Second Star

7

My phone buzzes in my pocket; when I reach for it, I feel sand in my pocket, too. Three missed calls, all from Fiona. Four new texts, all from Fiona. My parents didn’t even notice I was out all night. I drive home without looking at the messages.

Nana is the only one awake when I open the door to the house. I glance at my phone; it’s a little after five a.m.

“Hey, girl. You’ll never believe what you helped me do.” I bend down to kiss the top of her head, my back aching with the effort. In fact, my entire body is sore. I didn’t even know I had half the muscles I used yesterday. Despite the pain, I feel stronger today than I did twenty-four hours ago.

As I pour Nana’s breakfast into her bowl and some cereal into mine, I realize with surprise that I haven’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday. I’m suddenly starving, and finish my cereal in the short walk from the kitchen into my bedroom, where I sit on the bed, pulling the covers back and messing the sheets so it looks like I slept here last night. My parents knew I was spending the day with Fiona yesterday; they’ll just assume I came home sometime after they fell asleep.

Nana rests her head on my lap, nosing around in my pockets.

Normally, in the morning, the house smells like the coffee my father sets to brew in the kitchen. But today, my room smells like something else: it smells like Kensington.

It smells like Pete.

“Where did you disappear to after you left me at the beach? You haven’t answered my calls or my texts. You can’t just be out of touch like that.” Fiona sits on the edge of my bed that afternoon.

“Why not?” I ask, mildly amused by the urgency in her voice. Like we’ve never gone twenty-four hours with talking or texting. Which, I suppose, we haven’t.

“Because,” Fiona says, and repeats it firmly. “Because.”

Then she shrugs, looking down at my sheets. I’m still wearing the same bathing suit and cover-up, sitting cross-legged in the center of my bed.

“There’s sand all over your sheets,” Fiona says, then looks at me.

“I told you. I spent yesterday at the beach.” I’m tempted to add that I spent the night there, too, but I keep quiet, pressing my lips together, remembering the feel of Pete’s mouth on them.

“You should have just come to the beach with Dax and me.”

I shake my head. “The beach I ended up at was different,” I say, and I can feel myself smiling.

“Where is it?”

I cock my head to the side. I don’t really remember. I’m sure that if I get in the car and start driving, I’ll find it again. But I haven’t the slightest idea how to tell Fiona where Kensington is.

“I’m not sure,” I say finally. “But I’ll find my way back.”

“I’ll come,” Fiona says. “Just tell me where it is and Dax and I will meet you there, whenever you want. We could go today.”

I hesitate. Instead of answering I say, “It’s a surfer’s paradise. Paradise. I even took a wave.”

Fiona raises her eyebrows. “You did?”

I nod, prouder than I should be since it was really Pete doing the work. I look down, fingering the sand in my sheets. “I haven’t felt that close to my brothers in a long time. Not since they left. It’s just the kind of place where they’d go to surf, you know?”

Fiona waits a beat before responding. When she does speak, her words sound rehearsed.

“Wendy, I think it’s understandable that you’re holding on to hope about your brothers. But I’m not sure it’s the best thing. Your parents have come to terms with it; maybe you should, too.”

I don’t say anything, and eventually she seems to come to some sort of decision. She fumbles in her bag and pulls a business card from its pockets. She holds it out to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a therapist. She specializes in grief counseling. I’ve been hanging on to it for a while now, wondering whether I should give it to you.”

Fiona looks so serious that I almost laugh, but I manage to swallow the giggle before it escapes my mouth. Fiona likes to solve problems, whether it’s her calculus homework or learning how to drive a stick shift. I’ve always loved that about her, but I’ve never been one of her problems before. I don’t move to take the card, and Fiona drops her hand onto the bed, the card lying in her palm.

“You think I’m going crazy because I want to find my brothers?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what?”

“Dax says that the first stage of grief is denial.”

She probably practiced what to say all day yesterday, I realize. She probably made Dax pretend to be me while she rehearsed, like an actress running her lines.

“Dax doesn’t even know me. Or my brothers.”

“That’s not the point, Wendy.” Fiona sounds almost pained; her hand has closed over the business card, squeezing it tightly.

“You’re going to give yourself a paper cut,” I say gently.

Fiona shakes her head and speaks slowly, enunciating every syllable. “Wendy, you need to deal with the reality that your brothers aren’t coming back.”

I shake my head. “That’s not the way I see it.”

“You don’t get to choose what’s real and what’s not.”

I put my hands in my pockets and make fists. Fine grains of sand stick to the insides of my fingers, dig into my palms, plant themselves underneath my fingernails. Feels plenty real to me.

I keep my fists clenched and say, “We don’t know that they drowned. We have no idea who those missing surfers were.”

“You know those surfers didn’t meet any other missing-person profiles,” Fiona interrupts, but I continue.

“So until I see proof—absolute proof—I’m going to believe that John and Michael are still out there, still surfing, still together. And I’m going to try to find them.”

“Wendy—” Fiona tries, but I stand.

“I’m really tired,” I lie. “I think I’m going to take a nap.”

Fiona nods. “Okay. I’ll call you later.”

I shrug. “Of course. We’ll talk later.”

Before she leaves, Fiona hugs me, rubbing my back like I’m a little kid who’s come to her for comfort over a skinned knee. Later, I crush the business card into a ball and drop it into the garbage, a fine coating of sand falling along with it.

I’m going back to that beach, and soon. But I’m not going to tell Fiona about it. She doesn’t understand.

That night, I dream of Kensington, and in the morning I wake up in sheets that smell like salt water. I miss the shiver from Pete’s touch. My lips are warm where his touched them; my palms flush with heat when I think about holding his hand. I can still feel his breath on my face, leftover from our kisses.

I want to see him again. I want it almost as badly as I want to find my brothers.