The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James

by Ashley Herring Blake

  “You can?” she asks, just as quiet.

  “I mean… I’m not brown, and it seems like that can be hard.”

  She grins. “No. You’re very, very white.”

  I grin back, but it fades quick. My heart is going buck-wild. My stomach too. “But I’m… I mean… I think I might…”

  God, I can’t say it. I can’t do it. So I just squeeze her hand really, really hard. I scoot closer to her and hold out my other hand. She slips her fingers between mine and now both of our hands are all tangled up between us. She doesn’t say anything. She does stare at me, though, not blinking, barely breathing, but that’s okay. This is pretty much the most nonblinking, nonbreathing moment I can think of ever.

  It’s actually the perfect first-kiss moment. The little white lights in my room are super-soft and make everything look like we’re underwater. We’re sitting in a window seat. The rain from earlier is gone and the moon dips in and out of the leftover clouds. All I can hear is the sound of our breathing, nice and shallow like we can’t catch our breath.

  It’s perfect.

  It really, really is.

  If I just had a boy I liked…

  If I just had a boy…

  I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine I’m sitting on my surfboard, waiting for the perfect wave. I wait… and wait… and then I feel the swell lift me up and I turn around and start paddling.

  Patience and daring, just like Lena said.

  When I open my eyes, I see Quinn and her purple curls and her dark eyes and how she’s been the best best friend I’ve ever had and I know.

  I just know.

  I don’t want to kiss a boy. At least, not right now. Because I don’t like a boy right now.

  I like a girl.

  New Life Sunny likes a girl.

  I lean forward a little, because if I know, maybe she knows too. I lean forward even more and she leans toward me and soon our foreheads are touching. She’s breathing kind of hard, but so am I and I really, really hope that I don’t puke in her lap before I have a chance to kiss her.

  I have no idea how to do this, but if it’s just about the angle, I need to tilt my chin up a little.

  So I do.

  My nose bumps into hers and I kind of want to laugh, but she’s really quiet and still. I can’t even hear her breathing anymore. My heart is speeding around my body like a supersonic plane. I turn my face a little and her bottom lip touches mine.

  And then…

  And then…

  She’s gone.

  My hands are empty and her face isn’t close to mine anymore. In fact, it’s way over on the other side of the window seat.

  “Um, I’m sorry,” she says, her arms hugging her body. “I just… I think I…”

  She keeps swallowing, over and over. Then she stands up and my eyes follow her because this can’t be happening, can it? I open my mouth a bunch of times to say something, say anything, say I was just kidding or… I don’t know… practicing, but I can’t get my voice to work.

  “I need to go, Sunny,” she says. “My mom… I’m sorry, I have to go.”

  Then she crawls out the window. I watch her jump on her bike and pedal away so fast, she’s a blur in the dark. I rub my eyes over and over again, but when I open them, she’s still gone. I even pinch my arm to see if maybe, just maybe, I’m dreaming, but pain shoots right up my elbow to my shoulder, good and real.

  I thought Quinn…

  I thought she…

  I thought we…

  I bury my head in my arm and try to cry, but I can’t even do that. I’m shivering, my head so full of girls laughing and stories of girls kissing and hearts disappearing, I’m sure I’m about to shake to pieces.

  I grab a pencil off my desk and the nearest piece of paper I can find, a bright blue flyer for the Fourth of July beach bonfire next week, and start writing on the back. I write and I write until a whole poem fills up the page.

  Standing up, I stuff the poem—and all the other ones I wrote since Kate pretty much locked me in my room—in the front pocket of my backpack. I shove Lena’s journal inside, along with a half-empty bottle of water that’s been on my nightstand for at least a week.

  Then I don’t even think. I don’t even care. Because right now, I need to talk to Lena. I need to see her and I need to tell her everything and I need her to tell me what to do and how to feel about all this. Because she knows what it’s like to start over. She knows what it’s like to be scared, to be patient and daring, and I’m betting she knows what it’s like to be patient and daring and have everything fall apart. Kate doesn’t know, because she won’t even let me be patient and daring. She won’t let me do anything.

  No. I need Lena. I need my mom. I need her right now. So I pull on my black stomping boots, take a big breath, and toss my leg out the window.

  I want to write a love song, but I’m not sure who it’s for.

  Maybe it’s for you or maybe it’s for me or

  maybe it’s for some boy with blue eyes and floppy hair

  I have never met.

  I feel something,

  but is it just wonder or fear,

  love or like?

  Maybe I just want to be like you,

  because you’re smart and pretty

  and your feet have been all over the world.

  The girls I used to know,

  the ones who sneer and shame,

  they seem so sure

  all the time.

  Wouldn’t that be easier?

  Wouldn’t that be safer?

  On nights when I can’t sleep,

  my heart lights up and

  I wonder, wonder, wonder.

  I tuck it away.

  Easier.

  Safer.

  But this heart is new and I think it

  likes it when

  you hold it in your hands,

  gentle and sweet.

  I thought you liked it too

  and I thought I saw a flicker

  of light in my heart.

  A little brighter.

  A little happier.

  I thought it felt

  a little more

  like me.

  But then you disappeared.

  And when I touched my fingers to my chest

  to make sure my heart was still there,

  my hand went straight through

  like it was never there at all.

  CHAPTER

  26

  I land in the soft and sandy grass and freeze, waiting for an alarm to sound. For Kate’s sixth Sunny sense to alert her to my daring escape.

  But there’s nothing.

  My bike is stuck in the detached garage. Lifting that squeaky, rusty door would wake the dead, I’m sure of it. But when I creep around to the front of the house, I see that Kate’s beach bike is leaning against the front porch, which will work just fine. Soft light fills the living room window, but I barely even glance at it as I grab the bike’s handlebars. Now is the time for action, for doing awesome and amazing things I’ve never done before, and I’m not going to wait around for Kate to spot my shadow out on the front lawn.

  I barely get my butt settled on the bike’s seat and dump my bag in the little metal basket in the front before my legs are pumping, pedaling away from my house.

  At the end of the driveway, I slow down long enough to dig the poems out of my bag and hold them over my head. The papers, at least ten different pages, flap in the salty breeze for a few seconds before I let them all go.

  I look back just long enough to see the wind pushing my words against the sky.

  Port Hope is a pretty big town, spreading inland for miles and miles, but the Methodist church is right off the bridge that connects to Juniper Island.

  Which means, so is Lena. I remember her telling Kate she’d found a meeting at the church, which was near where she was staying. It shouldn’t be that hard to find her. It’s hard to miss that ancient mint-green truck.

  I pedal over the Port Hope Bridge
, which, if I’m being honest, is a terrifying journey. It’s quiet and dark, not a car in sight, and the bike lane runs right along the edge so I can see the black water a billion miles below me.

  I’m totally out of breath, my mouth dry and my heart pounding, but I keep going. I wheel off the bridge and bump up onto the sidewalk that runs along the main street. There are a few cars here and there as I ride toward the big steeple arching above the palm trees a few blocks ahead, but no one seems to notice me. No one slows down to ask what I’m doing or if I’m okay or if Kate knows where I am.

  No one knows me here in Port Hope.

  No one except Lena.

  I ride faster and soon I spot the church. It’s old, made of cream-colored stone and stained-glass windows that look like nothing more than spilled ink in the dark. Skidding to a stop in front of a sign inviting me to join the congregation for a barbecue this Sunday, I look around. Little streets veer off from here, all of them dotted with sleeping houses with wide front porches.

  There’s nothing else to do but pick one and go for it. I pedal down one street and then another, searching for Lena’s truck. Then, on the third street, a wakeful dog spots me and starts barking, chasing me to the edge of its yard. I pump my legs so hard, they ache and my chest feels tight, but eventually the dog goes quiet again. My heart calms down.

  Well, no, no, it doesn’t. My heart is a wild beast, just like the dog. It’s barking and gnashing its teeth, chasing the rest of my body, which feels like it’s trying to leave my heart behind.

  I’m just about to give up and collapse in a stranger’s yard when I see it.

  A mint-green truck in the driveway of a tiny bungalow with a stone porch in front of a bright yellow front door. In the dark, I can’t tell if the house is green or blue, but that door is super-clear.

  Sunshine yellow.

  I pedal toward the truck and hop off my bike. It clatters to the ground and I run up the porch steps. Inside, it’s all dark, but I don’t even wait to get my breath back before I press the doorbell and listen to it echo through the house.

  I wait, my breathing heavy, but I don’t hear anything inside. No footsteps, nothing. I turn around and look back at the driveway. There’s another car in front of Lena’s. A gray four-door something or other. I stare at it, wondering if it belongs to whoever owns the house. Maybe Lena’s just renting a room and the family is still here. Maybe Lena met some friends in Port Hope and it belongs to one of them. Maybe…

  I swallow my last maybe as I squint through the dark to read the state on the car’s license plate. It doesn’t look like it says South Carolina. It looks like—

  New York.

  My stomach goes all tight. I step off the porch to get a better look, passing Lena’s truck to peer through the windows of the gray car. It’s a mess inside. Cheerios dot the floorboards in the back and there are a bunch of kid books on the seat. Board books. Like the kind they make for babies so they won’t tear them up or get paper cuts or whatever. There’s also a couple of diapers, a cloth that has little green stars all over it, and a baby’s car seat.

  There’s a baby’s car seat. As in, where a baby rides in a car.

  I blink at it, at the sky-blue and gray fabric, at the pacifier that someone left in the seat. I blink and blink and blink, but all that baby stuff is still there.

  My imagination gets going, thinking of all the reasons why Lena would be at a house where a baby lives.

  Maybe a friend is visiting from New York.

  Maybe whoever owns the car babysits a lot.

  Maybe—

  “Sunny? Is that you?”

  I whirl around at the deep voice, almost choking on a scream.

  “Whoa, it’s okay,” the voice says again. It belongs to a tall, skinny guy I’ve never seen before. He has brown skin and his dark hair goes in every direction all at once. He’s just standing there in the yard, barefoot in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a purple T-shirt with NYU written across the chest in big white letters.

  “Who… who are you?” I ask.

  He looks at me for another second and then drags his hands through his hair. “It is you. Are you okay? How did you get here?”

  “Um, how do you know who I am?”

  He just stares at me and rubs his chin.

  “Hello?” I ask. I think I’m being rude, but I don’t know what else to say.

  “Sorry. I’m Janesh,” he finally says. “I’m… I’m a friend of Lena’s.”

  “Oh.” I breathe out a world of relief. That explains the car, I guess. “Is she here?”

  “Yeah, yeah, she’s inside. I heard the doorbell, but she sleeps really hard and was up late last night with…” He frowns and shakes his head, hanging his hand on the back of his neck. This dude is weird.

  “So can I see her?” I ask when he just stands there.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “This isn’t how I wanted to meet you.”

  I just blink at him, because huh? But then, as he keeps on standing there, not moving, it all clicks. Lena’s journal, the way this guy seems to know all about me and how hard Lena sleeps.

  “Your name,” I say, “it starts with a J.”

  He nods, his eyes still wide on mine.

  I stare back, not sure what else to say. This guy is more than Lena’s friend. I know he is. He’s the J in her journal. The one she’s so glad she gets to love, the one who took her out to dinner after she called Kate for the first time in eight years.

  “Let me go wake up Lena, all right?” he says, heading toward the house. Clueless about what else to do, I follow him up the front steps. “Can you wait on the porch for me?”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I just… I’d rather get Lena, okay?”

  I huff a breath. “Fine.”

  He disappears through the yellow door and swings it closed, but it doesn’t shut all the way. I press the toe of my boot against the bottom of the door and push it a little.

  Then a little more.

  It’s about halfway open when I hear it.

  A baby.

  Crying.

  CHAPTER

  27

  I freeze.

  The baby keeps crying, but then I hear murmuring and the baby quiets down. A light clicks on, its glow spilling into the front hallway.

  I push the door open all the way and stand there, waiting for Lena to come rushing out and explain all this. The baby squawks a little more and I walk into the house, following the sound and the voices.

  “She what?” a voice calls out.

  Lena’s voice.

  “She’s outside on the porch,” Janesh says. “It’s the middle of the night, Leen. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I need to call Kate right now.”

  My feet glide through the house like I’m in a trance. There’s baby stuff everywhere. A high chair at the end of a dark wood kitchen table. Cloth books and squishy toys all over the living room, soft blankets tossed over the dark leather couch.

  The house is cute and simple, throw pillows and paintings on the walls. There’s a lot of color—deep reds and oranges and dark purple. The air smells like orange blossom tea and milk. I keep expecting someone else to appear, like maybe someone who owns the house, but I only hear Janesh and Lena.

  I tiptoe down a hallway off the kitchen and stop outside an open door. I don’t look inside. I don’t dare. I just listen.

  “You need to go talk to Sunny,” Janesh says. “She knows something’s up. You should’ve told her right away.”

  “That was out of the question and you know it,” Lena says. “I wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready.”

  “You’re stronger than you think you are. You don’t give yourself enough credit for all you’ve done. How much you’ve overcome.”

  I hold my breath, waiting for Lena to say something.

  “You don’t know what this is like, okay?” she says quietly. “You’ve never left your own daughter. You would never leave Samaira.”

  Samaira.<
br />
  “Leen, come on. Don’t—”

  “Just take her, all right? If Kate wakes up and finds out Sunny’s gone, she’ll call the police. I’ll never see Sunny again.”

  “All right. But, Leen, you need to tell her the truth.”

  “I know that. I will.”

  They go quiet and I hear a rustling sound, like maybe Janesh is hugging her. Then there’s a soft cooing noise, kind of like a dove. The baby’s in there. With Lena and Janesh. Only with them.

  Knowing stuff is tricky business. Look at all that’s happened. I knew Lena wasn’t really a mermaid swimming free in the ocean, which meant she left me behind on purpose. Margot knew I wondered about kissing girls and it cost me my best friend. Then there’s Quinn. As soon as I found out she liked girls—as soon as I knew—it all blew up in my face, losing me my second best friend in six months.

  Knowing stuff is dangerous.

  Knowing stuff hurts.

  But I can’t stop myself from stepping forward, closer, closer, until I’m standing in the doorway of a room with a big white crib in one corner. The room is lit by a single lamp with a blue whale for a base, and everything looks soft and warm. There’s a cushioned rocking chair and paintings on the walls of watercolor starfish and dolphins and sand dollars. And the colors. The colors are perfect. Aquamarine and cerulean and sky.

  Lena and Janesh are in front of the crib, holding a baby between them. Lena smooths her hand over the baby’s head, which is covered in super-dark hair that looks just like Janesh’s. Her skin is brown like his too, although it’s a little lighter.

  I breathe out as quietly as I can. The baby’s his. Only his. This is Samaira and he brought her with him on his visit from New York. But then I notice a ring on Janesh’s finger. A gold ring. Then I notice a ring on Lena’s finger too. Silver-colored with a simple round diamond on top. I’ve never seen it before. She’s never worn any rings the whole time she’s been here.

  And then I keep noticing more and more stuff. I keep knowing.

  The baby squirms while she pulls on Lena’s hair and I can see her whole face. I see freckles spilling over her nose and onto her cheeks. I see her eyes, which aren’t dark like Janesh’s at all.