my yellow sundress and green flip-flops with lemons and limes printed on them. My hair falls in loose waves around my shoulders, and I took the time to put on lip gloss and mascara. I do look cute. But she takes another look and hands me a bottle of lemonade. “Here. I think you need this more than I do.”
“Lemonade?” I ask.
“Spiked with vodka. You can hardly taste it,” she promises, whirling away and snagging a can of beer from the communal cooler. “Want to go for a walk? You look like you need to talk.”
We leave Alex with his baseball bros and head toward the mouth of the cove. A rocky point separates the beach from the marina and the Crab Claw. We clamber over the rocks, me clutching on to Abby because my flip-flops are all slippery. On the other side, the night air smells like fish and salt and fried food. There’s still a trace of music from the party, but now I hear the slap of waves against the dock and the creaking of sailboats moored in the marina.
I can’t count how many times Abby and Claire and I have snuck over here during parties to talk. Mostly they do the talking—about their family problems and their boy problems—and I listen.
Something tells me this summer’s going to be different, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ve always been comfortable listening. Advising. Talking about my own feelings? Spilling my fears? Not so much. Not even with Abby and Claire.
We walk down to the end of the first dock, where a couple big sailboats are moored. I kick off my shoes and sit, dangling my feet out over the dark water. Abby leans against a wooden piling, facing me, cross-legged. She’s wearing red shorts—part of her waitressing uniform—but she changed out of her official Crab Claw polo into a white tank top.
I twist off the cap and take a sip of lemonade.
She’s right. I really can’t taste the vodka. I gulp down more.
“That bad?” Abby asks.
“Want to steal one of these boats and run away from home?”
She makes a face. “Don’t tempt me.” Things have been hard at her house too, ever since last fall when her little brother, Eli, started wanting to wear dresses to kindergarten. It wasn’t entirely out of nowhere; he’d always had his hair long and worn his big sisters’ clothes and makeup around the house. Abby’s mom has been really supportive of what she calls his gender expression. Abby’s dad, not so much. Abby and her other sisters feel caught in the middle, wanting to support Eli but struggling to understand and worrying about how kids at school will treat him.
“How’s Eli?” I ask.
“He started asking us to call him Ella. Dad is not having it. Every time one of us says ‘she’ instead of ‘he,’ he freaks the hell out. He and Mom had a huge fight about it last night.” Abby pulls her blond hair into a long ponytail. “How’s your mom?”
“Kind of a bitch. Granddad is doing her a kindness by letting her come home, and she’s picking fights with everybody. Him. Me. Even Luisa, who’s never done anything to her.”
Neither have I, I remind myself. Unless you count being born.
Abby frowns. “What did she say to you?”
“She told me I was tall.” I take another drink. “Her first words to me in fifteen years were, ‘Jesus, you’re tall.’”
“Seriously?” Abby fiddles with the silver infinity necklace Ty gave her, her blue eyes sympathetic. “And then what?”
“She told my sisters I’m their aunt. Her little sister.”
“She what?” Abby gasps.
“Yep. Gracie calls me ‘Aunt Ivy.’” I relate the whole awful conversation in the library, punctuating my story with sips of lemonade. “Hearing her say straight up that she doesn’t care about my feelings, that I was a mistake—”
“You were not. She made the mistake when she left. She missed out, because you’re awesome,” Abby says. “You know that, right?” Her phone beeps but she doesn’t look at it. “Right?”
I nod, but my throat is tight because I don’t feel entirely convinced.
Her phone beeps again, and this time she glances at it and her whole face lights up. “Ty’s here!”
I wish I had somebody who made me smile like that.
Like a mind reader, Abby nudges me. “Hey, you know what I bet would make you feel better? Making out with Alex.”
Ever since I told her how Alex almost kissed me after prom, she’s been relentless. She loves the idea of