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“I don’t get close to people,” Sarah tells her first boyfriend, and she doesn’t.
His name is Jake and he’s one of the 3 other junior counselors at Camp Woodson, and Sarah doesn’t like him, not really, but he’s there and she’s stuck at camp for the next three weeks and all her friends from school have been telling her to go for it. Apparently it’s a rite of passage to get with a guy the summer before 9th grade. Makes it so that you can awkwardly fumble your way through the basics of a relationship before you get to high school and things actually start counting, or something like that. Sarah doesn’t quite understand the logic behind it, but she figures it can’t hurt to try.
Except it does. Not hurt, it isn’t painful and they don’t even do anything; it’s just excruciating to be around him all the time. Dating feels like a chore, and Sarah resolves to try and be around guys as little as possible in high school if it’s going to feel like this.
This year will be different, she decides after giving Jake the most pathetic it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech ever on the last day of camp. This year, she’s doing things for herself.
There’s a new girl in the back of her English class freshman year—Kiara Carrera. She didn’t go to middle school with anyone, so everyone just kind of sticks to their already-solid eighth-grade cliques, but Sarah’s intrigued: she watches Kiara draw out little maps of the ocean in the margins of her notebook every day in September, labeling each layer and the kind of organisms that live in them.
No one talks to her—it makes Sarah feel lonely, almost. She has friends, sure, but not ones she likes that much, and Kiara just looks so sad sitting in the back of the classroom.
She isn’t sure what possesses her to say it, but in mid-October, eight weeks into the year, she marches up to Kiara after English, catches her just before she can stuff her binder in her backpack and head out, and asks her straight-on. “Do you want to help the baby sea turtles hatch? There’s a nest near my house.” She thinks she might look sort of crazy, but she continues anyway. “I know it seems kind of late in the year for it, but the eggs were laid near the end of the nesting season, so…”
“Yeah, if the incubation period’s, like, two months, then time would be up around now,” Kiara finishes. Sarah holds back a smile—maybe she’d made the right choice, after all.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Yeah,” Kiara agrees. “Sorry, bio is way more my thing than whatever we’re doing here.” She holds up her class copy of Romeo and Juliet, turning it over in her hand. “Love across boundaries, whatever. I’d rather be talking about the ocean.”
“I actually like English,” Sarah admits, “but I get it.” A beat. “So, is that a yes?”
That afternoon, Kiara helps her clear the beach behind her house—“so that they don’t accidentally get trapped or confused,” Sarah informs her, to which Kiara responds that she knew that already. They chase away seagulls and Kiara laughs at Sarah’s jokes and it makes her feel a warm sort of feeling that she doesn’t know the name for. She can’t remember the last time she couldn’t contain her smile like this.
They have to wait until night falls for the hatchlings to start making their way down the beach. “They’re moving together,” Kiara whispers, and when Sarah looks up, Kiara grabs her hand excitedly. “They have to follow the light on the waves, you see?”
When Kiara flashes a smile at her, looking happy and bright and completely unlike the quiet girl sketching marine animals in the back of the classroom, Sarah wonders why no one else had bothered to talk to her—and realizes she doesn’t really want to dwell on it, as long as it means that it’s just her and Kiara, now.
Sarah’s had friends before—tons of them. She was popular by elementary school standards, and middle school, and now high school. She’s just never had anyone like Kiara.
It’s just too easy to fall into being best friends with her. She’s pretty and charismatic and no one else gets Sarah like she does. Sarah still goes on dates every now and then and talks to the other girls in her classes, but it’s like she and Kie have their own little world that no one else understands. She lends her dresses when they go to parties and watches her dance instead of paying attention to whoever the boy of the month is, she almost never stops texting her when Geometry gets boring, and she even makes her one of those braided friendship bracelets, like they’re eight years old and met on the playground.
There’s only one guy who ever confronts her about it: “Don’t you think you spend a little more time with Kiara than you do with me?” Will from the basketball team asks her. They’ve been dating for three weeks—a new record for Sarah.
“I’m cheating on you,” she says after a pause, and that’s that.
(She cries about it later, to Kiara. Sarah rests her head in her lap, up in her room, which Will hadn’t even dated her long enough to see, and she isn’t sure why she’s so upset about it. “It’s just another breakup,” Kie says, stroking her hair. “You didn’t even really like him.”
“I know I didn’t,” Sarah says, closing her eyes. But she knows it’s not Will she’s upset about.)
It’s spin the bottle and Sarah isn’t drunk, not really, but she knows how to act like she is, knows that guys like it better when she looks more carefree.
“Come on,” she says, “it’s just a kiss, like…”
“I don’t really want to like, submit myself to the male gaze, if you know what I mean,” Kie starts, but when Sarah leans in further she’s the one who kisses her first. The thought that Kiara might like her just as much as she likes Kiara is terrifying—Sarah wouldn’t wish upon anyone what she feels for Kie; the feeling like she’s drowning when she doesn’t glance back at her in class and like she’s being burned when she gets caught looking at her for too long.
Sarah’s not good at liking people, but she is good at parties and games and playing things off cool. “Wow,” she says when she pulls away, and laughs like it didn’t feel like anything. “Damn. Your boyfriend’s gonna be lucky, Kie.”
“Sure,” Kiara says, but she just looks sort of uncomfortable. Sarah knows Kiara’s a worse liar than she is, but she wishes she’d at least try a little bit harder. At least Sarah tries to like boys, makes an effort to date guys who she doesn’t really like and kisses a new one when she doesn’t want to be around the old one anymore.
She can’t look at her for the rest of the night.
“I know the Pogues and the Kooks have their rivalry or whatever, but I think you’d like my friends,” Kie tells her after a party one night. She’s sleeping over because the Camerons don’t care in the slightest as long as it’s not a boy—which has never been a problem, and Kie’s parents always let her since Sarah’s the only one of her friends that they like, anyway.
“Really?” Sarah asks. They usually don’t talk about what Kiara did before she started school at the Kook academy, who she was. She really only offhand mentions the boys she spent all her time with in middle school. Sarah always wants to ask, but she never wants to push. “Tell me about them.”
“Well, there’s John B,” she says. “The one who works for your dad sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Sarah says. They don’t really know each other, but she’s run into him a couple times, watched him from a distance. John B is the type of guy a girl like Sarah should be interested in—a hot surfer from the other side of town, just wrong enough to piss off her parents and just right enough to not make her feel the same way she does about Kiara. “I’ve seen him around.”
“Yeah. He kinda looks like a dumb dude-bro type but he’s really smart. And kind of a weirdo, too, but I guess we all are.”
“Sure,” Sarah says. She just likes listening to Kie talk, really.
“There’s Pope,” Kiara says, “and he’s like, super into death and school and stuff—”
“Two very different things.”
“Two very different things,” Kiara agrees, and they both laugh. “Anyway, he’s super sweet. And hard-working. He’s smart, but not the same way as John B is. He’s like, sensible.” Sarah hums in agreement, hand lightly tracing over Kie’s forearm, playing with her bracelets. She doesn’t know Pope, but she thinks she’d like to, especially if it would mean Kiara bringing her further into her life, her world. “You’d like him. Everyone does, he’s easy to like. And there’s JJ, too. He’s kind of insane.”
“Is he the one who gets into fights all the time?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t really know him, either, but he’s kind of hard to miss with all the shit he starts on every side of the island.
“Yeah,” Kie says. “He’s just really passionate. I wish I could…” she trails off. “I don’t know. I wish I didn’t have to choose between this and them.”
“Have you ever liked any of them?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t know what possesses her to say it, but the words just spill out of her mouth like she can’t control it. “Like, like- like.”
Kie looks taken aback, but it shifts into something more neutral after a second. Sarah wonders if she’d imagined it. Maybe it’s just projection. “No,” she says. “I mean, we’d all kind of flirt sometimes, but it was just for fun, I guess. Pope had a girlfriend last year, and John B and I aren’t like that at all. And I mean, JJ doesn’t…” she trails off. “I don’t think he even likes girls, so.”
“Oh,” Sarah says. She wonders if it’s homophobic to feel anxiety at the thought of someone else being gay. It probably is. “Is he…”
“We kissed once,” she says. “And… I don’t know. We didn’t even like each other like that, but we both agreed it just felt like… nothing.” She pauses, as if only now realizing what she’s just said. Sarah hears the implication, too, but she doesn’t mention it. “Don’t—tell anyone, okay?”
“Of course,” Sarah assures her. “Your—his—secret’s safe with me. Obviously, ‘cause you’re my favorite person, like, ever,” and Kie smiles back at her, fingers curling around Sarah’s wrist. Her hands are cold, but Sarah doesn’t mind—not much, anyway.
“You’re mine, too,” Kie tells her, a hushed whisper, almost.
“Even more than the Pogues?” Sarah asks, and regrets it immediately after. It’s not a competition—they’re Kiara’s best friends, so it shouldn’t really matter, anyway, and Sarah doesn’t need to be the only thing in her life, so…
“They’re different,” Kie says. “They’re not you,” and even after she drifts off to sleep Sarah lays awake, staring at the way her eyelashes rest on her cheek.
There’s a girl with an undercut working the register at the Shell station just at the edge of Figure Eight. She smiles at Sarah when she takes the five-dollar bill from her hand, her fingers lingering just for a moment when she hands back her change—fleeting enough that Sarah wonders if she’d just imagined it.
“Thanks,” she says, and gives her a soft smile in return before picking up her packet of M&Ms and heading out the door. She just barely pushes it enough to stay open for Rafe to follow behind her, the door falling closed behind him with a jingle.
He says a word. Sarah turns around.
“What?” she asks him.
“Well, you don’t want people to get the wrong idea, right?” Rafe asks. He’s been too confident ever since senior year started, like his implicit rule over the Kook academy because of his age extends home now too. “You have to shut it down right before it can start.”
“I was literally just being polite to a cashier, oh my god,” Sarah shoots back, but she can feel anxiety rising in her chest. “It’s not a big deal, just relax.”
She doesn’t talk to him the whole way home—not when she knows the kind of things he wants to say about her. She’s been good, she thinks, at not being obvious or open about it, but even good isn’t enough, apparently.
“It wasn’t that deep, Sarah,” Rafe tries as they pull up in the driveway.
“Sure,” she responds. She slams the passenger-side door shut when she gets out. It was that deep to me, she thinks, hating it.
Without fail, Kiara is always there when Sarah breaks up with her boyfriend of the week. She always feels a little overdramatic, getting upset about relationships that were never going to last; ones that almost always end because she cheats. But if she’s a bad person for being the one to wreck things every time, at least Kie doesn’t see it—or think so, anyway.
“What do you want in a boyfriend?” Sarah asks. They’re up on the roof and all she can hear is the steady pattern of Kiara’s breathing and some distant buzzing that sounds like some kind of bug. She likes nighttime with Kie; it’s always quiet and peaceful. This is the real version of her, Sarah thinks, not the party girl everyone at school thinks she is. She doesn’t need to be someone else with Kiara.
“Someone nice, I think,” she says. “Not like any of the idiots you’re into.”
“Bitch,” Sarah retorts, elbowing her playfully.
“I just don’t know what you see in these guys! They’re awful,” Kie tells her. She shrugs. “I just want someone who’s nice. Who really likes me.”
“I want… something epic,” Sarah says. “Like in the movies, or books. Like Romeo and Juliet.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to actually want to end up like they did,” Kiara says.
“But it’s romantic, isn’t it? Being ready to die for love. I don’t think I’ll ever find something like that,” she says. Doesn’t say, I don’t know if what I want even exists. I think that’s why I want it. Or something even more stupid, like I think I want you more than any boy.
“You will,” Kiara tells her, covering Sarah’s hand with her own. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Sarah’s not planning on having a birthday party, because she really doesn’t like most of the kids at school and she doesn’t need an excuse to drink—which is the only thing birthday parties are good for, anyway—but Rafe’s super into the idea.
“Friday night. I’ll text people,” he says. “You don’t even need to do anything.”
The thing is that Kiara told her she wants to surprise her for her birthday, and Sarah would much rather spend the night with her than with any of Rafe’s shitty friends and other people she doesn’t really like who she knows will just be fake to her. “Fine,” Sarah agrees, mostly to get him to leave her room. Wheezie shifts next to her, jostling some of the assignments Sarah has all laid out on her bed.
“You’re inviting Kie, right?” she asks, half-sliding off. “You should text her. It’s not like she’ll be on his invite list.”
“Yeah,” Sarah tells her, nudging her towards the hallway, “now go, I have homework to do.” The door shuts behind her, and Sarah types out an invitation: might actually have a party anyway. rafe’s idea. come so i don’t suffer alone??
Her thumb’s right over the send button. She thinks about the surprise Kiara wants to give her and about you don’t want people to get the wrong idea, right? and about the friendship bracelet she’d made for her with the help of one of Wheezie’s old arts-n-crafts kits. She thinks about Kiara’s golden smile as they’d searched the beach, the sparkle in her eyes, her touch warm on Sarah’s arm. How it felt when they kissed at that party, how she likes Kiara so much it feels like she can’t breathe. When the turtles had broken the surface and crawled out to the ocean the waves had glinted white in the moonlight—she’d never seen anything more beautiful. You’re my favorite person, like, ever.
Sarah doesn’t send the text.