Stay Sweet(9)

Softly, Cate says, “You don’t have to say sorry. I know exactly how you’re feeling, Amelia. Believe me.”

Cate pulls into Amelia’s driveway. Amelia’s family doesn’t live on the lake. Her house is tucked back in the woods a ways, a small, pretty colonial with wood siding painted butter yellow and a robin’s-egg-blue front door. From Amelia’s bedroom window, you can see a bit of the glittering lake through the trees.

“What are you going to do for the rest of the day?” Amelia asks Cate.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe go down to the lake.” Cate lowers her head to see the sky from the windshield. “Though it’s suddenly too cloudy to tan.” She shrugs. “I’ll call you later and check in.” Cate leans across the cab and gives Amelia a big hug.

Amelia goes inside and up to her room. She folds the blankets Cate slept in and puts them back into her closet. Next, she takes off her Head Girl pin and returns it, as well as Molly Meade’s note, to her jewelry box with her other obsolete treasures, like friendship bracelets from long ago, which are too stretched out to be safely worn but that she can’t imagine ever throwing away.

Flopping on her bed, she checks her phone and finds several missed messages. The stand girls want to know what happened. If everything’s okay. It dawns on her that Cate didn’t tell the girls that Molly had died, only that they shouldn’t come in today.

Though she doesn’t want to, Amelia dutifully starts a new text to the six girls who were supposed to return to Meade Creamery this summer, and then adds the stand girls from summers past that she has saved in her phone, thinking they would want to know what happened too.

Sad news. Molly Meade passed away. I think it happened sometime yesterday. I’m sorry I don’t have more details. Honestly, I still can’t believe it’s true.

She hits Send, plugs her phone into the charger, and goes into the bathroom to swallow some Advil. When she returns, she sees a text back from Frankie Ko.

Amelia smiles. The last she’s heard, Frankie graduated college somewhere in Florida, not FSU, another one, then moved down to Costa Rica to study sea turtles. She wonders what Frankie will say when she hears that Amelia was going to be Head Girl this summer. She hopes Frankie will be proud. Amelia feels bad for losing touch with her. Not that they became super-great friends, but because Frankie will always hold a special place in her heart. Amelia wants to tell her that. Before it’s too late, because you never know.

The text says ERROR. INVALID NUMBER.

Amelia sets her phone down. As soon as she does, it begins to buzz again.

She leaves it on her nightstand and crawls under the covers.





CHAPTER FIVE


WHEN AMELIA LIFTS HER HEAD, warm against her pillow, she knows she’s been asleep for a long time. Hours. She feels it in her body, the heaviness, and her room is shadowy. Rolling onto her back, she finds her phone and glances through the texts she’s received from the other girls at the stand. It’s a blur of sad emojis, virtual hugs that she can almost feel.

She changes out of her polo and into a big T-shirt—the one from Project Graduation night—and a pair of leggings, undoes her fishtail braids, and combs her fingers through the waves they’ve left behind.

Downstairs, she finds her mom and dad sitting together at their kitchen table, their plates pushed off to the side. Dad has his school papers spread out in front of him—he teaches math at the high school, and summer school starts next week—and Mom is scrolling on her phone. A baseball game is on the radio. Someone gets a hit and they look up at each other and smile.

“Hi.”

They glance over at her, startled, and then guiltily at the remnants of dinner. Her dad explains, “We thought you were out with Cate.”

“It’s okay.”

Her mom winces and quickly clears their things from Amelia’s normal spot at the table. “Would you believe we even told each other tonight is a chance to train ourselves for how lonely it’s going to be around here in September?”

“Please don’t make me more depressed.” Amelia falls into her seat.

Amelia’s dad offers a gentle smile. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s hard to believe. This wasn’t how I was expecting today to go, you know?”

“No, I suppose not.” He reaches across the table and ruffles her hair. “You sure you don’t want some steak? It’ll only take me a couple of minutes to get the grill going.”

“I’m sure.”

Amelia’s mom gives her shoulder a tender squeeze. “It’s not easy to do what you did today. We’re proud of you.”

“I didn’t actually do anything. I just walked in and found her.” Amelia slouches in her chair and picks a tomato from the salad bowl. She appreciates their trying to cheer her up, but really, it was the bare minimum.

“You took charge,” her dad insists. “You acted like a manager!”

“Head Girl,” her mom corrects.

“Yes, right. Head Girl.”

“And thank goodness you did, Amelia! Could you imagine if this happened in winter? Poor Molly would have been lying there dead for months and no one would have known.”

“Mom!”

Her mother’s eyes go wide. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”