34 · Lucy
When Hannah wakes, I’m already packed.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she says, pulling on shorts and a T-shirt and her purple hat. “I’m starving!”
We walk to the campground convenience store, buy coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and find a picnic table close to the lake.
“So, how was it?” Hannah asks after she downs her first coffee and starts on the second.
I blush. “How was it supposed to be?”
She laughs. “That good, huh? Tell me he used a condom.”
I nod.
“Well, that’s a relief. Makes you wonder, though.”
“Yeah. Kinda presumptuous.”
“You know he’s going to want it all the time now,” she says. She laughs again, then grows serious. “Do you—I don’t know, do you regret it?”
I shake my head. “No. I wanted to do it. I wouldn’t have if I didn’t want to.”
“But?”
“He’s so sweet. He makes me feel like I’m something special, you know? It’s just . . .” I pause, and then, “It’s not his fault that he’s not who I want him to be.”
There’s a long moment when neither of us speaks. I wanted being with Simon to mean getting over Ben.
A chill washes over me.
I don’t know that I’ll ever get over Ben.
“What do you love about Ben? I mean, I didn’t know him before, but he seems like a moody little prick, if you ask me.”
“He wasn’t always like that, you know.”
“So you’ve said.”
I don’t even know where to begin. Why do I love Ben? Why do I breathe? Why do I eat? And then I remember that first day I told Trixie, and the first five things I loved about him.
“Well . . .” I say slowly. “I love that when he laughs really hard, he gets this one little dimple on the right side.”
Hannah looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I have never seen Ben laugh really hard. Scowl, yes. Laugh, no.”
“He used to laugh all the time.”
“Before,” she says, her tone sad.
“Before.”
“What else? There’s got to be more than a dimple that is clearly an urban legend.”
“Funny. You know about the agates, how he used to polish rocks?” I slip my hand into my pocket to make sure the agate is there and startle when I remember that it’s not. “I don’t think he does it anymore. But when he did, he was always so careful and gentle with the stones. Like they were the most precious things on earth. And I always thought that he treated people the same way he handled the rocks. He cared.”
“‘Cared’ as in past tense?” Hannah asks. “Again, this is not something I’ve witnessed.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
“He calls his mother Mum.”
“Weird.”
“She’s British. Emily was the first baby he ever held. She was so tiny in his arms, and he held her so carefully, like she might break. I remember everything about the day she was born. I got to go to the hospital with them to visit. He looked down at her and grinned, like he’d never seen anything so amazing in his life.”
“That’s so sweet,” Hannah says.
I nod. “Emily has always felt so safe around Ben. He’s strong and smart and he knows how to take care of people. And I guess that’s what I loved most about him. He made me feel safe, like if I was with him, nothing bad would happen.”
“But it did,” Hannah says, slowly, cautiously. “And he hasn’t been very protective of you since, has he?”
She’s right again. I nod. “He’s changed.”
“Yeah, he’s changed, but it doesn’t mean that deep down, everything you loved about him isn’t still there.”
Maybe. Maybe it is. But I’ve changed, too.
“So that’s it?” Hannah says in a light tone when I don’t say anything. “That’s what you love about him so much? How about those abs or that cute butt?” She grins.
“Oh, there’s more. But Trixie asked me what I liked about him right after I confessed to her. Those were the first five things I thought of.”
“And you remember them? After all this time?”
“I’ll never forget.”
“I wish I had known Trixie,” Hannah says. “Do you think all three of us would have been friends? Or maybe you wouldn’t have needed me, and I would have been the lonely new girl.”
“Oh, I think Trix would have loved you,” I say, and I mean it.
“Tell me about her,” Hannah says.
I do. I tell her all my best Trixies.
I tell her about swim meets and sleepovers and shopping trips to St. Cloud for new school clothes. I tell her about summer days on the pontoon, summer evenings at the Watermelon Days carnival.
Someday I will tell this story to Emily, how Hannah and I sat at this picnic table and talked about Trixie, and this memory will be one of my best Hannahs.
“I suppose we should get back to the boys,” I say.
I’m surprised when Hannah hugs me.
“I know I tease you about Ben a lot, but it’s obvious, Lucille. You shouldn’t be hooking up with Simon Stanford. You and Ben should be together. I’m serious. Anybody can see it.”
“That’s sweet, but I think we both know that is not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that it won’t happen with Ben. Miracles happen every day. You have to believe it in your heart.”
“I don’t believe in miracles.” Not since that day on the beach when I prayed for a miracle that didn’t come.
“Aw, honey.” She stands and brushes crumbs off her shirt. “Don’t let this bring you down. Come on, let’s go home and face that music.”
“Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Hannah.”
“You know I got you, Lucille.” She squeezes my hand and we walk back to our campsite.
Dustin stops the truck at the side of the road, doesn’t even bother to pull into the driveway. Simon gets out and unloads our bags from the back. He hands me my duffel but doesn’t let go, not right away, and his hand grazes mine.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes locked on mine, “it’s okay, Luce. Everything is going to be okay.”
I pinch my lips together in a grim smile. “I hope so.”
We walk up to the driveway. He leans in, kisses me on the cheek, and says hello to my dad, who is waiting on the front porch.
“Mr. Meadows,” he says, and nods. Like we hadn’t just sneaked off to a rodeo without his permission and had sex in a tent.
Dad ignores Simon and pulls me into a tight, quick hug, then nearly pushes me away. “Lucy, how could you? How could you do this?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I look back at Simon, who mouths, “Call me later,” and disappears down the other side of the driveway.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Dad. There’s nothing else. There’s no reasonable excuse, no way to explain it away. I follow Dad into the house.
Mom sits at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of her that looks untouched.
She’s not at the restaurant. She’s here, waiting for me, her daughter, to come home. I wonder who’s covering my shift.
“Mom.” I take a tentative step forward. “Mom, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have worried you like that.”
The look of sadness and concern in her eyes when she looks up from her cup of coffee stops me cold.
“What has gotten into you, Lucy?” she asks, her voice cracking. “You’ve never acted this way before. You’ve never disobeyed us. Your dad tells you that you can’t go to South Dakota, and the next thing we know, you’re sneaking off in the middle of the night.”
When she pauses, Dad starts in. “You should not have gone to that rodeo. We were worried sick. So it should be no surprise that you’re grounded for the rest of the summer. You can go to work at the resort and the diner and that’s it. And you will not be allowed to see any of your friends.”
“No,” I cry. “You have to let me see Hannah. Please—”
Mom cuts me off. “You made your choice, Lucy, and now you’ve got to live with the consequences. End of discussion.”
I turn and run up the stairs, away from my parents.
I shower and crawl into bed, but I don’t fall asleep for a long time. I send Hannah a text to make sure everything’s all right and her text back is that she’s tired, she’s worried about me, she’ll talk to me tomorrow.
The murmurs of my mom and dad carry upstairs through the vents. Their anger and disappointment tear at me. I’m sorry that I went to South Dakota and I’m not sorry.
My mother’s words echo in my mind.
You made your choice, and now you’ve got to live with the consequences.