said, and the lie tasted bitter on my tongue. "I just— I forgot I have a shift. I have to go."

She didn't believe me. I could see it in her eyes, the way they searched mine for something I wasn't giving her. But she laughed it off, because that was what she did. That was the mask she wore.

"Sure," she said, and her smile was too bright, too wide, too fake. "I'll see you around."

I walked away. I could feel her eyes on my back, burning holes through my work shirt. I didn't look back. I couldn't. If I looked back, I would run to her. I would fall to my knees and beg her to forgive me for being such a coward.

I walked until I couldn't hear her voice anymore, until the squeals of the rollercoaster riders faded into the background hum of the boardwalk. I sat on a bench by the railing, looking out at the water. The ocean was calm, the waves lapping gently at the shore. The sun was starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.

The soda cup was still in my hand. The ice had long melted. The condensation had dripped down my fingers and soaked into my jeans. I brought it to my lips and drank the warm, watery remains, tasting the ghost of her lip gloss, the sweetness of the sugar, the memory of her voice saying, "You're like my favorite thing."

I knew she didn't mean it. Not like I meant it. But I couldn't make myself believe that. And that was the problem.

Chapter 4. A Midnight Embrace

The shift at Sam's had been fine.

Fine. The kind of fine where the dough cooperated, the cheese didn't stick to the peel, and the register balanced on the first try. Sam didn't even look at me with that particular tired expression he sometimes got when he thought I was slacking off. He was in a good mood tonight, humming along to the oldies on the jukebox and telling me stories about Wildwood in the seventies, about the glory days when the boardwalk was packed and the motels were fully booked from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

I listened and nodded and smiled because Sam was good people. He was the kind of boss who didn't mind when you burned a pie and just told you to eat it yourself. He was the kind of boss who gave you a shift even when you showed up looking like a raccoon that had been hit by a truck.

But all through the shift—through the kneading and tossing and folding—my brain was on a loop. The rollercoaster queue. Elise's hand on my arm. Her voice saying, "You're like my favorite thing." Laurence's face, grim and warning. The way her smile had faltered when I walked away.

I should text her. I should apologize. I should tell her the truth. But what was the truth? That I was so in love with her I couldn't think straight? That I was terrified of losing her? That the thought of her leaving at the end of August made me feel like I was drowning?

I locked the front door of Sam's behind me at almost midnight, the bell jingling softly. The smell of oregano and gasoline clung to my clothes like a second skin. The night air was warm and heavy, the kind of summer heat that made you feel like you were breathing through a wet towel.

I started walking toward my apartment, my hands in my pockets, my silver ring warm against my thumb.

Then my phone buzzed.

I pulled it out, the cracked screen lighting up, and there it was:

Elise: come to the motel. i need to get out.

I stared at it for a long moment. My thumb hovered over the screen.

It was almost midnight. I was tired. I had been on my feet for eight hours, my back ached, and my boots were full of sand somehow. I needed sleep.

But it was Elise. And I never said no to Elise.

I started walking before I even realized I had made the decision. My feet carried me toward the Starlux like they had a mind of their own. The streets of Wildwood were quiet at this hour, the tourists long gone back to their motels, the boardwalk lights dimmed to a sleepy glow. The Starlux was a twenty-minute walk from Sam's, past the closed souvenir shops and empty parking lots and the feral cats that darted between trash cans.

All through the walk, my brain churned.

She had texted me. She wanted me to come. She needed me. I was her favorite thing. Her best friend. The only person who listened.

But Laurence had said she flirted with everyone. What if I wasn't special? What if I was just another guy she used for attention?

No. She was different. She looked at me like I mattered. She had held my hand. She had hugged me. She had whispered in my ear.

But she was leaving at the end of August. She would leave, and I would be here, alone, in this stupid town, and she would forget I ever existed.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I almost walked past the Starlux. The neon sign flickered overhead, the "STARLUX" stuttering like a hiccup, the pink light casting everything in a dreamy glow. The kidney-shaped pool was dark and still, the water reflecting the neon like a mirror.

Then I saw her.

She was waiting in the parking lot, leaning against a light pole that cast a weak yellow glow. She wore a tank top and cutoffs, her copper hair loose around her shoulders, and she was barefoot on the warm asphalt. Her toes were painted a bright pink I had never noticed before. She scrolled through her phone, her charm bracelet catching the light, and she looked so beautiful that my heart stopped.

She looked up. When she saw me, her whole face transformed—like watching the sun rise. Her grin split her face, and she shrieked my name at a volume that probably woke up half the motel.

"VALERY!"

Then she was running toward me. Barefoot on the asphalt. Her hair flying behind her. Arms open wide.

I caught her because I had no choice. She threw herself at me, and I stumbled back a step, and suddenly she was hugging me. Her arms looped around my neck. Her bare feet landed on top of my boots. She smelled like cheap shampoo and sunscreen and the faint metallic tang of the motel pool. Her body was warm against mine, and that familiar rush hit me—overwhelming, uncontrollable. My heart launched into my throat. My palms went slick. I felt like I'd been electrocuted.

"Oh my god, you came!" she said, her voice muffled against my shoulder. "I didn't think you would come! I thought you were mad at me or something!"

"I'm not mad at you," I said, my voice muffled against her hair. "I was just busy."

"You're always busy!" She pulled back and looked at me, her green-hazel eyes scanning my face like she was searching for something. "But you're here now, so I forgive you. Come on, let's go to the back. My mom and Mark are fighting again, and I can't be in that room for one more second."

She grabbed my hand. Her hand was small and warm, her fingers lacing through mine like it was the most natural thing in the world. I felt like I was floating.

She pulled me around the side of the motel, past the kidney-shaped pool and the chaise lounges with their cracked webbing, past a vending machine that hummed with a dying wheeze. The neon sign flickered overhead, casting everything in that dreamy pink glow.

"So," she said, her voice quieter now, less shrieky, more real. "My mom. She's being an idiot. Again. She and Mark are fighting about something stupid, I don't even know what, it's always something stupid, and I just—" She threw her hands up, and I felt the loss of her hand like a physical ache. "I can't do it anymore. I can't watch her do this to herself. She's been doing this my whole life, Valery. Chasing men who are wrong for her, convincing herself each one is different, that this time it'll work out. And it never does!"

She turned to look at me, her eyes wet and shiny in the moonlight. The pink neon reflected in them like tiny stars.

"And I'm so scared," she said, her voice cracking. "I'm so scared that I'm going to be like her. That I'm going to chase men who won't stay. That I'm going to be temporary. That I'll never be enough for anyone."

My heart shattered.

I opened my mouth to say something comforting, something reassuring, something that would make her understand she was everything—but nothing came out. I was never good at this. Never good at finding the right words when it mattered most.

So I reached out instead. My hand found hers on the railing. I curled my fingers around hers and squeezed gently. She looked down at our hands, then up at me.

"You're not temporary," I said, my voice rough and low. "You're not temporary, Elise. You're—" I shook my head. "You're the most permanent thing in my life."

She stared at me for a long moment. Her green-hazel eyes searched mine, and I felt like she was seeing straight through me, straight into the chaotic, screaming mess of my soul.

Then she laughed—a small, broken laugh that didn't sound anything like her usual bright bark.

"You're so sweet," she said. "You're so sweet and you never know what to say, and I love that about you. I love that you just sit there and listen and don't try to fix everything."

"I try," I said. "I just don't know how."

She laughed again, a little brighter this time. A little more like her. Then she stepped closer. And closer. She wrapped her arms around me in a hug that lingered.

Her charm bracelet pressed into my back, the metal cool through my shirt. She was so close I could feel the beat of her heart against my chest. Her body pressed against mine, and I felt every curve, every inch of her warmth.

"I could stay like this all night," she whispered, her lips right next to my ear.

That was it. I was done for. My heart pounded so hard I was sure she could feel it. My palms were sweating. My brain was static.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt. I wanted to hold her and never let go. I wanted to tell her I loved her, that I had loved her for years, that she was the reason I got out of bed in the morning.

But I was terrified. Terrified of losing her. Terrified that if I told her the truth, she would laugh, and that laugh would break me.

So I pulled back. Gently. My hands on her shoulders. I put distance between us, and the loss of her warmth was a physical ache.

"I have an early shift tomorrow," I said. "I should probably go."

Her face fell. Just for a second. A flicker of hurt, there and gone so fast I almost missed it. Then the mask was back—the bright, chaotic, unbothered mask.

"Yeah, of course, I get it," she said, her laugh too loud, too bright, too fake. "You're always working, right? Sam can't live without you."

"He's a good boss," I said, hating how small my voice sounded. "He told me stories about the seventies tonight. It was fun."

"Ugh, of course he did." She rolled her eyes, but a real smile played at the corner of her mouth. "Go. I'll be fine. I'm always fine."

I hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." She gave me a little shove, playful and dismissive. "Go. Get some sleep. Don't let Sam work you too hard."

I walked away. Past the pool. Past the chaise lounges. Past the vending machine with its dying wheeze. Past the neon sign that flickered like a dying star.

I walked back through the empty streets of Wildwood, my hands in my pockets, my silver ring warm against my thumb. I thought about the way she had held me. The way she had whispered in my ear. The way her body had felt against mine.

My heart still pounded. My palms still sweated. I felt like I was on fire.

I wanted to go back. I wanted to tell her I wasn't just some safe friend. I wanted to tell her I was in love with her. I wanted to tell her I wanted to be the one who stayed. But I couldn't. Because if I told her, and she left anyway, I would break.

I walked faster, trying to outrun my own thoughts. But I couldn't. I could still feel her arms around me. I could still hear her whisper in my ear. I could still smell her shampoo.

Chapter 5. Cold Pizza Mood

I was on my break, wedged into the back booth at Sam's—the one tucked behind the jukebox where the fluorescent lights didn't quite reach and the air smelled like old pizza and the faint chemical tang of gasoline that seeped through the walls from the convenience store out front. The red vinyl was cracked beneath me, a spring poking into my thigh in that familiar way I had stopped noticing years ago. I had a slice of pepperoni in front of me that I was picking at without really eating. The cheese had gone cold and congealed into a rubbery sheet, and I pushed it around the paper plate with my finger, not hungry, not anything.

My phone was face-up on the table, the cracked screen showing the same photo I had been staring at for the past ten minutes: me in Elise's heart-shaped sunglasses, looking confused and too warm, the sunset reflected in the pink lenses. She had sent it to me that night at the playground, and I had saved it immediately. I looked at it like it was a map to somewhere I couldn't find on my own.

I was thinking about her. I was always thinking about her. The way she had wrapped her arms around me in the motel parking lot. The way she had whispered in my ear. The way her body had felt against mine. The way her eyes had looked so hurt when I pulled back. I replayed it over and over, wondering if I had made a mistake, wondering if I should have stayed.

I should have stayed. I was an idiot. A coward.

The bell above the door jingled, and I looked up. Cathy walked in.

Oh no.

She was polite and clean and well-dressed—everything Elise wasn't. Her brown hair fell past her shoulders in smooth, shiny waves, parted in the middle like she had spent time making it look effortless. She wore a pale pink blouse tucked into white shorts, and her sandals matched everything she owned because she probably planned her outfits days in advance. She spotted me immediately and smiled, that pleasant, unremarkable smile that didn't make my heart do anything. She walked toward the booth with the kind of measured, careful steps that suggested she had never tripped over anything in her entire life.

I wished she was Elise. I wished everyone was Elise.

"Valery," she said, her voice soft and polite, the kind of voice that never raised itself above a pleasant murmur. "It's so nice to finally meet you in person."

I stood up because that was what you did when someone approached your table, even though I didn't want to. "Hey. You found it okay?"

"Google Maps helped," she said, sliding into the booth across from me. She set her tote bag on the seat next to her—plain canvas, practical, unremarkable—and arranged her napkin on her lap with precise, practiced movements. "This place is cute. Very... retro?"

"Sam's been here since the eighties," I said. "He keeps it going."

She nodded like that was interesting and scanned the menu with polite attention. The jukebox played something slow and distorted, a dream pop song that sounded like it was being broadcast from underwater, and I found myself thinking about Elise—how she would have already interrupted me three times, already asked a dozen questions, already made me laugh without meaning to. Elise would have stolen my pizza by now. Elise would have complained about the temperature. Elise would have made me feel like I was the only person in the room.

"I'll just have a slice of plain," Cathy said, closing the menu. "Nothing too exciting."

I nodded, got up, and ordered for us—plain for her, pepperoni for me that I still wasn't going to eat—and brought them back to the booth. She thanked me with that pleasant smile and picked up her pizza with both hands, biting into it carefully, chewing with her mouth closed. Not a single drop of grease touched her fingers. She dabbed at her lips with her napkin after every bite. I watched her and tried to feel something.

I felt nothing. Not a flicker. She was perfect on paper—exactly what I had told myself I wanted—and I felt absolutely hollow.

"So," she said, her voice pleasant and even, "tell me about your job. You said you work here?"

"Yeah. I pump gas and make pizza. It's not exciting."

"That sounds nice," she said. "Stable. Reliable. I like that."

I didn't want stable. I wanted Elise. I wanted chaos. I wanted to feel like I was falling off a cliff every second of every day.

"Your family," Cathy said, and I blinked, realizing I had missed something. "You said you have a brother?"

"Laurence. He's older. He's a lifeguard."

"That's nice," she said. "A stable job. Very responsible." She took another bite, dabbed her lips. "And your parents?"

Something tightened in my chest. The familiar weight. The thing I never talked about. "My mom left when I was twelve. My dad's around, but he's not really around, if that makes sense."

She nodded, her expression appropriately sympathetic. "That must have been hard."

"Yeah." I didn't want to talk about it. I never wanted to talk about it. But she was asking, and she was being so polite, and I didn't know how to tell her to stop. Elise would have known. Elise would have just looked at me and known.

"What about you?" I asked, because I couldn't think of anything else. "Your family?"

She brightened. "My parents are wonderful. My dad's a dentist, and my mom stays at home. They've been married for thirty years. They're so supportive of everything I do."

I nodded. I wanted to feel happy for her, or jealous, or anything at all. But all I could think about was the way Elise had described her own mother—the way she had talked about watching her chase men who would never stay, the way her voice had cracked when she said she was afraid of becoming just like her. I wanted to hold Elise. I wanted to tell her she wasn't temporary. I wanted to be the one who stayed.

"What about your future?" Cathy asked. "What are your plans? For after this summer?"

"I don't really have plans," I said. "I'm just trying to get through the summer."

"Like, college? A career?"

I shrugged. "I never really thought about it. I just work."

She nodded, but something flickered in her eyes. Disappointment, maybe. Or confusion. She didn't understand how someone could not have plans. She probably had her whole life mapped out in a planner somewhere. Elise didn't have plans either. Elise was like me. Elise was chaos. Elise was everything.

"Tell me about your internship," I said, because I wanted to change the subject.

"Oh, it's so boring," she said, but she was smiling, clearly enjoying the chance to talk about it. "I work at a real estate office on Pacific Avenue. I answer phones and file paperwork and smile at clients. It's not glamorous, but it's good experience."

"That sounds nice," I said, and I meant it. Stable. Predictable. The kind of job that led to other jobs.

"That's what I keep telling myself," she said. "My parents always say I need to be practical. My mom keeps telling me I should think about graduate school, but I don't know if I want to do more school. I just want to work and have a normal life, you know? Maybe get married, have kids, settle down somewhere quiet."

I nodded. That was exactly what I had always wanted. A normal life. A quiet life. Someone who would wait for me, who would see my traumas and not run. But I couldn't stop thinking about Elise. I couldn't stop thinking about the way she had kissed me at the bowling alley, the way she had laughed and said she couldn't go slow but she would try for me. I couldn't stop thinking about the way her voice had cracked when she talked about her mother, the way she had looked at me like I was the only solid thing in a world that was all neon and illusion.

I wanted to be her solid thing. I wanted to be her forever thing. I wanted to be the one who stayed.

Cathy was still talking, her pleasant voice washing over me like lukewarm water. Her parents. Their house. Their yearly vacations to the Poconos. Safe. Predictable. Boring. I hated myself for thinking that, for being so cruel, but it was true. She was everything I had ever said I wanted, and I felt nothing.

"Sorry," I said suddenly, cutting her off. "I'm sorry. I'm not—" I didn't know how to finish. "I think I need to go."

She looked confused but smiled. "Oh. Okay. We could do this again sometime?"

"Yeah," I said, already sliding out of the booth, already reaching for my keys. "Sure. Definitely."

I walked out of Sam's, and the heat hit me like a wall. I didn't look back.

My phone buzzed. Laurence.

Laurence: how's the date?

I stared at the screen for a long moment.

Me: she's fine. she's just not her.

Laurence didn't respond. He didn't have to. He already knew what I meant. He had known for years.

I put my phone away and walked. The streets of Wildwood stretched out around me, the same streets I had walked every day for nineteen years, and I thought about Elise. I thought about the way she had looked at me at the bowling alley, the way she had kissed me like she meant it, the way she had promised to try even though she didn't know how.

I didn't know if she meant it. I didn't know if she could mean it. But I knew one thing for certain: Cathy wasn't her. Cathy would never be her. And trying to pretend otherwise was a waste of everyone's time.

I was in love with Elise. I was in love with her, and I was terrified, and I didn't know what to do about it.