Alec curses and we walk away. I don’t go to the dance floor, but not too far away either. Off to the side of the party, close to the same stretch of beach she walked down that first night we really talked.
They’re playing a slow song and I pull her to me. My arms wrap around her waist and hers around my neck. People are all around us, some I recognize from last year and others are probably new guests. We’re silent as we move together. This is the quietest my thoughts have been in months.
I want to tell her what happened. That I’m sorry. That I’m a jerk and she really is my best friend and I shouldn’t have turned my back on her.
I want to know how things have been here for here. Like if she’s told her parents she wants to leave one day, Or if she's learned anything new about the stars she can teach me.
What comes out first is, “Are you and Alec…?”
“No.” She answers quickly, honesty in her features.
My muscles relax. I would have felt like a jackass if I asked some other guy’s girlfriend to dance.
I feel her hand knot in the back of my shirt. I don’t understand it, but I’m glad if I’m giving her some kind of support. Someone to lean on.
“I’m a jerk,” I tell her.
“Yeah.”
It feels good to laugh.
We keep moving in a circle. I let my hand move up and down her back and she buries her face in my shirt.
“I missed you, Star Girl.”
She stiffens and I wonder if I went too far. Maybe I shouldn’t have assumed or shouldn’t have pushed, but it’s the truth and I want her to know it. I need her to, so I keep going.
“A lot happened and I was in a bad place, but I shouldn’t have stopped talking to you.”
She pulls away to look at me. “What happened? Are you okay?”
I think maybe I might be. I mean, I had to have been, even from the beginning, but right now I actually feel it. “Yeah…I’m okay. It’s just…” How do I say it? How do I tell her what I let happen?
“Charlie Rae! Come here for a few minutes! I need your help.”
Something in her dad’s voice tells me he’s calling her for more reasons than needing her.
“I gotta go.” She pulls away.
An urgent need takes me over and I blurt out, “Do you still sneak out?”
She nods.
“Meet me tonight and we’ll talk. Shit…I never said sorry. I wanted to tell you sorry first.”
“Charlie Rae!” her dad calls again.
Charlotte backs up a few steps, turns, and takes a few more. All I can think is she never told me if she would meet me or not. She never said if it was okay.
As though she could read my mind, she stops and glances back. “I…I missed you.”
And then she runs, kicking up sand behind her.
She doesn't hear me say, “I missed you, too.”
“You’re sneaking out with her already? I thought she hated you.” Brandon sits up in his bed and turns on the bedside light.
“Shh. You’ll wake up the house, and that’s not how it is. I just need to talk to her. It’s not like what we saw you doing last summer.”
Brandon’s face pales. I swear to God he’s about to get sick. His mouth drops open and then he lunges off the bed at me.
“What the hell!” I hiss as he grabs my arms.
“Did you tell? What did you see?”
I rip away from him. “You’re tripping the hell out. Like I’m going to tell Mom and Dad you screwed Charlotte’s sister. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be here right now if I had.”
He lets out a heavy breath and falls back onto the bed. “I just…” he trails off. “It kind of got out of control. She started talking all serious about her moving with me when she turned eighteen and all this stuff. And it’s just…she’s not… It’s not like I want to hurt her, but it was just so easy with Sadie, ya know? I wanted it to work out. Maybe.”
I look at my brother, not sure where all this opening up is coming from. “You’re seventeen. You don’t have to be serious about anyone. It’s not like—”
“—You don’t get it. You know what? Never mind. I’m tired. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.” He turns off the light and gets back into bed like we weren’t just talking about, whatever we were talking about.
“Want me to stay?”
“Shut up. Go get laid,” he replies.
“I’m not sleeping with her, you prick. She’s my friend.”
“Whatever. No one spends as much time together as you two if you’re not going at it, but whatever.”
Ignoring my brother, I open the window and climb out to go meet Charlotte.
I wait off to the side of her house because we weren’t able to decide where to meet. After about twenty minutes, I start to wonder if she either ditched me, or if she went to one of our spots to wait.
Finally I see her sneaking around the building. A smile tugs at my lips. She’s wearing a baseball hat with her hair sticking out the hole. I love how she’s comfortable like that. It makes me miss wearing mine. I don’t know why I don’t anymore.
“Hey,” I whisper.
“Hey,” she replies.
“Where do you want to go?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know… The creek?” The way she looks down, I wonder if she’s blushing, but I don’t want to shine the flashlight in her face to check.
I lead the way; surprised it comes back to me so easily. We twist and turn through the woods until I see the little wooden fort she made with her dad when she was a kid. Those are my favorite things about her. That she does all these cool things. She works harder than any guy I know and she’s just as rough and competitive, but she’s also all girl. Especially in the way she melted against me when I kissed her.
It’s not like Charlotte was my first kiss. I’ve done more than that with Roxi, but I still remember how it felt when my lips touched hers.
I’ve definitely thought about doing it again.
We get to the fort and she leads me around back. The moon is so bright out here that it’s easy to see, especially with our flashlights.
I stop when I see there are two wooden chairs behind the building with a little table between them. I know she said she used to come out here a lot when she was a kid, but I didn’t realize she still did.
“Where’d these come from?”
Charlotte sits in one of the chairs. “It was a project for my dad and I this year. He says he needs to keep busy because he’s getting old and doesn’t want to lose his touch. Which I think is ridiculous. Guest are always coming and going all year around. No one keeps as busy as my dad and—”
“—Charlotte?”
She looks up at me, face awash in moonlight. “Yeah?”
“You’re rambling.” Before I probably would have laughed. Maybe said more to make her laugh, but I don’t. Instead I only sit in the chair next to hers. She pulls her knees up so her feet are flat on the chair, and wraps her arms around her legs. She does that when she’s nervous, like when we sat out here and she told me about her parents and how she wanted to leave.
I guess it’s my time to man up and talk to her, too.
“It wasn’t you.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I know it’s a stupid thing to say.
Charlotte laughs. “Is it one of those it’s not you, it’s me speeches? I didn’t realize those went with friendships, too. Unless you think it’s because we kissed, but it had been months so that doesn’t make sense.”
She rambles more this year than she did last. It’s cute. “It’s not because we kissed. It’s not you that I wanted to stay away from. I was just…having a hard time.”