and crafts show was going on at the grounds of City Hall. Right. Nothing brought the throngs of people out more than the opportunity to blow money on stupid knickknacks.
As I navigated the crowds scavenging the racks of the B&B Department Store’s annual sidewalk sale, contemplating whether I should get underwear, I had this really weird feeling. Like I was going to see Taryn again. Soon. In my mind, I could see her blond head poking out from between a display of Seaside Park lighthouse and seagull souvenir magnets at the Ocean Pharmacy. No local would be caught dead looking at them. But Taryn was no local. In my head I saw her reaching for the seagull.
I had to stop her. Stop her and save her, and in the meantime, beg for forgiveness about how wrong I was. We’d just stay away from her car and everything would be fine. My future would have to change, how could it not? I’d taken three quick steps when I realized something else.
Not twenty minutes ago, I’d seen her speeding toward Ocean Avenue with Sphincter. There was no way she could be in the pharmacy. Not unless she left him a few minutes later and went right there. No. She was probably lying on the sand with him now, in a tiny bikini, looking so … forget it.
I thumped the side of my head as if that would make it work right again. As if it ever worked right. But even before I knew it, I was running toward the store. I pulled open the door and a blast of arctic air from the AC hit me as a little bell above the door jingled, startling me. Some lady glared at me over her reading glasses. I could still feel her staring as I ran past the aisles of cold remedies and tissues, looking for the souvenir magnets.
I saw them at the end of the paper products aisle. A big display of them, right next to the rack of personalized bicycle license plates. But no Taryn.
I turned away, chewing on my lip. Staring Lady was still doing what she did best, making me forget what I’d come in there for. I pretended to be really interested in toilet paper while I tried to remember. When the bell above the door tinkled again, the lady broke her death glare on me to check out the new customer, and I relaxed enough to let it come to me. Pens. Notebooks. School stuff.
I started to book it to the stationery aisle when I looked up and saw Taryn.
“Hi,” she mumbled.
I was cleaning my throat to say something when I realized that for the first time, her voice wasn’t chipper. She actually grumbled. And for the first time, she didn’t look happy to see me. She brushed past me, as if she didn’t want anything to do with me. As she should have done all this time. Her face looked red. Like she was upset. What had Sphincter done to her?
Of course, she wandered off toward the magnets. I followed her in time to see her pick up a seagull. “Locals call them beach vermin,” I said. “Do you really want a rat on your refrigerator?”
She shifted her gaze to me for a nanosecond, and then made a “hmph” noise and put the magnet back. Then she picked up a lighthouse.
“False advertising,” I said. “There are no lighthouses in Seaside Park. That’s Barnegat Head Lighthouse, in Island Beach. Every painter in the free world has tried to reproduce it.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“Well. You would think artists would have a little more creativity, right? Isn’t that the whole point of being an artist?”
“No. The whole point of being an artist is that you can take something everyone has seen before and make them see it in an entirely new light.”
What was this? The girl was getting a backbone. Really, what had Sphincter done to her? “You’re angry,” I remarked.
“Maybe,” she said, turning and walking away.
I stopped her. “At me?”
She sighed. “You’re the one who can tell the future, right? Figure it out.” Then her face softened. “You know it’s not about you. It’s about … I don’t want to—”
“Evan? Trouble in paradise?” It just kind of slipped out. I couldn’t help myself.
A second later, I wished I could have. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not like that. We’re not … anything.”
I doubted that. If they weren’t “anything,” why was she looking angrier than I’d ever seen her? “Uh-huh,” I said.
“It’s