He looks up at me and this time he keeps looking at me. “Thanks.”
“I mean, I’m glad it was you—”
“Don’t.”
I can tell he’s hurt, and for the first time it occurs to me that he has feelings too. I stand there, not sure what to say, wanting to go back in time and fix this so that whatever we do, we don’t have to be here in this moment.
Finally he sighs.
“You know, you seem really young right now. And you’ve got a lot going on.” He stands, walks past me, opens the door. “You should probably go.”
“Seriously?”
We stare at each other, him holding the door, me rooted to the living room floor, neither of us budging.
I start walking. I stop in front of him. “I didn’t have to tell you it was my first time and I don’t owe you an explanation, but I came here because I like you and I wanted to be honest with you. I know you like to ‘lead’ and all, but you don’t get to lead in this. We both made a choice, and if you can get your ass off your shoulders, we might even make that choice again. But it’s a choice for both of us to make. And if we do decide to do it again, here’s a word to the wise—it doesn’t just automatically end when you come.”
I stalk out and slam the screen door behind me. Then I go right back in. He is still standing where I left him.
I say, “And maybe, Jeremiah Crew, you should treat every time like it’s the first time.”
I slam back out and take off toward home.
DAY 8
(PART TWO)
That night after dinner, I don’t run to the beach, but I walk as fast as I can in my ballet flats. I don’t take time to change my shoes because that would mean going back to the house with my mom and more conversation. The hum of the cicadas is so loud, it feels as if they’ve taken root in my eardrums.
At some point I switch the flashlight from white to red because I’ve been told the red doesn’t disrupt the turtles, and the beam of it bounces as I walk. Part of me hopes he’s not there, and the other part of me hopes he is.
I come out of the dunes and onto the beach.
Which is empty.
I sit in our spot and I wait. And I wait.
But he doesn’t come.
I try not to let my mind go where it wants to go.
You shouldn’t have blown up at him. He has a right to his feelings. Besides, you don’t know his history or who might be waiting for him back home. You don’t know what Wednesday meant to him, or maybe what she still means to him. You don’t know anything about him. You literally met him eight days ago. What did you think would happen? That he would spend his entire summer meeting you at the beach so you could sit here and watch for turtles? Jesus, Claudine.
No one can bring me to tears faster than myself. I sit there blinking into the night, refusing to cry. I dig my feet into the sand and shiver as a cloud passes over the moon.
Leave the boy alone. If he wants to see you, he’ll find you. He knew you’d be here. If he’d wanted to see you, he would have come.
But then another part of me is like, Just take it for what it is. You had sex for the first time. And to a guy who likes you and was—how did he say it?—interesting and hot. And it wasn’t in a barn and it wasn’t with Shane, who never really got you, and it wasn’t with Wyatt, who—let’s face it—you barely even know. And it wasn’t two months from now in college when you’ve had too much to drink at a party and you wake up the next day and can’t even remember his name, like the way it happened for Mara’s sister. Life lessons, as Jared says. A false crawl. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that.
I am thinking about leaving when something dark and enormous emerges from the sea. And I know what it is without Miah here to tell me. The monster moves into the moonlight, and it’s not a monster at all but a turtle. Encrusted with barnacles. Dragging herself through the sand as