thing to mark it with.
I imagine him after that, driving all over town to collect my favorite things, even if it meant not getting to eat all the thumbprint cookies himself. And then home again to box it all up, arranging everything in Christmas tissue paper. Writing me a card and having no clue what to say because he knows I’m mad at him, and I’m with my mom, who’s also mad at him. But writing it anyway and sending it all anyway because for whatever reason he wants me to have these things.
And suddenly I can’t swallow because there is a lump in my throat that has grown to the size of a baseball. The pain is so sharp that my eyes instantly tear, and I blink and blink and blink until the newspaper in my hand blurs away.
* * *
—
It takes me eight minutes to run to the beach, and I’m there at ten a.m. exactly. Miah’s not here yet, so I wade into the water and watch for him.
Ten-twenty.
I strip down to my bikini and lie on the sand, which is so hot it burns my back. Every few minutes I sit up to look for him.
Ten-thirty.
We are supposed to have an adventure. He was the one who suggested it. He said last night, “I’ll meet you on the beach at ten a.m.” Right before he picked me up, my legs around his waist, and kissed me.
Eleven.
I flip over onto my stomach, even though this is too much sun exposure for my poor freckled Midwestern skin. I pop a thumbprint cookie in my mouth and savor it because I want to make them last. I rest my chin on my hands and keep my eyes on the path through the dunes.
Eleven-thirty.
I walk into the water to cool off. My skin stings from the sand and the sun. A wave rushes in and something brushes the top of my foot, but it’s only a shell. I pick it up and throw it back into the ocean. Goodbye, insecurities, I think as I watch it fly. It disappears, and I imagine it sailing away into the deepest depths of the ocean.
I bend down, pick up another shell. Goodbye, worry. I toss it in. I find another and another. Goodbye, disappearing floors. Goodbye, heartbreak. Goodbye, fear.
By noon I’ve filled the ocean with all the things I’ve been carrying around since I left Ohio—maybe even before that—and Miah still hasn’t come.
* * *
—
At home, there’s no note, nothing to say why he didn’t show. I slather myself in sunscreen, pack a bag with water and snacks, headphones, pen, notebook, phone, and head back out into the day. Before I leave, I stick a note to the door telling him that I waited for him and where I’ve gone.
I end up at the general store. When I walk in, Terri says, “I haven’t seen you in a few days. Someone got too much sun.”
“I’ve been busy.” I don’t say with who. I try to look as preoccupied as possible so she won’t ask me. I spread my things out and take a seat, scooting one of the other chairs close enough so that I can prop my feet on it.
There are four voice messages from Saz. Three left over the past three days, all about sex. The last one, from this morning, just: Hey. Call me when you can.
My first thought is, Oh no. I play it again and again, my stomach turning over each time. Saz usually uses up every minute of available message, and if it cuts her off, she calls back to leave another. More than that, though, there’s this color to her voice—a dreary gray, a dull brown, the way it sounded when her grandmother died. I try her back, but it doesn’t even ring. I tell her voice mail, “This is me calling you. I love you more than kissing and foreplay and sex itself.”
I set the phone down, faceup, ringer off, and try to write, try to focus. Terri is reading a book, and the only customer who comes in is a middle-aged man who buys ice cream and a soda.
After he leaves, I say, “Hey, Terri?” Her nose is back in The Thorn Birds. “What do you think is an acceptable excuse for someone who stands you up?”
She tears her eyes from the page, but I can see the effort it takes. “Depends on what you were supposed to be doing and who