to be friends. Actually, it was here we had the . . . uh . . . falling-out.”
“In the hotel?”
“In the hotel, yeah. Except it wasn’t a hotel yet. We broke in through this window over the basement. You been down there yet?”
I shake my head.
“Well, it’s creepy as hell. We used to come in on dares and stuff, just to look around or whatever. But, one day, we came in after school and Alex just, like, disappeared. Seriously, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I looked and looked, but it was like he’d straight-up fuckin’ vanished. And I got, like, lost in all the rooms down there. Then he finally shows up, I mean out of nowhere, and starts like attacking me—hitting me and acting all crazy—like he was really trying to kill me.”
“Jesus. What’d you do?”
“What did I do? I kicked his ass, that’s what I did. But, ever since then, me ’n Alex have stayed pretty well clear of one another.”
Colin looks at me, then, something glinting behind his eyes.
“Tell you what, though,” he continues on. “He’s scared of me. You won’t have to worry about being bothered by him . . . or anybody long as I’m around.”
He rubs his hand over his short-cut hair.
I smile.
“I can take care of myself,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Yeah, I guess you can.”
He pauses then before adding, “I’m just saying.”
I turn toward the house again.
“Look,” I say. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can hang out right now. I’ve got chores to finish and some of the girls from town are coming over tonight. Maybe you can come by later.”
He seems to think about that.
“How ’bout tomorrow, instead?” he says. “Could you get free in the afternoon?”
I smile.
“Yeah, totally. Like around three? We could go to the beach.”
He nods. “Sure, yeah. Only there’s a big storm coming in. You heard about that?”
“Yeah. Rose from the diner came by earlier. She told me.”
“Rose came by?” he says. “That’s good. I’m glad she’s checking up on you.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, scratching at the back of my neck. “She seems a little weird to me.”
He laughs.
“Well, she’s a medium. So, yeah, she’s weird.”
“A medium?” I ask, frowning. “You mean she talks to dead people?”
He shrugs.
“She thinks she does. Anyway, she’s good at reading people. She picks up on things. They call it cold reading.”
“Does she charge people for these readings?”
“No. No. It’s not like that. But I trust her. If she told me something, I’d believe it.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Something like what?”
He laughs more.
“I don’t know. Anything.”
I think about that.
“She did tell me one thing,” I say, chewing on my lower lip again. “She told me I already knew the storm was coming. And when I asked her how I knew, she said she’d seen me looking at the clouds. Only I hadn’t looked at the clouds. At least, not in front of her.”
“See?” he says, smiling. “I told you, she just knows things.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But the way she told it to me . . . I don’t know. There was something . . .”
I laugh then and shake my head.
“Never mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
He laughs with me.
“It’s okay. Like I said, I’m just glad she’s looking out for you.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder, but gently, and adds, “I am, too, you know? I’m looking out for you.”
I nod.
I don’t pull away.
“Thank you,” I say. “That actually means a lot to me.”
I smile as best I can.
And he smiles back at me.
I can’t help but blush.
“I should go,” I tell him.
“Yeah, okay.”
“But I’ll try to get free tomorrow,” I say.
He smiles.
“Good.”
“Thank you,” I say again.
He kisses me quickly on the cheek.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he tells me.
I blush more.
I turn, starting back toward the house.
My heart is racing and I feel a dropping out in my stomach.
The last thing I need, I tell myself, is to get involved with a boy here in Beach Haven. I’ve got enough fucking trouble.
I think about what he said—about Rose being some kind of medium. My mom was always into stuff like that. I guess spiritualists and fortune-tellers and astrologers and palm readers and numerologists—and preachers—and cult leaders make it their business to prey on the weak and desperate. And my mom certainly was that. She was about the most weak and desperate person I ever met.
She used to read books about the moon phases and what planets were in retrograde and all that bullshit. She tried meditation