Between Us and the Moon - Rebecca Maizel Page 0,89
is who Andrew sees. I can see a glimmer of her here in this mirror.
Maybe when he sees me in this dress at the party, he’ll forgive me.
“I guess I’m not getting the blue geode necklace after all,” I say.
I get changed and pay.
We walk through town, and I pick up a few more items—some sandals, a couple tops—and when we’re done, I have about twenty dollars left from the Pizza Palace fund. I have always gone home with money every single summer. This time, I won’t, and I don’t feel bad about it at all.
I hug Claudia good-bye at Shore Road.
“If I don’t get a chance to come by first, I’ll see you when you get home,” she says. “And if you don’t tell me what happens with Andrew, I will come to East Greenwich and hunt you down.”
“Definitely,” I say with a laugh.
I watch Claudia walk as she heads back to her parents’ house half a mile away. It doesn’t feel like good-bye because I’ll probably text her in ten minutes. I already imagine her hanging out with Ettie and me at home.
It won’t be one of those summer friendships. I think this one might be for life.
That night, even all the way down here in Orleans, I swear I can hear the swells breaking in Truro twenty miles away. I toss and turn in my bed.
Beep. My cell phone chimes twice. I scramble for the cell, but it slips from the night table and I fall to the floor in a twist of blankets.
ANDREW: Surprise.
My heart thuds and I cannot type fast enough. My fingers fumble on the keys and I make twenty typos to write four words. Finally, I hit send.
ME: Where have you been?
The phone beeps again.
ANDREW: Come down to your beach.
I throw off the covers and hop out of bed. I’m wearing sleeping shorts and a Mathlete T-shirt. Ah, who cares? I tiptoe down the stairs. Toe, heel. Toe, heel. My heart is not pounding—it’s thundering. Even if someone is awake, it doesn’t matter. I can light a bomb off in the front yard, no one will care.
My feet squish on the wet grass.
The moon runs in and out of the clouds and it makes the whole backyard hazy. I tiptoe down the pathway between purple hydrangea bushes. I push aside long branches and lavender petals until I make it to the bay beach. The path opens up and there, standing on the end of the dock, is Andrew. His back is to me, but he turns and when he smiles, the whole moon backlights his head like a halo.
Andrew arcs gracefully and dives into the bay.
He comes up through the water, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and smiles. I hold my arms across my chest. He swims from the dock toward me on the shore.
“Good evening,” he says, stepping from the shallow water to the beach. He wraps his cold arms around me and I nuzzle into his chest even though now my Mathlete shirt is soaked.
“Nice night for a swim,” he says.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper. Andrew’s little motorboat sits at the end of the dock.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“For me? I don’t think I deserve much of anything right now.”
He’s close. The urge to hold him close overwhelms me. I can barely get the words out.
“I cannot believe the things I said to you,” I continue. “You had every right to be mad. Every right not to talk to me anymore.”
Andrew’s eyes drop to the sand. “I was mad, at first. But after a day or two, I realized that you were right. Everything you said at the trail.”
It takes me a second to focus on the actual meaning of the words coming out of his mouth. A line of bay water drips down his chest and I want nothing more than to run my finger along its path.
“I was?”
He nods but to the ground. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Your delivery sucked, but you told me the truth.”
Hardly.
“You told me what I didn’t want to hear. But I needed to.”
His eyes have that sparkle in them again, the glint of light I love.
“Don’t you want to know the surprise?” he asks.
“Definitely.”
“I registered for school today. I went to BC and signed back up.” He smiles huge and the moon backlights him. “We really can start together in the fall.”
I jump on him and into his arms. He can’t waste his passion or his talent. He just