Mitch tried to make conversation on the way to Elisa’s, asking about how Annabelle’s wrist was feeling and whether she wanted to make s’mores at the little beach tomorrow night, and whether she thought his daughters might like a snorkeling trip out on Jeremy’s dad’s boat when they visited in August. It all felt pretty forced, though, so after a while, Annabelle turned up the radio and zoned out, trying to remember what it had been like to sit in her dad’s car when he drove her places when she was a kid.
She wondered if he still had the same car he’d had when she was little, that black Honda. If he still listened to sports radio and liked rolling down the windows instead of using the air-conditioning, even on the highway.
He must have gotten her letter by now, and she imagined him first seeing her handwriting, which was smaller and more mature than it had been when she’d last written him a card. She wondered if he’d been surprised to hear from her, since it had taken her so long to write. If maybe he’d started to believe she wouldn’t.
“Well, here we are,” Mitch said when they pulled up in front of Elisa’s house.
They did the usual kiss and catch, and he waited in the driveway until Elisa’s mom opened the front door and waved to him.
In the kitchen, Elisa and Kayla were rolling out pizza dough.
“I’m so glad you could come!” Elisa said, giving Annabelle a hug.
Kayla hugged her, too, and Annabelle wondered how much Jeremy had told her about what had happened that night, from his warped Annabelle-and-Connor-are-both-awful perspective. She wondered how much Elisa knew, too, since Elisa hadn’t even been there.
Elisa and Kayla both wore tank tops and jean shorts, and Annabelle felt out of place. She’d tried on lots of different outfits in case they really did go to the bonfire and had finally decided on the white denim capris Mia had said made her butt look good back when Mia still gave her compliments. She’d paired them with Mom’s long-sleeved, wide-necked, blue-and-white-striped shirt. She was ten times dressier than Kayla and Elisa, and she’d probably just get pizza sauce on her white pants.
“I feel so bad that you fell,” Kayla said, touching Annabelle’s wrist brace. “I knew that whole thing was a terrible idea. I should have said something.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Elisa added, glancing at Kayla. “I . . . had plans with some other friends, but . . . I didn’t realize it would be like that.”
“It’s fine,” Annabelle said, straightening the bottom of her too-fancy shirt and swallowing the words she wanted to say: I can make my own decisions, and I can take care of myself!
Yes, everything had turned out pretty terribly, but that was bad luck. That didn’t mean she’d needed Kayla to send her and Jeremy home like little kids with an early bedtime or Elisa to somehow intervene.
“It’s really so bad that you can’t swim the whole rest of the summer?” Kayla asked.
“Well . . . it’ll be a while,” Annabelle said, messing with the fraying Velcro on the brace.
There was a long pause before Elisa announced, “The dough’s all ready! Let’s make some pizza!”
So they made one pepperoni and one with lots of veggies, and then Elisa insisted on a weird one with random stuff from the fridge and cabinets. She used pesto instead of tomato sauce and layered artichoke hearts and banana peppers on top of the cheese. Kayla had to stop her from adding canned pineapple, too.
“It’s Hawaiian!” Elisa said.
“Um, not with pesto and this other stuff,” Kayla told her.
But they were all laughing and having fun now. Elisa was good at realizing when people were uncomfortable and doing something to break the tension.
And actually, the weird pizza wasn’t bad. Kayla stuck to the veggie kind, and Annabelle caught herself doing what Jeremy would have done if he was here—noticing what food Kayla chose and how long it took her to eat it—but she told herself to stop. That was kind of like Mia watching when Annabelle got a test back to see whether or not she was upset. It felt terrible to know that other people were too aware of something that made you vulnerable. She knew that firsthand.
Nobody said anything else about swim team or the night at Dennis Martin’s house. They debated which island pizza place was the best and talked about how much money you could make babysitting for summer families, and then Kayla asked about a guy Elisa liked at Beach Buzz.
Annabelle got a jolt of extra energy, as if she’d finished the entire bottle of Dr. Pepper Elisa had set out and not just one cup’s worth.
If the conversation was turning to crushes, maybe they’d ask her if there was anybody she was into. Maybe they’d specifically ask her about Connor, even. Maybe there would be a good time to bring up going to the bonfire.
“We’ve been texting a little,” Elisa said, and Kayla set down the piece of pizza she was eating as if this conversation required her full attention.
“Who usually texts first, you or him?” she asked. “And how often?”
Elisa laughed. “Um, him mostly I guess? And most days we end up texting. But I text with you most days, too. It might not mean anything.”
“Yeah, but it’s different when it’s a guy, right?” Annabelle asked, and Kayla and Elisa both looked at her.
Maybe that had been a little too quick, the way she’d jumped in there. Maybe she’d sounded a little too desperate for them to agree.
“I don’t know,” Elisa said slowly. “I have guy friends I text a lot with, too. This feels different, but it’s hard to be sure. He’s not a super-flirty guy, though, I don’t think. So that makes it seem like it could be more.”
She shrugged and helped herself to another piece of the weird pizza. And then she and Kayla locked eyes for way too long.
“Well, that’s good,” Kayla said, but her voice was stiff, as if she were reciting lines she’d memorized for a play. “There are some people who are so super flirtatious that it’s hard to tell what it means when they pay lots of attention to you.”
“Yeah,” Elisa agreed. “My friend Lucy’s like that. She’s really affectionate, and she’s definitely confused people before.” She paused and picked up a banana pepper that had fallen off her slice of pizza. “Connor’s like that, too.”
And now Elisa and Kayla were both watching Annabelle. That jolt she’d felt moments before tipped from excited to panicked. What was happening here?
Kayla nodded. “Right. He’s cute and all, obviously. But such a flirt.”
The windows a few feet away from Elisa’s kitchen table were open, letting in the cool ocean air, but Annabelle’s skin burned so hot that she pushed up her sleeves and fanned her face with her hand.
Why were they saying this? Yes, Connor put his arm around lots of people and chatted with everybody. But he wasn’t just flirting with her. Was he?
“We . . . noticed he’s been paying a lot of attention to you,” Elisa said to Annabelle, and for a second Annabelle was happy, just as she had been when Mitch had noticed the same thing. But then Elisa added, “And Kayla told me a little about the night you got hurt. And . . . he’s a lot older than you are, you know?”
Annabelle wanted to scream.
“He’s not that much older than me,” she squeaked out. “Two years is nothing.”
“It’s kind of not nothing when it’s the difference between middle school and high school, though,” Kayla said quietly.
And now Annabelle was thinking of what Mitch had said the other morning when he and Mom got so mad. How no high school boy should be paying this kind of attention to her. How she was a kid. But that was wrong. She’d thought Kayla and Elisa would understand even though Mitch didn’t.
But they were in high school, too. They were a year older than Connor, even. Had they only invited her here tonight for some big-sister intervention, not because they were actually her friends?
And what right did they have to do that? What did they actually know? Kayla hadn’t ever dated anybody, as far as Annabelle knew. And it’s not like they’d w
atched every interaction Annabelle and Connor had ever had or read every text.
“You know what?” Elisa said. “I think we need chocolate for this conversation! Who wants brownies?”
But there was no way brownies were going to break all this tension.
“I’m—I’m actually going to use the bathroom,” Annabelle stammered.
When she closed the door behind her, she tried to think of an excuse to leave. She could say she didn’t feel well. Call Mitch to come pick her up. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and gasped. There was a text from Connor.
What’s up HB? he’d written.
Connor had texted her first! At six, right after Mitch had dropped her off. And on a Saturday night! This was proof that Kayla and Elisa didn’t understand.
Not much, she typed back with shaking thumbs.
What are you up to?
Then she stared at the screen.
Come on, come on, come on!
Ugh, why hadn’t she checked her phone earlier, so she could have written back when he was still paying attention? He might have been texting to invite her to the bonfire!
Actually, he must have been texting to invite her. She and Connor didn’t usually text until eight or nine at night. The only other time he’d texted in the early evening was when he was telling her everyone was going to the Creamery.
And the party was right there down the road. So close she was surprised they couldn’t hear it through the open windows.
She put her phone away and went back out to the kitchen.
“Um, I actually have to go,” she said. “My mom’s home and she’s all mad that Mitch let me come when we were supposed to have family time.”
Elisa frowned. “You have to go now?”
“Yep!” Annabelle gave a little shrug, like, What can you do? You know moms. “Mitch is on his way, I guess. I’m supposed to wait outside.”
She wasn’t sure they believed her, but she also wasn’t sure she really cared. Not when Connor was so close by.
“We didn’t mean to upset you,” Kayla said.
“I know Connor pretty well,” Elisa added. “He’s the kind of guy who wants every pretty girl he meets to think he’s amazing and pay lots of attention to him. Every person he meets, really.”
“We don’t want someone like Connor to make you feel bad,” Kayla said.
So they had decided to gang up on her and make her feel bad instead? And what was that supposed to mean, “someone like Connor”? How well could Elisa possibly know him? They barely hung out at swim team stuff at all. She hadn’t even been there that night at the Creamery when the rest of the group was hanging out.
“I really have to go,” Annabelle lied. She didn’t even put her plate in the sink and rinse it. Her mom would be horrified, but whatever. Kayla and Elisa deserved to have to wash her plate. “Thanks for the pizza and everything!” she said. “See you soon!”
Except she wouldn’t, really. She wasn’t going back to the team, and she wasn’t going to accept any more girls’ night invitations after today. And that was fine by her.
Chapter 25
As Annabelle walked to the beach entrance at the end of the street, the sounds of music and laughter floated toward her.
The bonfire was going strong, but the wind had picked up and Annabelle shivered. People here weren’t as dressed up as she was, either. Most of the girls had on sweatshirts or fleeces with jeans. Before she spotted anybody she recognized, she saw the beer cans glinting in the fire’s orange glow.
Of course there was beer. It was a high school party. She thought about leaving and calling Mitch for real, but then she spotted Connor.
He was sitting in the sand with his legs bent toward him and his elbows resting on his knees. He had on a baseball cap—that’s why she hadn’t found him right away. She’d been searching for his blond hair, which barely peeked out in the back, curling a tiny bit at the ends. Jordan was next to him, holding a beer, and Mark from the library was on Jordan’s other side with a shiny blue can propped up in the sand next to him. But Connor didn’t have one.
Connor wasn’t with Ruby, and he wasn’t drinking. The dread that had sunk to the bottom of Annabelle’s stomach in a tight wad when she saw the beer cans began to loosen, like the saltwater taffy she and Mia used to buy in town and pull apart into thin, stringy bites.
“Annabelle!” Ruby’s voice. Great. She was with a girl Annabelle recognized from the Academy. Genevieve, another day student, who played lacrosse with Mia and had just finished eighth grade.
“What’s up?” Ruby asked, her skinny eyebrows raised into arches. “What are you doing here?”
Annabelle launched into a too-long explanation about how Mitch was running late to pick her up from Elisa’s, and she’d heard the party while she was waiting and wandered down.
“Um, this might not be your kind of thing,” Ruby said. Right. Because Ruby thought Annabelle was such a baby. Genevieve hadn’t started high school yet, either. Why was this party okay for Genevieve and not okay for Annabelle?
Annabelle flexed the fingers on her sore hand and changed the subject. “Sorry you have to do the fly leg now for the relay.”
Ruby shrugged. “We were way better with me swimming breast and you on fly. But we’ll be okay most meets even if we don’t win the medley. Just heal well and all. There’s always next summer, right?”
Annabelle nodded. “Okay, yeah. Well, see you later.”
She took off toward Connor as fast as her feet could move in the thick, cool sand, so she wouldn’t lose her nerve.
“So who else is coming Monday?” Mark was asking Jordan. “You gonna ask that swim team girl? Rachel or whatever?”
There wasn’t a Rachel on the team. Ruby?
“Maybe. How many extra tickets do we have?” Jordan asked.
“Two, if your sister’s coming,” Mark said. “It’s the three of us plus Natalie and Liz.”
Annabelle stood a few feet away, not sure how to let them know she was there. She racked her brain for something going on on Monday, but she had no idea.
Then Jordan saw her. “Oh. Hi.”
No name, like maybe he couldn’t even place her.
And now Connor noticed her, too. She waited for that look to cross his face. That laser-focused, no-one-else-I’d-rather-see look.
But it was different, the way his eyes widened and his eyebrows went up this time. He was surprised to see her, which made sense. But was he more confused-surprised than happy-surprised?
That taffy clump of dread hardened in her stomach.
“Hey there, Hummingbird,” he said.
“You’re the girl from the library, right?” Mark asked. “With Janine?”
Annabelle nodded. “Yeah. Hey.”
“Maybe Janine wants to come to the concert,” Jordan said, elbowing Mark and laughing his squawking seagull laugh.
There was an indent in the sand next to Connor, like somebody had just been sitting there before getting up to join a different conversation. Annabelle plopped down into it. “What concert?” she asked.
“It’s in Boston,” Mark said. The way he said it made it clear that he assumed she’d never be interesting or mature enough to go to a concert in Boston, and now she didn’t feel bad for him anymore about Janine blowing him off.
“The band’s called Level Up,” Connor added. “They’re playing at Brighton Music Hall.”
Annabelle had never heard of the band or the place where they were playing, but she nodded anyway. “Nice.”
Mark picked up his beer and Jordan did the same, as if the impulse to take a sip was contagious, like yawning.
Annabelle was grateful Connor didn’t have one. Mitch and Mom had wine or beer at dinner sometimes, and that was fine. But she’d never been able to forget the way her dad had slurred late at night or the way he swayed and couldn’t focus his eyes on her that terrible day when he showed up drunk at swim practice. She knew he was better now, but still. She didn’t want to think about
Connor acting anything like that.
Connor glanced over at Mark, and she couldn’t read the look that passed between them. She bent her knees to her chest and brushed sand off the calves of her white jeans, which were all wrong for a party like this.
“So, HB,” Connor started. “There’s something I should maybe . . . tell you real quick.”
Annabelle planted her good hand in the sand and burrowed her fingers in. Those words could be good—some kind of confession about how he felt. But would he do that right in front of Jordan and Mark? And would that be quick?
She slid her fingers under the surface of the sand until she found a rock, and then she closed her hand around it and squeezed.
And that’s when the girl showed up. Wavy brown hair that flew around her face in the wind, rosy cheeks, and eyes that could have been pale brown or pale green or hazel—Annabelle couldn’t see well enough in the twilight to be sure. The girl carried a shiny blue beer can in each hand, and the pieces started to shift together, even though they still didn’t quite click. The indent in the sand right next to Connor. No beer for Connor when Annabelle sat, but an extra one in this girl’s hand.
Connor cleared his throat and rubbed one hand around in the sand, leaving a ripply arch shape.
“Hi there,” the girl said.
Her cheeks were seriously rosy. As if she’d been out shoveling in a snowstorm instead of hanging out at a beach party. They made her look pretty in a low-key, outdoorsy kind of way.
“Who’s your friend, Con?”
Con. And now Annabelle saw the way she looked at him. Tilted head. Small, private smile. Like he was hers. And her eyes were hazel—Annabelle could tell for sure now.
Annabelle felt like she’d been underwater too long, and she was struggling to make it up for air.
“Caroline, this is Annabelle,” Connor mumbled, and his face was pink, too. Not rosy-cheeked like this Caroline. Embarrassed.
Was he embarrassed for Annabelle?
Did he know why she was really here at the party? Why she texted him all the time, thinking—ack!—thinking she was being confident and spontaneous, not pathetic and desperate?
Up for Air Page 13
