When We Collided(45)

Jonah doesn’t do either thing. We are together for now, above the choppy black water and the flicking white waves, and it is enough.

And the next horrible thought is how badly I want to tell Ruby and Amala about him. I try to push away the idea of them. In my mind, we’re always in Amala’s bedroom, dyeing the tips of Ruby’s hair some fantastic color and howling over stupid jokes. We went to art museums and the most hip coffee shops and record stores and concerts. Why do I go back to the simplest moments, in pajamas?

“Viv?” Jonah asks. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, almost hesitating. “Did you have a group of friends? Before your dad?”

He nods against my shoulder. “Good guys. They’re not gone or anything. I’m just really busy. And . . . you know. They don’t know how to talk to me about everything.”

Before I can say anything, he jumps back in. “You never talk about friends back home. You must have a thousand, based on the hundred you have in Verona Cove.”

I lift one shoulder, glad he can’t see my face. “We had a bit of a falling-out before I left. Water under the bridge. I’m here now.”

So why do I wish I wish I wish I could take a picture of me and Jonah and send it to Ruby and Amala and say this is falling in love with someone GOOD and it is so good.

We stand there pressed together for a while until it is no longer my birthday. I think about boats, how they’re powerful but so delicate compared to the fickle sea. I think about lighthouses, about safe mooring and how easy it is to crash. I think about love and what I deserve and how I’m trying to accept everything the universe is giving me.

Then the radio changes to something upbeat and folksy.

Jonah’s voice is near my ear. I can hear his smile. “I like this song.”

At first, we stay standing together, but then the chorus plays, and it’s free and alive. So the serious-eyed boy in the penguin suit takes the butterfly-winged girl by the hands and spins her. We sway our hips and stamp our feet like the drunken revelry of turning sour grapes into wine. Our bodies block the beam from the lighthouse as we wave our arms and, even though we can’t see it, we’re casting shadows onto the sky.

This is where I am, somewhere between the night’s total darkness and the light’s utter brilliance, and I grin as I dance and the night wind kicks up Jonah’s hair. The glow of my birthday candles and the fairy lights would have been more than enough. But Jonah Daniels? He lit up my whole world.

Even the constellations can see us now: we are seventeen and shattered and still dancing. We have messy, throbbing hearts, and we are stronger than anyone could ever know.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jonah

I woke up to the sound of rain. In my exhausted state, I thought the sound was the roof caving in or my window AC unit dying of emphysema. Verona Cove doesn’t get rain in the summer. It just doesn’t.

Sure enough, the sky beyond my third-story window is a mechanical gray. It’s not a summer shower. My clock reads 10:00 a.m., which is not possible.

I pass Leah’s room on my way to the kitchen. She’s still curled in a ball like a sleepy kitten. I never realized it’s the sunshine that wakes her up so early every morning. Downstairs, Bekah and Isaac are playing a board game I haven’t seen in years. They’re quiet. Not fighting.

Today is confusing.

I shower and make us egg sandwiches for breakfast instead of oatmeal because, hey—the world is backward anyway. It’s raining, my siblings are mellow, and we’re eating high-cholesterol food. Leah makes a face at her egg sandwich after one bite, so I bring it up to my mom. She’s sitting on her bed with a pile of papers fanned out around her. But she’s dressed in something other than pajamas. And her hair looks different. Shiny. Brushed?

“Hey, pal,” she says, looking up. Her face is alert. It’s hard to explain why the change is so immediately noticeable. When someone is so sad for so long, they lack the energy to move even the tiniest facial muscle. Like they’re too sad to even fully lift their eyelids. This morning, there’s a twitch of movement in my mom’s cheeks. Her forehead isn’t drooping.

“Hey. I brought you a breakfast sandwich. It’s slightly used. By Leah. But still warm.”

“Thanks.” A real smile.

Seriously. Whose life did I wake up to?

I squint at the papers around her. I can’t resist asking. “What are you doing?”

She tucks a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Well, Naomi has been taking care of a lot of household stuff for me.”

All my muscles cramp. Money talk makes me feel sweatier than a marathon runner.

“She’s been doing a wonderful job, but she needed some help with it this month. So I’m rebalancing to make sure we’re all set.” Maybe she senses my hypertension. “Which we are.”

“Do you know why I majored in accounting?” she asks, scribbling something down on the pad of paper in her hands.

I do know this, actually. It’s easy to forget how well I know my mom. Her grief seems like a disguise but, underneath it, I know her. “Because you love math.”

“I really do,” she agrees. “And I love math because there’s always a right answer. It’s not interpretive; it’s not subjective. There is a correct destination, even if you have to hack through confusing parts to get there. That’s not always true in life.”