me and I grasp onto the side of the Dumpster so I don’t fall. I cry out, the back of my heel scrapes on the asphalt.
The guy at the tree looks in my direction. Great.
I brush off my heel and pretend I was just oh so casually coming from the back alley of the string of shops and restaurants.
“You okay?” he asks and walks down the hill toward me. Before he gets close enough he wipes his eyes on his shirt.
“Fine.” I groan. I’m a stalker, but I’m fine. “I think I contracted E. coli from the dirty ground,” I add.
Maybe I could explain my reason for being here? Maybe he would get it?
When he gets close to me, he steps into the light. His eyes aren’t too red, but they aren’t dry either. He wears a thin T-shirt that is ripped a little on the chest. His tan skin peeks through.
He looks down and grins sheepishly. “Oh. I just got out of work.”
Oops. Caught.
“That’s twice you’ve fallen today,” he says.
“I’m really much more stable than this,” I say. I need to get out of this alley. I head down to Main Street. He keeps pace with me down the hill. I try not to meet his eyes. He’s cute. His hair is a little long and he is much taller than me too, 6'3"? Maybe 6'4"?
“I didn’t fall,” I stress. “I had a gravitational issue.”
He laughs. My cheeks have to be redder than Gracie’s tomatoes, as Gran would say.
His shoulders are defined too. He probably plays football at his high school. He also doesn’t seem the type to say “gravitational” on the regular.
“Hey—” he says, stopping next to the Bird’s Nest Diner. “Thanks. I needed that.”
Needed what? I want to ask, but I don’t know how. It seems oddly personal and I know it’s connected to the jersey tied around a tree trunk. Maybe I should act disinterested and pull a Scarlett. I am about to do Scarlett’s hair-flipping routine when about five hundred yards down the block Scarlett and a gaggle of people parade in my direction. I spin the other way and hurry to the lawn of the library nearby.
“Hey—wait!” the blond guy calls after me.
“I gotta go!” I cry.
“Andrew!” Curtis calls. “Andrew! You’re late!”
I run to the library. I don’t even look back. I can’t. I’m in the shadow of the side of the building when I stop and peek around the corner. Andrew has joined the group. He looks back once more in my direction, and under the streetlights, he is tanned, tall, and his structured features are proportionate. He’s hot.
“What are you looking for?” Scarlett asks Andrew.
“I was talking to this girl. But she’s gone,” he says. “She ran off.”
“Okay—weirdo,” Scarlett says with her same derisive laugh. They move as a group down the street and I don’t want to follow. Not anymore. I’m a weirdo who runs off when handsome guys talk to me because I have no idea how to interact with people. Tonight’s attempt at observation and conversation was a complete bust. I head for home to check the comet’s coordinates on Nancy’s beach. Where it’s safe. Where I know who to be.
Where I can be alone.
SIX
“LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION?” DAD SAYS TO me a couple days later. He loves to do this when he hasn’t checked in on my application in a while. The marine biologist in him can’t help it.
“Completed two months ago.”
“Transcript?”
I lift the blue folder I have designated for the Waterman Scholarship.
“Application?”
“Just need to fill out the general info.”
“Registration forms?”
“Completed but not sent. They’re due on my birthday, Friday.”
“Essay?”
“Ugh,” I reply. “You know I’m not a creative writer.”
Dad gently holds his hands over mine so I can’t fidget.
“You’ll do it,” he says. Dad’s hands are warm and big. I think about Scarlett’s laugh on the beach and the girls running in a linked chain of hands out the door of the Seahorse. I can’t fake enthusiasm. I’m fine with that usually—but maybe there’s something wrong with me? A legitimate reason Tucker prefers Becky, and I haven’t bothered to make tons of friends here every year.
“Do you—do you think I’m merely logical and devoid of emotion? You know, a weirdo?” I ask.
Dad frowns at the table. As I verified with Tucker, avoidance of eye contact means guilt or omission of truth.
“No, Beanie,” he says, making sure to look me in the eye, which is assuring. “Who said you were devoid of emotion?”
“No one. Just curious.”
“Was it that idiot? Tucker?”
I