Chapter Text
Tina lay sprawled across her bed in her darkened room, her chin nestled into the worn softness of her pillow. The blue glow of the family laptop lit her face in pulses, shadows cast over her furrowed brow as she rhythmically refreshed the page. Again. And again. Chelsea’s End of Wagstaff Dance Party event page blinked and loaded…only to show her the same annoyingly unchanged details. No new comments. No last-minute RSVPs. No sign of him.
The party was tomorrow night and Jimmy Jr. hadn’t responded to the page yet. He hadn't texted her either. It had been a week since she’d last seen him at the rent strike. He said he was excited about it then, but she never got an answer to her slow dance question.
Now it was like he fell off the face of the earth and plummeted her into limbo.
Zeke had texted her through the emergency phone—twice. First, letting her know Jimmy Jr. was sick, “prolly too much water up the nose sinus junk lol” Then another message reminding her to wear comfy shoes so she could, “tear it UP on the dance floor, girl” complete with a small string of emojis.
Tina hadn't responded to either. She couldn't. Thinking about Zeke felt like touching a live wire, a tangle of feelings gurgling in her gut.
She let out a choked groan and rolled onto her back in a dramatic flip. Her brain was frozen mid-thought like an overloaded webpage, the ceiling blurred behind her glasses as she gazed up at it blankly. She reached for her journal, that comforting little place where she tried to make sense of the chaos. Flipping to a blank page, she held her gel pen above the paper, hovering.
But words did not come to her. Tina's brain just kept going in loops. The same obsessive loops.
Maybe he'll show up. Maybe they'll slow dance—preferably with a side of UB—and maybe it would be perfect and romantic.
Tina sighed, she closed her journal without writing a word and stared up at the ceiling like it held the answers to her aching teenage heart. She was so tired of maybes.
Her bedroom door slammed open.
“Tina!” Louise bellowed, standing haloed by the light of the hallway behind her. “Get up! It's summer, and you've been holed up in your puberty cave for days.”
Tina blinked, startled out of her thoughts. “I'm fine.” Her voice came out gluey and mumbled.
“You're not fine,” Louise snapped, stomping across the room like a thunderstorm blowing through in pale pink bunny ears. “You’ve done nothing but mope in here, refreshing the laptop like it owes you money. I've seen dolls with more life in their eyes than you at breakfast this morning.”
“I'm not moping,” she clutched her journal to her chest. “Just…having a lot feelings.”
“Yeah? Well, I have feelings too Tina. I feel bored. So bored. I watched Dad scrape the grill for a whole twenty minutes. Do you know what that does to a person?”
Tina sighed and turned to face her sister, glasses slipping crooked down her nose. Louise stood at the edge of her bed with her arms crossed, eyes blazing with something between irritation and concern.
“There's a world outside this room Tina. It has sunlight and snow cones and the Wharf before it gets overrun by tourists. Summer doesn’t last forever.”
Tina hesitated. “I don't know, what if Jimmy Jr—”
“Then he can wait on you for once in his life. You, my dear hormonal cryptid, are coming outside with Gene and me.”
Her heart felt squishy and bruised like it fell down a flight of emotional stairs. But the idea of sitting in the dark waiting for Jimmy Jr. to maybe text her back felt suddenly so exhausting.
“What are we even doing?” She readjusted her glasses.
Louise grabbed her wrist, dragging Tina out of her bed, “Snow cones, the scramble pan until Gene pukes, snow cones again, then the arcade.”
They were down the stairs and out the door, yelling goodbyes to their parents. Walking down Ocean Avenue Tina felt something unexpected stir in her chest. Like a tiny spark of relief eased the pit inside her, enough for her to breathe. Maybe Louise was right, she had done enough waiting.
The boardwalk was humming with life, the sounds of seagulls circling overhead, the smell of fried dough hanging heavy in warm air, and the distant clatter of a wooden coaster. It was like a living postcard for summer.
Tina walked a half-step behind Louise and Gene, blinking against the brightness. Part of her still felt left behind, hiding in her the cool shadows of her room.
Louise had almost finished her third snow cone of the day, her face stained like multicolored war paint. “You need more sugar and fun,” she declared, shoving Tina's melting cone towards her face. “Doctor’s orders.”
Tina took a sip of the bright red syrup water out of obligation. The sweetness coated her mouth, but it couldn't quite dissolve the sour ache in her gut. She kept scanning the crowd, every time she saw ginger hair or shadows moving between the shops her heart would give a weird little leap—like Jimmy Jr. might appear out of thin air, arms open, ready to spin her into a dance.
“What's your deal?” Louise asked, her eyes narrowed.
“Still thinking about how Jimmy Jr. ghosted you?” Gene rolled up his paper cone between sticky hands.
Tina hesitated, staring down at her sneakers. “I don’t know. It’s like—I keep waiting for him to do something that proves I’m right to wait…but all I have is a secondhand text from Zeke.”
Gene let out a loud gasp spinning to face her. “A Zeke text? That's practically a love letter! He doesn’t text people, Tina. He shouts at them from across the street.”
Tina flushed. “It wasn’t like that. It was informational. Like a bulletin, about sinuses.”
Louise snorted, “Still, it's more than you've gotten from Pesto Jr.”
She didn’t respond, but her stomach did a slow, confusing flip. She kind of hated how it felt like hope.
They wandered past the pier games. Tina weaved through the kids running past with large plush prizes, while Louise ran ahead to harass the Dizzy Dog mascot, and Gene chased a seagull in circles by the trashcan.
Tina stepped into the table clearing and just stood there. The noise washed over her like ocean waves—loud, chaotic, hypnotic. Her heart felt like it was snagged between two gears pulling in different directions. Then she heard it over the rest of the noise.
A shout. Familiar. Close.
“BELCHERS!”