When We Collided(17)

They’re already in the backyard, each little kid squealing with joy as Jonah points the hose at them.

“Vivi!” Leah calls. “Hi!”

It doesn’t take us long to set up the tarp on a slight downslope in their lush backyard. We blow up a baby pool at the end and fill it with water. Jonah checks underneath the Slip ’N Slide for rocks—of course he does—and calls out, “All good!”

The world smells like cut grass and beach air and hose water, and my stomach tightens with excitement.

“Who’s first?” I ask, popping open a mega-size bottle of dish soap to line the plastic runway for maximum slippage and slideage. I look magnificent, if I do say so myself, in my wide-brimmed sun hat and the leopard-print leotard that I’m using as a bathing suit. The leotard is super formfitting, so I don’t have to wear any underthings, and it has long sleeves to cover my scar. Isaac brings out a retro radio and sets it to the oldies station, and I shake my leopard-print hips around in pure glee.

Silas dives onto the plastic runway—what a ham—and crashes into the baby pool at the end.

“Bravo!” I yell from the top.

Bekah holds up four fingers on each hand. “The judges give it an eight out of ten.”

“Go ’head, Leah,” Isaac says. It seems like he’s being a considerate big brother, but I think he’s a little nervous to try it himself.

Jonah jogs down to the end and gives her a thumbs-up. You can’t really catch someone once they go flying, but Leah doesn’t know that.

Leah nods, sitting down at the top. She slides gently, bouncing right into the pool and giggling herself silly. I go backward, saluting just for the laughs, and the other littles follow behind me, shyly at first and then wildly, fearlessly. Our squeals attract some neighbor kids, who rush back home to put on their bathing suits.

Everyone has taken at least two turns before I get Jonah to try it. I spray him square in the stomach with the hose. “C’mon, sailor. Your turn.”

“All right, all right, I’m going.” He peels off his T-shirt, and my thoughts about this are as follows: Um, hello.

He sits at the top of the tarp and turns back to me. “Give me a push?”

Hmm. I figured he was a run-and-dive type, but whatever. I set the hose at the top so it gushes downward, and I place my hands on Jonah’s shoulders.

Before I realize what’s happening, he grabs me with him, and we’re both sliding, and I’m shrieking with laughter. We’re a tangle of limbs, slick against the soap, whooshing so fast from the velocity from our combined weight. We roll through the baby pool—shockingly cold—and past it until we land on the grass. I lie faceup, crying from laughing, and I lean my cheek against the blue plastic side of the pool.

“You guys okay?” Silas calls.

“Yeah!” Jonah’s voice is right beside me, and then he’s looking down at me, his face blocking the sun. The beams make a halo around him. “Viv? You okay?”

“Perfect!” I gasp out the word, still laughing. “Never been better. I told you. Otter.”

His hair falls across his forehead, and he smiles down at me. Not a shy smile, not that hesitant, lips-clamped thing he did all of yesterday. No, this is a real grin, the first he’s given me.

You wouldn’t believe the things I’d do to get this world-weary boy to smile like that. Today, it took a Slip ’N Slide, and tomorrow will be something different. Oh, my—do I have plans. I’m going to spend my whole summer changing the expressions on Jonah Daniels’s face.



The next morning, I go about business as usual: throw a pill into the ocean, feel the breeze on my face, and thank the constellations that I can feel things. But then, as I’m taking out my keys to unlock the pottery shop, my gaze catches on the bench outside the store. There’s a brown paper bag sitting there, with my name on it in black marker. Intrigue! I glance around, looking for conspirators, before I settle onto the bench. The bag has a bit of weight, a square shape pushing out the bottom. I’m hesitant in unrolling the top, ready to lean back if something explodes out. But it’s a restaurant to-go box, it seems.

Inside, a sandwich with layers of juicy tomato, soft mozzarella, and fresh basil, on thick sourdough bread. Or maybe something fancier I don’t know the name of—focaccia? Ciabatta?

Jonah.

I stare down into this little cardboard box like it’s a trunkful of jewels glinting back at me. He . . . packed me lunch?

I can imagine his hands, delicate on the knife with sure movements of his wrist, slicing through red tomato, white mozzarella. Stacking them into restaurant-perfect presentation. Golden potato chips settled around the sandwich. And a homemade cookie, slid into the side.

Was this some attempt to woo me—foodie flirtation? It must be, right? Even though making a lunch is something a parent does for a child? I don’t want to be another person he has to care for. I want to be someone he cares about.

I flip this around in my mind all morning. When it’s time to eat, I peel back the bread as if the sandwich will reveal the answer. Are you a romantic Roma tomato? Or is this a platonic plate, a kindness between friends?

“I ran out of the lavender paint.”

“Huh?” I blunder, looking up at the customer. I almost forgot I was at work. “Oh. Sorry—there’s more in the back. Let me get it for you.”