10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,35

Samir said, turning around, though obviously, that’s exactly what he’d been thinking. There was a beacon behind him that he’d missed somehow, probably blindsided by the view. As he looked, it flashed a bright blue light for just a moment before going dark again. A placard beside it said it had been flashing the same pattern since the lighthouse had been built in 1857. Samir set one hand on the beacon’s clear casing, feeling its heft, its age, its purpose. “It makes you feel like everything’s going to be okay, doesn’t it? I mean, this place has been here for a hundred and sixty-three years. They saved it from being swallowed by the sea so it could continue to protect people.” He turned to look out the windows at the sea again, expecting Pinky to come back with some snarky remark.

“Yeah, actually,” she said softly, looking out at the sea too. “That’s what I really love about this place. It feels like… I don’t know, a protector of the island. It’s pretty cool.”

They stood in silence, breathing in tandem, letting the lighthouse cradle them.

Pinky

Weird. Pinky had never thought for a second that she and Samir could agree on anything, let alone something so… deep. She glanced sidelong at him. Maybe, in some tiny, small, minute way, he wasn’t quite as bad as she thought—

He was unsnapping his messenger bag and pulling out a small notebook and a marker. Setting the notebook against his thigh, he checked something off.

Pinky squinted. “What are you doing?” She couldn’t make out the tiny writing, but it looked like a list of some kind.

He put the notebook and marker neatly back into his bag (in their appropriate pockets) and snapped the bag shut before answering. “Checking ‘see Ellingsworth Point Lighthouse’ off my to-do list for the day.”

Pinky stared at him, waiting for more of an explanation that would help all of this make sense, but it didn’t seem like there was any coming. “You… made a to-do list for today?”

“Uh-huh. I make one for every day.”

Pinky chuckled and leaned against the railing of the observation deck. “No, come on. Not every single day.”

Samir arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”

There was no way. No way. “Even… your birthday?”

He nodded.

“Diwali.” Another nod. “Christmas.” A nod again. “The first day of summer break?” Yet another nod. “What do you even put on a day like that?” Pinky couldn’t help but ask. “I mean, it’s the first day of summer break! The whole point of it is to do nothing! Or anything!”

“ ‘Only through focus can you do world-class things, no matter how capable you are’—Bill Gates.” Samir shrugged. “Since you like quotes so much.”

Pinky scoffed. “Seriously. Don’t you think the whole planner thing is a little on the control-freak side?”

Samir leveled a gaze at her. “Sometimes, being in control is the only thing you have going for you.”

Something in his tone had her swallowing back her sarcastic retort. Pinky rested her hip against the handrail, digesting his words. “Oh,” she said quietly, feeling a little bad. “Did you learn that when… when your mom got sick?”

He looked away, back out at the marsh and the sea in the distance. “Something like that.”

Pinky wondered whether she should say what was on her mind and then realized she couldn’t not say it. She and Ash had already helped Samir with his mom once. Maybe this would help him too. “But she’s not sick anymore.”

Samir looked at her. “So?”

“So it’s not like you’re trying to solve the climate crisis or something. What do you need that much focus for?”

Samir’s gaze turned stony. “You wouldn’t understand.” He walked around the tiny observation deck, as if to put as much space between them as possible, and pretended to reread the placard about the beacon.

Pinky crossed her arms. “And why not? Because I don’t have any worthwhile goals like you do?”

Samir looked at her over the top of the beacon. “Frankly? Yeah. I see you with all these resources and parents who would support you no matter what you want to do, and all you’re interested in is”—he waved his hand at her—“getting to the top of the lighthouse. Whatever your latest madcap scheme is. Honestly, it’s pretty irresponsible.”

“Ha!” Pinky hadn’t meant to exclaim so loud; it echoed around the deck. “Okay, number one: Only people as old as this lighthouse say things like ‘madcap scheme.’ And number two: You don’t know anything about me! You see my hair and my eyebrow ring and my willingness to