You Have a Match(19)
“You know Savvy has this super popular Instagram account, right?” asks Leo. “She’s the reason I started ours. She helped me with all the hashtagging in the beginning, too.”
This discovery doesn’t know how to settle in me. A few days ago I had no idea Savvy existed. Now I feel like she’s been slowly leaking into my life for years, lurking in places I never thought to look—apparently even in places I already did.
Leo’s eyes flit to the front of the ferry, where a few people are clustered outside for the view. He nods toward them and says, “Camp Ever—er, Reynolds, I guess—it’s got tons of awesome views. And all this wildlife. Birds and deer, even orcas, if you’re lucky. I bet we can get at least one good shot of some before the summer’s out.”
I lean against the ferry window, temporarily distracted from my shock. Half of me is here, but half of me already living in that moment—in the adrenaline rush of seeing something magical and knowing you only have a small window to capture that magic, sometimes only a fraction of a second. It’s why I love photographing nature and landscapes most. You never know exactly when the magic is going to happen. There’s nothing quite like the rush of getting to hold that magic still and keep it forever—allowing something so big to feel so intimate and personal because a part of you belongs to it, and a part of it belongs to you.
“It’s a good thing you know Savvy,” he says. “She’s got a really good knack for spotting them.”
I bristle. “We don’t … I mean, I know more of her than actually know her.”
This, at least, is not a lie. Despite spending the whole week texting back and forth with her to square away details—the stuff we were both bringing, from photographs to marriage records we found online to actual printouts of our DNA relative lists—I don’t know that much about her. I mean, aside from the stuff that half a million literal other people know about her, courtesy of Instagram.
“Huh. Well, small world,” says Leo. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re looking into the Instagram stuff. I keep telling you there are all kinds of opportunities—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. It smacks way too much of Savvy’s little pseudolecture last week, especially since my existence on Instagram might even be her fault. Leo lowers his head a bit, looking back out over the water at the view of the mountains. “But you … know Savvy pretty well?”
Leo laughs, the kind of ambiguous, open-ended laugh you do when you know someone well but have no idea how to explain them to other people. I feel an unwelcome pang as it tapers off. I’d call it jealousy, but first I’d have to figure out what for: that Leo knows Savvy, or that Savvy knows Leo. Or maybe just the inevitability of those facts, which is that right now, they’re probably both closer to each other than either of them are with me.
“She’s great,” says Leo. He thinks on this, like he’s not having trouble describing her, but describing her specifically to me. “I mean—she’s like, your polar opposite—”
“Hey!”
My tone is teasing, but the hurt is real, hitting fresh and sharp like it does when you didn’t think to ready yourself for it.
“Oof,” says Leo, dodging my attempt to elbow him, anticipating it before my muscles can even twitch. “Bad phrasing, especially if I want to live another Day—”
“Now you’re legit toast.”
“Aw, come on. I just mean—she’s big on rules, and you kind of make your own.” He lowers his gaze to mine. “Truth is, nobody’s like you. There can only be one Abigail Eugenia Day.”
I pivot from him, lowering my arm. It is a true testament to how far gone I am and how impossible it’s going to be to come back that he’s managed to make the name “Eugenia” sound sexy. I can practically hear his smirk behind me.
He bumps the back of my shoulder with his, a gentle, cloying nudge to prompt me to turn around. When I do the smirk is entirely gone, softened into something that makes my ribs feel fluttery.
“I’m really glad you’re doing this.”
I don’t mean to sound like a record scratch in the middle of what is arguably the most normal conversation we’ve had in eons, but I can’t help it. If I don’t ask, I’m going to spend the whole summer waiting for some other shoe to drop.
“You are?”
Leo’s smile flickers. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because…”
Leo’s closer to me than before and I’m not sure whose fault it is, his or mine. He lowers his voice, the words a gentle prod. “Because what, Abby?”
I lose the words as fast as they come, and I’m not even sure who to blame, my brain or my mouth or every synapse in between. Maybe an entire lifetime of avoiding conversations like this—the big scary ones that have power over every conversation that happens after them.
It’s the kind of thing I haven’t had to worry about too much. I may be bad at fighting my own battles, but that’s what I have Connie for. But this isn’t a battle, and Connie’s nowhere in sight.
Leo’s voice is still soft when he speaks again, the rumble of it feeling more like it came from somewhere in me than from him.
“That morning—”
“Thanksgiving break,” I bleat out.