Surfside Sisters(13)
XO Sebastian
Keely didn’t scream. She didn’t burst into tears. This moment was too profound for that. She sat there, reading the email over and over, stunned with joy.
She hit “Reply.” She wrote:
I think you’re beautiful, too.
She deleted that. Act like an adult, she told herself. Act like Sebastian’s email isn’t as miraculous as the creation of the universe.
She wrote sentence after sentence, deleting them all. Her parents came home. She shut down the computer and went out to help make dinner. She moved as if she were an imaginary Keely, a dream Keely—a beautiful Keely.
Later, she emailed Sebastian.
Wow, Sebastian. Thanks for the compliment. I’d love to have a conversation with you. I’m definitely ready to grab your wrists and pull you up onto the roof.
I think you’re beautiful, too.
XO Keely
She pressed “Send.”
Keely waited until midnight for a reply from Sebastian, but nothing came. Nothing the next day, either. Paranoia crept over her. Had Sebastian been fooling around, playing with her, and now making fun of her? She couldn’t concentrate on her homework. She couldn’t even eat.
Two days later, his email came.
Sorry not to answer sooner. College is tougher than high school. I don’t have time to do much but study.
But thanks for your compliment. Glad you want to have a conversation. Afraid it will be short now that I’ve been loaded down with course work.
Let me know how you are.
XO Sebastian
What? Keely thought. The emotional temperature of his two emails was totally different. Was it only college courses that made him shortchange his email? She burned to talk with Isabelle about this, but of course she never would. She never could.
She didn’t send a reply to Sebastian. She needed to figure this puzzle out. Days passed and her grades were sinking. She wrenched her mind out of its obsessive daze and forced herself to concentrate on her homework.
Isabelle was busy with homework and girls’ basketball. She and Keely talked and emailed, but Keely noticed a distance growing between them. Of course they didn’t have as much time because of school, but Isabelle was absentminded, even cold toward Keely.
Keely decided the entire Maxwell family was insane.
She wept into her pillow every night, when not even her parents could hear her.
* * *
—
The first Friday night in October, a gale force wind and a full moon slammed the island, exploding into the air with crazy ions.
Isabelle phoned. “Keely, come to Surfside with me. I’ve got to be there!”
“Pick me up now,” Keely said.
On the way to the beach, Keely and Isabelle talked about school stuff. Keely’s ruffled emotional fur smoothed out. Isabelle was still her best friend, just so busy.
At the beach, waves reared up and plunged down, whipping their tips into frenzies. The sea pounded, the wind wailed. The moonlight transformed the girls and the entire world into silver. As they had done so many times before, Isabelle and Keely danced on the sand, screaming and laughing and running along the jagged shoreline until they were breathless. They fell down at the edge of the waves.
Isabelle burst into tears. She reached out toward the white froth, as if to pull it up over her, and sobbed.
Keely knelt next to her. “Isabelle! What’s wrong?”
“I hate myself! I hate my life! I want to die!”
“What? How can you say that? You have everything! You’re beautiful and smart and popular—”
“I’m in love with someone and he doesn’t even know I exist.”
Keely was stunned. “In love? Who’s the guy?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s too stupid. He’s way out of my league.”
“How old is he?” Keely asked. Her heart swelled with sympathy for Isabelle. She could understand. She was in love with Sebastian, who seemed to be playing a kind of game.
“It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t even looked my way.”
“Stop it. All the guys look your way and you know it.” She took Isabelle’s shoulders and pulled her away from the water, farther up onto the sand.
“You’re so cool about guys,” Isabelle said. “I wish I could be like you.”
Keely shrugged. “I think I’ve turned off my love switch. I want to concentrate on getting good grades so I can get a scholarship to college. I want to write a book before I even think of going nuts over some man.”
“It’s too late for me,” Isabelle said.
“Who is it?” Keely pleaded. “Come on. I’ll keep it secret.”
“Oh, God, I’m such a loser!” Isabelle turned toward Keely with fury. “It’s Tommy Fitzgerald! The guy who can have any girl he wants.”
“Wow.” Tommy Fitzgerald, with his black hair and ebony eyes, looked like a pirate who knew he could steal anything he wanted and get away with it. “I don’t know what to say, Isabelle. You’re as gorgeous as Tommy. And probably way smarter.”
“Yeah, because I’m so smart all I can think about is him.”
“Have you tried, I don’t know, catching his attention? Maybe, um, flirting?”