I watch the digits on my bedside table clock tick toward the end of the day. It’s too late for me to be alone in this house. Micah should be here. My mother should be here. But I haven’t seen Micah all night. He’s been staying out later and later with his friends. I’m tired of wishing he’d care enough to come home for dinner. Mom is working a double shift at the resort.
I listen hard, hoping for the ding of Micah’s cell or the sound of shoes being kicked off and flung across the tiled floor. But the house is quiet, except for the labored churn of the window unit and the whir of the ceiling fan.
As I get ready for bed, I lift my gaze to the glittering ocean. A tiny square is visible from a very particular angle in my room. The tiny two-story we’ve rented since Mom moved us here from Literally Nowhere, Alabama, eight years ago is only a block off the water. Atlantic Beach locals call it the Pepto Pad, because it’s painted the brightest, ugliest shade of pink in the color spectrum. Swim out far past the breakers and I swear you can still see it, glaring like a stucco zit from behind a row of spectacular beachfront homes.
I turn away from the water, which will always remind me of Wil. I sit cross-legged in sweats and a tank top on the floor of my room, sifting through the only Wil pieces I have left. My bottom drawer is filled with tiny mementos from the boats I worked on with him and Wilson. Wilson would slip small treasures into my palm at the end of every project: a piece of polished teak from an old deck, a sail scrap with the boat’s name scribbled in the corner, and once, a brass-rimmed compass.
I nudge the drawer shut with my foot and lean against the foot of my bed. I threw everything in that drawer away the night I let beer-soaked Buck Travers kiss me on that dock. Maybe if I’d had a reason, I could put Wil behind me. But I’ve looked for a good explanation for why I betrayed my best friend, the boy I’d loved since I was eight, combed my memory for it, and all I can come up with are broken half excuses. Buck had been trying to drunk kiss me for years. I was pissed at Wil for refusing to come with me to Leigh’s. I was exhausted and stressed at the end of the hardest semester of my life, and I just wanted to have fun, do something stupid. I was drunk.
But what really happened had nothing to do with Buck or booze or junior year. What really happened is this: For those few moments on the dock, I stopped showing Wil I loved him. I didn’t stop loving him. I still haven’t. But Wil Hines is not the kind of guy who appreciates that difference.
Since that night last year, there have been a million times I’ve wished that Wil wasn’t the type of person who lived his life by such absolutes. That he could understand a moment of weakness and forgive it. But he’s not. He doesn’t see the grays.
Maybe if he had the kind of dad who bailed without a word, like mine; if he had the kind of dad who cheated, bailed, came back, and bailed again, like Micah’s . . . maybe then he’d understand that life is never black-and-white. That most of us have learned to tread in the gray.
A footfall jerks me awake. I flop onto my back and open my eyes. The shadows in my room are all wrong. I check the clock by my bedside table. 4:43 A.M.
“Bridget.”
I sit up. My mother is a foggy ghost at the edge of my bed, repeating my name. “Bridget. Bridget. Wake up. Bridget.”
“God. Mom. Are you okay?” I fumble for my lamp and twist the switch. Mom never uses my full name. Kid or Offspring. B or Honeybee. Bridge. Never Bridget. “I thought you were working a double shift.”
The lamplight shows her in contrasts: messy auburn bob and crescent shadows beneath tired eyes. “Oh, honey.”
I sit up. “Where’s Micah? Are you okay?”
“No. I’m—we’re fine.” She kicks off her work pumps. Tears polka-dot her blouse. “I have something to tell you. Something bad, baby.”
“Whatever it is, say it, Mom. It’s okay.” My mother is the kind of mom who let Micah and me believe in the tooth fairy for so long that once we found out, it was a million times worse than if she’d just told the truth. “I can take it.”
She reaches for me. She presses one of my hands between hers.
“Wilson Hines is dead,” she says. The words are frantic and dry: hundreds of moths escaping the black cave of her throat.
“What?” I almost laugh. It seems too absurd to be real. “No. Mom. I just saw him.”
“Honeybee,” she whispers, and then I know it’s true.
I shake my head. I close my eyes and see yellow tulips. My mouth tastes like rust.
“It was a break-in. They think it’s related to that string of burglaries that’s been on the news.”
I blink for a minute. The words sound strange, like gibberish.
“When?” I breathe.
“Couple of hours ago.”
I bend over and stare at the spinning floor. I’m going to be sick.
“Wil,” I croak. “Henney.”
“Wil and his mom are both fine. Not fine.” Mom’s features collapse. “I think they were there, but . . . they didn’t get hurt or anything. I can’t—” Her face twists like crumpled paper and she slides into bed with me. I stroke her hair while she cries. I’m cold, like Wilson and I are standing in front of the flower refrigerator again.
Fix it, Brooklyn.
Wil had a dad this morning and now he doesn’t, and in some small way, I know what that’s like.
“I have to go,” I tell Mom, kicking off the covers. “I have to see Wil.”
The drive to Wil’s house passes in a blur. Someone has ripped the black sky open with bare hands, releasing the rain. I barely register the streetlamps bleeding gold on the rain-slicked pavement or the garish neon of the car dealerships that line Atlantic, and then I am tearing down his street. At the end of Wil’s block, red and blue lights flash between the raindrops.
There are cruisers and news vans barricading the street. I go as far as I can and throw the truck into park. Wil’s house is three down, at the corner, and all the lights are on. Yellow crime tape spans the perimeter of the yard, taut around the palm trees.
It is too loud. Neighbors are inching close, yelling questions to the cops. Their voices are high and thin. They press their children against their bodies. The cops hold an unwavering line at the crime tape, murmuring into their radios. At least three reporters are testing opening lines (“—a horrific scene tonight, Bill, on this quiet residential street.” “Neighbors say Wilson Hines was a local boat builder who cared deeply for his wife and teenage son.” “—shattered the glass door and entered the house.” “—latest victim in a recent string of break-ins that have been escalating in violence.”). I recognize the one closest to me, the brunette from Channel 12.
“We’ll be back with more on this developing tragedy, tonight at eleven. Back to you in the studio.” She stares wide-eyed and solemn at the camera, until the light goes down. I worm my way through the crowd. Before long, I am pressed against the police tape at the edge of Wil’s yard.
A lanky blond cop hooks his thumbs through his belt loops and says: “I’m gonna need you to stay back, ma’am.” He can’t be much older than I am.
“But—he’s my—” There is no way to explain us to a stranger.