The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James

by Ashley Herring Blake

  “Sunny.”

  Push, jump, splash.

  “Sunny, stop.”

  Push, jump, splash.

  “Sunny!”

  Push, jump—

  Arms wrap around my waist and pull me gently into the sea. I’m breathing way too fast and I swallow some water. I choke and spit, my head spinning.

  “Breathe, baby, just breathe,” Lena says, one arm tight around me. She’s holding on to my board with the other, her face pressed against my head. “Breathe, baby.”

  Baby.

  Something about the word makes me want to scream at her. Or cry. As my breath slows and the ache I didn’t even notice was going on in my chest starts to dull, my body picks crying.

  Tears well up and spill down my cheeks, mixing with the sea. Lena holds me tighter, and I can feel her body shaking against mine while I cry harder and harder. In fact, I’m all-out sobbing now. I want to hold on to Lena, but I don’t want to. So I let my arms drift in the water, my body limp as a dead fish.

  “We’ve got time, Sunshine,” Lena says, her face still smooshed against my wet hair. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  On the way back to my house, I’m so exhausted, Lena insists that I lie down in the backseat on the soft white leather. There’s hardly enough room in this old truck to fit all my limbs, and the seat belt is all twisted around my stomach, but I don’t even care. I use my turquoise and navy-striped beach towel as a pillow and watch the pale morning light skip around in the window above me.

  “Don’t tell Kate,” I say.

  “What?” Lena asks. She turns down the song playing from her phone, some moody music Dave would probably love.

  “Kate,” I say. “Don’t tell her what happened in the ocean.”

  She shakes her head. “Sunny. I have to. This is your health we’re talking about.”

  “But I’m fine. I just overdid it. I won’t next time, I promise.”

  She glances back at me, a smile pulling at her mouth. “Next time?”

  “Well… yeah. I mean, if you want.”

  “I want. I very much want.”

  I tuck my arm under my head, relieved. I didn’t even surf today, but I know I’m totally hooked. Floating in the middle of the ocean, figuring out how my body works with it, works against it. I want that. I want it so bad.

  Lena turns the music back up and we ride like that for a couple of miles. I’m smiling to myself just thinking about being out there on the water again when I spy a plastic baggie of Cheerios peeking out of Lena’s bag on the floorboard. My stomach growls—I was way too nervous to eat all that much this morning, much to Kate’s dismay—and I reach down to grab the dry cereal. The baggie is caught on something, so I give it a good yank and a bunch of other stuff tumbles out.

  There are a few tubes of lipstick in funky colors, like blue and purple and sea-glass green, and a bottle of moon-gray nail polish. There’s a package of wet wipes, a bald baby smiling out at me on the front. And there’s this weird salmon-pink owl with a heart-shaped hole in the middle about the size of my palm. It’s soft and squishy, and I can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be a giant keychain or some kind of stress-reliever toy or what.

  But what really hooks all my attention is a black notebook. It’s small, maybe a little bigger than a deck of cards, and when I flip through the pages super-fast, it’s packed full of tiny, slanted handwriting in blue or black ink.

  I shove all the other stuff back into Lena’s bag. Then I turn onto my stomach and split the journal open with my thumb, right to the middle where the latest entry is. It’s dated yesterday.

  So relieved that Sunny has agreed to see me. I can’t imagine what I would’ve done if she’d refused. All of this for nothing. Not that I would’ve blamed her. But there’s so much at stake now. J says I need to—

  I let the notebook fall shut before my eyeballs see another word.

  “You all right?” Lena asks from the front, turning down the music again.

  “Mm-hm,” I say, because I don’t trust my voice at all.

  “Almost there.”

  I sit up just as we’re turning into my driveway. Our little house looms up ahead, all soft gray paint and dark red roof, the red-and-white striped lighthouse tall and pretty behind it.

  The truck bumps along the gravel and there’s Kate sitting on the porch swing with Dave, waiting to make sure I didn’t drown in the ocean or whatever.

  “Hey, did everything go all right?” Kate calls, jogging toward the truck. Dave stays put, but he sticks his tongue out at me.

  Lena rolls her window down and hangs an arm outside. I hold my breath.

  “Yeah, great,” she says.

  I breathe.

  “I think Sunny might be a natural,” Lena says.

  “Well, let’s take it slow,” Kate says.

  “We are, Katie.”

  “All right, I’m just saying.”

  They go back and forth like this for a few seconds, but all I hear is a bunch of blah, blah, blah, because I’ve still got Lena’s journal in my lap, hidden under my towel.

  “Are we still on?” Lena asks, turning to look at me in the backseat. Kate rounds the truck and opens the passenger door for me to get out. “For surfing in a couple of days?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds awesome,” I say, grabbing my bag from beside me. I push the front seat forward and before I know it, I’m out of the truck and walking toward my house with Kate’s arm around my shoulders, the corner of Lena’s journal digging into my ribs as I hug my towel to my chest.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Surfing wore me out, but I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about my heart a lot, how it let me go out in the ocean today, and listening to it thump-thump-thump in my chest. And I’m thinking about my dad while I listen to Lena’s album over and over again, paying super-close attention to the drums. Then, while I do that, I’m thinking about Lena and her life in Montauk and how she’s friends with someone she calls J.

  My brain feels like a cup overflowing with water, thoughts spilling everywhere. I lie in bed with the little black notebook I pretty much stole right out of Lena’s bag resting on my chest. I watch it move up and down, up and down with my breathing.

  I haven’t read any of it yet. At least, not past that one little snippet in the car, but I feel like those words were enough to chew on for a few years.

  She was relieved I let her see me.

  But… all of what would’ve been for nothing?

  But… who in the holy heck is J?

  I pick up the notebook and flip through it. The pages are crinkly from the all the writing and there are a few round light brown stains from a tea or coffee mug.

  It’s wrong. It’s super-wrong. I know this, but I can’t stop myself from opening to the first page and running my fingers down the writing. The entry is dated a few months ago, way back in February.

  Which would’ve been about a month before she called Kate for the first time.

  Tonight’s meeting was hard. I can’t lie, I wanted a drink, which is why I went to a meeting in the first place. Danielle met with me after at Café Marzoli and we drank coffee and talked. So much coffee. I used to hate coffee, but now it seems like the only thing that will calm me down.

  “You’re ready,” she tells me, but I don’t know.

  J says the same thing. Says I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t try. Says S will be fine, that she’ll adjust. That when she’s older, she’ll understand and never know any different and she’ll be so grateful to know her whole family.

  Danielle agrees, but that’s the thing. It’s not S I’m worried about all that much. I mean, I am, but I know she’ll be all right.

  It’s me.

  It’s always me. I’m scared I’ll fail. I’m scared Sunny will reject me. I’m scared Kate won’t even consider it. I’m scared, scared, scared. And so I sit with Danielle and drink a gallon of coffee until I feel a little less scared.

  Breathing is hard, but I rere
ad it again. And then again. A meeting… that must be the ones she goes to for being an alcoholic, because I know Danielle helps her with all that. There’s J again, and now there’s an S.

  S… S…

  S has to be me, right? That I’ll be all right. That I’ll be grateful to know my whole family.

  I tear through some more pages—flip, flip, flip—and finally find the entry at the very end of March that I’m looking for.

  I did it. I called K. She didn’t answer, but I did it and I didn’t drink and I didn’t pass out and I’m still breathing. I left her a message and now I just have to wait and hope. J took me out for a nice dinner to celebrate, but I could barely eat a thing. I’m so nervous. I just want to hold S and never let go. I’m never letting her go. Never.

  A drop of salty water plops onto the page, smearing the blue ink. Lena’s writing blurs and I can’t wipe my face fast enough. My nose burns and runs and my throat aches something awful.

  I’m never letting her go. Never.

  I grab my phone and find Lena’s name, my thumbs trembling over my screen as I try to think of something amazing to say. But I don’t want to talk to Lena right now. I want to talk about Lena.

  I switch over to another name and type Hi into the text box. As soon as I hit Send, though, I realize how late it is. There’s no way Quinn’s up. There’s no way she’s—

  Three little dots bounce onto my screen, followed by Hey. You’re awake?

  I breathe out a big huge breath.

  I guess I am, I text back. So are you.

  I like staying up late. Shh, don’t tell my mom.

  Secrets are safe with BFFs.

  Always, she says.

  I squeeze the phone tighter, relief opening up my chest.

  So how was surfing? Quinn texts.

  It was great. I mean, I didn’t really surf. Just learned how to stand.

  Stand? That’s it?

  Hey, it’s hard! I text. Still fun, though.

  That’s amazing, Quinn says. How was it with Lena? Weird?

  My thumbs hover, wanting to talk, talk, talk, but now I’m not sure how to answer Quinn’s questions. My mind is like mush. Plus, it’s nearly midnight and it feels like someone’s yanking on my eyelashes and I’ve been crying. I’m all wrung out, like a wet rag squeezed of all its water.

  I don’t know, I finally text. The truth.

  She doesn’t text back and then my phone rings, belting out a Truth Lies Low song—the kissing song, of course—so loudly, I drop it in my covers. I grab it, scrambling to silence it and slide my finger over the screen.

  “Hello?” I whisper, like I don’t know who it is.

  “Hey,” Quinn says.

  “Hey.”

  “Is it okay that I called?”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t have to.”

  “I know,” she says. “But it’s a big deal, right? Hanging out with Lena for the first time?”

  “Yeah. I guess it is.” My voice is all trembly. I swallow a bunch of times until it smooths out. I want to tell Quinn all about Lena’s journal, but that feels wrong. I already stole the thing, I don’t want to spill Lena’s deepest thoughts to the whole world too. My eyes ache, though, a bunch of feelings still hiding behind them just waiting for me to let them out.

  “Do you think you can love someone and hate them at the same time?” I finally ask.

  “Yeah, totally,” Quinn says. She doesn’t even miss a beat.

  “Really?”

  “I feel like that toward my mom sometimes. Like, I love her, right? She’s my best friend, pretty much, and the only thing that never changes about my life. But it’s her fault that she’s the only thing that never changes, and sometimes? Yeah, I hate her for it.”

  I burrow deeper into my covers. “That makes sense. I just… I feel everything when it comes to Lena, you know? I’m excited she’s here. And I want to know everything about her. And I’m so stinking mad at her, I can barely see straight sometimes. And I’m nervous too. Because what if she doesn’t like me?”

  “Impossible.”

  “She left me once, though.”

  “Sunny. You’re… you’re amazing, okay? And she’s your mom.”

  “She left me, Quinn.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a second. I wish we weren’t on the phone. I wish she was here or I was at her house so I could see her face. Because what if Quinn’s wondering why Lena left me too? What if she’s wondering why she’s my only friend even though I’ve lived on the island most of my life?

  A tear slips down my cheek and I brush it away fast. I’m so tired of feeling like this.

  “She’s back,” Quinn says softly. “Right?”

  “Until when, though?”

  Quinn sighs into the phone. “I wish I could hug you right now.”

  That makes me smile. It makes me smile really big, right through the tears. “Me too.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to hug you super-tight tomorrow.”

  “What’s happening tomorrow?”

  “Kissing Quest, full force.”

  I sit up in my bed, my smile going even wider. “Really? You still want to?”

  “Totally. We just need to find someone we could totally fall head over heels in love with. Easy peasy.”

  I laugh. “Hey, we should go to the pool by the pier. There are always a ton of boys our age hanging around there.”

  “Boys,” Quinn says. “Right.”

  There’s a beat of silence before she clears her throat and says, “Let’s do it. Meet you there around nine?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Awesome. Now… why is it so hard to stand on a surfboard?”

  I smile and lie back down in my bed, telling Quinn every detail about surfing, which, it turns out, she’s never done. Then we start talking about all the other stuff we’ve never done and want to do, like parasailing and riding a horse on the beach. We talk about small stuff too, though. Like eating lunch at the same table, in the same seat, with the same people every day for a whole school year. Like holding hands with someone at the movie theater. Like picking out a dress for our first school dance. We talk about everything and nothing and it’s amazing.

  Next thing I know, I’m blinking awake in the morning light, my phone is still smooshed against my cheek, and Quinn is deep-sleep breathing on the other end.

  I woke up smiling

  because I fell asleep

  with your voice in my ear.

  I forgot what it was like to have

  someone on my side,

  someone to laugh with,

  someone to wonder with,

  someone to trust.

  But then,

  the morning light

  was really bright

  and I remembered.

  Then I wondered.

  Then I worried.

  Will

  you

  break

  my

  heart

  too?

  CHAPTER

  18

  Later that morning, I walk to the pier. It’s this area down by the ocean with a bunch of shops and cafés and a huge community pool with a slide and waterfalls and even one of those lazy rivers with an actual current curling around the whole thing. It’s pretty amazing, all clear blue and natural stone, like a miniature water park by the sea.

  I remember Margot and me freaking out when they were building it, we were so excited. We were in fifth grade, before my epic collapse in recess and dilated cardiomyopathy. But by the time they were done, I was sick, and of course, Kate wouldn’t let me go. Slides were too pulse-pounding. Waterfalls were too… waterfall-y? Who knows what Kate’s reasons were. The point is, I never got to swim here. Not until today.

  The day is cloudless and hot, the sky a brilliant turquoise. The pool has just opened and I don’t see Quinn anywhere, so I find a couple of bright white lounge chairs near the deep end and dig into my bag. I take out the song I wrote this morning after I woke up and go back outside the pool gate onto
the sidewalk, looking for the perfect spot for my words.

  It takes a couple of minutes, because it can’t be too obvious or so hidden that no one will ever see it, but finally, I find it.

  Right between the new playground and the pool area, there’s this big sculpture of a humpback whale with her calf on her back that’s been there forever. I’m talking big. I used to climb on it when I was really little. Actually, I used to climb on it when I was ten. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m going to climb on it right now.

  I step onto the big whale’s back, the little baby right next to me. I climb up, up, up, right onto the mama’s head. I stand tall and look out over the sparkling sapphire ocean on the other side of the sidewalk and rocks; it’s so close at high tide, I can almost touch it. I breathe in the delicious salty air. Then I bend down and stick the song right into the mama whale’s mouth.

  After I jump down, I pat the whale’s head while I make sure the piece of paper is nice and secure, but still visible. I want someone to read it, after all. My stomach flips and flops just thinking about it, part terror and part excitement. But I always feel that when I put a song out into the world, so I’m hoping that’s normal.

  “Sunny, hey!”

  I whirl around to see Quinn waving at me from inside the pool area. She found my bag by the deep end and has already taken off her cover-up. I yank my hands out of the whale’s mouth and wave back.

  “Hey!”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Nothing. Just… you know… looking at the whale.”

  “Isn’t she pretty? Stay there, I want to see her too.” She starts toward the gate and my palms get all damp.

  “No!” I yelp.

  She freezes, frowning at me. “Why not?”

  “Um… I’m just… ready to swim.”

  I don’t wait for her to answer, just hightail it back through the gate and over to the deep end.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Quinn says, and then she pulls me into a tight hug. All the air goes out of me and my arms dangle at my sides for a second. Finally, I get my brain on right and wrap my arms around her back. She smells like coconuts and the tang of sunscreen.