THE STORM HIT JUST AS we entered the Peninsula. And by “hit,” I mean came at us as if we were trespassers that had to be forcibly shoved back to the mainland. There was no buildup, either: one second it wasn’t raining, and the next raindrops pummeled the roof so loudly, they may as well have been on the inside my skull. Rain slid down our windows in heavy sheets, and Rowan kept overcorrecting against the wind. “It’s really bucketing down,” he said nervously.
“Hey, Rowan. I think we need to pull over,” I said, gesturing to Ian. Ian balled up against the window, the green tint of his face highlighting his black eye. I’d seen Ian throw up more times than I could count, and he was exhibiting four out of five of the warning signs. Puke was imminent.
“I’m not sick. I just . . . ,” Ian started, but he couldn’t even make it through the sentence before gritting his teeth.
“Pull over the next chance you get,” I instructed Rowan, grabbing the empty cereal box and shoving it into Ian’s hands.
Ian was the poster child for motion sickness, but he was also the poster child for stubbornness. He never wanted to admit that things made him sick, which meant he was constantly doing things that made him sick. None of us had sat next to him on a roller coaster in years.
“Just a little Irish holiday weather. I’m sure we’ll be through it in no time.” Rowan attempted nonchalance, but the wind blew at us again and he gasped, jerking the wheel as Ian doubled over.
“Ian, you okay? You never told me you had motion sickness.”
“I don’t,” Ian answered. “I must have eaten something bad at the wedding.”
Sometimes I thought my brothers were incapable of admitting to weakness. “Rowan, he’s lying. This is an ongoing condition. A windy road during a storm is the worst possible scenario.”
I turned away from Ian’s scowl and pressed up to my blurry window, focusing on the view. Even without the storm’s theatrics, the Dingle Peninsula was Ireland 2.0—the drama factor turned on and cranked as high as it would go. We were still on a narrow two-lane road, but everything had been pumped up to Dr. Seuss level. On our left, neon green mountain peaks disappeared into pudding-thick clouds, and to our right, a thick nest of rain rested on top of the ocean.
Ian’s phone chimed. “Oh, no. Text from Mom.”
“What does it say?”
He attempted to swivel his queasy face toward me, but the motion made him shudder. “She wants us to check in when we land. I’ll text her back in a few hours.”
Suddenly, a gush of wind blasted Clover, bumping us off the road and into the shoulder. And this time, Rowan’s choice of language was a bit more potent than “feck.”
“Rowan, you got this?” I asked. He cranked frantically at the steering wheel, trying to regain equilibrium, but the hardest gale yet caught us on the opposite side. For a nanosecond, Clover favored her left two wheels. Ian lurched for the cereal box, dry heaving.
I gagged. I could see Ian puke a million times and never get used to it. I patted him clumsily, keeping my face averted. “It’s okay, Ian. It’s okay.”
“Now I’m pulling over.” Rowan pulled over to the foot-wide shoulder, then threw the car into park, collapsing over the steering wheel. Ian rolled his window down, sending in a spray of rain as he stuck his head outside.
“Well, that was traumatizing,” I said, taking a few deep breaths of my own.
Suddenly, the car began vibrating. “What—” Ian started, his eyes wide, but just then a massive tour bus sliced around the corner.
“Hang on,” Rowan warned. I pulled Ian inside, and we all braced for death as we watched the bus narrowly miss our front bumper. A large swell of water slammed into the car. We all screamed, haunted-house style.
“We are all going to die!” I wailed, once we’d all stopped screaming. Water trickled in through Ian’s window, and he quickly rolled it up.
“Death by tour bus.” Rowan sighed.
Suddenly, a terrible non-storm-related thought popped into my head, and I grabbed the back of Ian’s seat. “Ian, there’s no way we’re going to run into the wedding tour, right? Didn’t Aunt Mel say they’re touring western Ireland?”
Ian made a little X with his fingers, which I guess was supposed to mean “no.” “I hacked into Mom’s e-mail and printed out a copy of their itinerary. We aren’t going to be anywhere near them.”
“Hacked?” I said. “By that do you mean you used her password?” Our mom either didn’t know or care that you’re supposed to change your passwords often. Archie had figured it out one December, and we’d been using it to track our Christmas presents ever since. “Can you imagine if we ran into them?”
Ian shook his head. “It’s impossible. I scheduled our trip to make sure there was no possible way for us to run into them. Also, I don’t know if that’s our biggest concern right now,” he said, pointing to the sky. His face was shamrock green.
Suddenly, a shot of ice-cold water trickled down my back, and I catapulted forward. “Cold!” I screamed, water pouring down from my window. The inside of my window. “Rowan! The car is leaking.”
He arched back just as the stream transformed from a trickle to a gush. “No! Max said the new top was fine.”
“What top? Who’s Max?” I asked, like details would solve the fact that it was raining in the back seat.
“The guy who helped me repair—”
“It’s my window too!” Ian yelped, his pitch identical to mine. He grabbed his handle, frantically trying to roll up his already-rolled-up window.
“Ian, that’s not going to help,” I said.
Rowan turned the key and jetted onto the road, and Clover responded by giving up on any attempt at being waterproof. Water flooded in through every possible crevice. We sped over a small bridge, water flowing in at full speed as we pulled into a tiny two-pump gas station.
Ian frantically rolled down his window and stuck his head out, gasping like a beached flounder. I was soaked. Water pooled in the seat of my shorts, and my hair hung in stringy clumps.
“Did that really just happen?” Rowan fell back against his seat.
“Addie, how do we fix it?” Ian asked.
Mechanic Addie to the rescue. I reached up to wiggle the roof, and beads of water tumbled in. “Do we care about pretty?” I asked.
Rowan tapped his hand on the dashboard. “Does it look like we care about pretty?”
“Valid,” I said. “We need tape. Really strong, thick tape.”
Rowan nodded vigorously. “Tape. Got it. I’ll just pop in the shop and ask.” He grabbed a beanie from the cup holder and pulled it on as he sprinted for the gas station.
“We almost just drowned in a Volkswagen,” Ian said, drumming his fingers on the dashboard. “Can you imagine the obituary? Killer car traps trio—”
“Ian.” I reached over to still his restless fingers. I had a theory that Ian had spent a previous life as a hummingbird. Or an athletic coffee bean. “What’s up with Rowan’s mom?”
He glanced back, his eyebrows bent. “What are you talking about?”
“Back at the gas station I overheard him yelling at her. He said something about making a decision before the end of the summer.”
“Really?” Ian tucked a strand of hair into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t know very much about his family. I didn’t even know his parents were divorced until he brought it up back at the Burren.”
“Are you serious?” This was so my brother. All of my brothers. I wanted to know everything about my friends—right down to the name of their first pet and what toppings they liked on their pizza. Lina claimed to remember our first sleepover as more of a police interrogation. My brothers, on the other hand, seemed to need only a few similarities to form a bond. You like football and tacos? Me too.
Ian followed a bead of rain down the windshield with his finger. “Rowan and I don’t talk a lot about stuff like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Because you’re too busy talking about Titletrack?”
“No.” He blew his breath out loudly. “I mean, of course we talk about music, but most of the time we talk about deeper stuff, like about things we care about and what’s bugging us. Stuff like that.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “So you’re saying that you and Rowan talk about your feelings?” Once Archie had asked me what Lina and I could possibly have to talk about on our multi-hour phone conversations and I’d finally told him, “How we’re feeling.” Now every time she called, they made fun of me. How’s Lina? How are her feelings?
“Yeah, I guess so,” Ian admitted. He flashed me a look that I recognized immediately. Eyes open and vulnerable—it was what I saw before he revealed something about himself. “Have you ever wished you could have someone see you without all the other layers? Like, not how good you are at sports or school or being popular, or whatever, they just see you?”
I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and yell, Are you kidding me? Of course I’d felt that way. That was the defining feeling of my life.
Ian had felt that way? This was news to me. “Like I could just be Addie instead of being Archie’s/Walter’s/Ian’s little sister?”
“Exactly,” Ian said.
Suddenly, I realized something—Ian was talking to me like he used to, like Cubby wasn’t hanging out in the bruise under his eye. I chose my next words carefully, not wanting to break the spell. “But the label thing is just part of being human, right? We like to categorize people, so everyone gets labels slapped on them whether they’re right or not.” I’d never thought about it that way before, but it was true. We even labeled ourselves: Bad at math. Flirt. Clueless.
“They’re never right,” Ian said, a hint of venom in his voice. “Labels aren’t big enough for people. And once you try to categorize someone, you stop looking for who they actually are. That’s why I like talking to Rowan so much. We’re friends but completely out of context. I never thought someone I met online could be such a close friend, but I really needed a friend, and he was there.”
I waited for him to crack a smile on the I needed a friend part, but he just dropped his gaze to his lap, his knee bobbing. If Ian felt friendless, then the rest of us were doomed. We could barely go anywhere without someone yelling his name and wanting to talk about the football season—kids, adult, everyone.
“I didn’t know you were feeling that way,” I said carefully. “You could have told me.”
His hair whipped back and forth. “You were busy—with Lina and soccer and . . .” Cubby. He didn’t have to say it. We both averted our gazes. “So Rowan told me about the guidebook.”
“And?” I said, careful to keep my voice neutral.
“And I care about him and I care about you, so if you guys think it will help you, then fine, I’m up for it.” He twisted around, his eyes fastening earnestly on mine. “But you know that following some guidebook around isn’t actually dealing with what happened, right? It isn’t going to make it go away.”
My anger flared up, hot and bubbly. “And telling Mom is? Getting our parents involved will just make things get bigger.”
“It’s already getting bigger,” Ian said, mounting his big-brother soapbox. “Addie, at some point you’re going to have to deal with it. Don’t you want it to be on your own terms? Admit it. You’re in over your head.”
I wasn’t just in over my head; I was gasping at the bottom of the pool. But there was no way I was going to admit that. “I told you back at the Cliffs of Moher, I am done talking about this,” I snapped.
“Well, I’m not. Not until you do the right thing,” he insisted.
The right thing. The right thing had been to listen to Ian and trust my gut, and ditch Cubby the second things had started to feel off. But I hadn’t done that, had I? It was too late now. “Ian, stop!” I shouted.
“Fine,” he breathed, falling back against his seat moodily. Why did he have to ruin the moment? For a second there, things had felt almost normal between us.
I didn’t have to see the sign to know we were in Dingle, because Guidebook Lady’s description was spot-on. It was Alice in Wonderland meets Ireland—a mash-up of charm and color spiked with whimsy. Stores with names like Mad Hatters and the Little Cheese Shop lined the road in every color on the neon spectrum: tangerine, cotton-candy pink, turquoise, and lime. Rowan snaked carefully through the flooded cobblestoned streets, talking a blue streak the entire time.
“Dingle is a huge draw for Irish teenagers. Every summer they come here for Irish camp. You learn Irish language, dances, that kind of thing. The peninsula was pretty cut off from the rest of the world for a while, so a lot of people here still speak Gaelic.”
The talking had started as soon as Rowan came out of the gas station with the tape and picked up on the tension between Ian and me. He was obviously someone who tried to bury conflict underneath a lot of words—even if we’d wanted to get a word in edgewise, we couldn’t have.
“That’s cool,” Ian finally said, hedging his way into a rare silence. Our argument had sapped the energy out of both of us. Ian was crunched up into a little ball, buried in his phone, and I was slumped against my window, my anger dissolving into sadness.
“So . . . you’re sure you guys are okay?” Rowan asked the quiet car.
“Rowan, we’re fine.” My voice came out more forcefully than I meant it to, and a shadow covered his face. Ian shot me an annoyed look. Poor Rowan. He hadn’t asked for this. I straightened up, swallowing my tone. “Sorry about that, Rowan. Thanks for filling us in on the history. So what’s this next Titletrack stop about?” I snuck a glance at Ian’s map. “Slea Head?”
“Ah, this one’s kind of brilliant,” Rowan said, doing the double-handed-glasses move. “When Titletrack first started, they signed with a tiny record label called Slea Head Records. It doesn’t exist anymore, but the place it was named after does. It also happens to be one of my favorite places in Ireland.”
“Because of Irish camp, right?” I said, to prove that I had been listening to his monologue.
“Right.” He beamed.
The road led us through town and onto a windy road that thinned until we were sandwiched between a hill and a cliff. Thick, fluffy fog billowed on the road, and the ocean all but disappeared into the distance. We kept traveling farther and farther out onto the peninsula, and just when I thought we’d drive straight into the ocean, Rowan bumped off the road, stopping at the base of a steep hill where a goat trail snaked its way up to the top.
“Here?” I said.
“Here,” Ian confirmed, his knee starting in on one of its specialty spastic dances.
“Too. Much. Wind,” Rowan grunted, struggling against the door. Finally, he managed to pry it open, dousing us all with a salty spray of rain.
“Please tell me we’re not going out there,” I said, but Ian was already scrambling over the console, following Rowan out into the mist, and I followed quickly behind. It’s not like the situation inside the car was much drier.
Outside was wet and freezing, and the view was even more intense. The water shimmered a deep turquoise, and a thick afghan of clouds rested on gently sloping hills. All the colors looked oversaturated, especially the green. Before Ireland, I thought I knew what green was. But I hadn’t. Not really.
“This way,” Rowan said, pointing to the unbelievably slippery-looking goat trail. It rose up a steep hill, disappearing into the mist. Ian bounded forward without a second of hesitation, Rowan close on his heels.
I may as well have been climbing up a sheet of glass. My usually lucky Converse sneakers were completely useless in this situation, and I ended up on all fours, digging my fingers into the mud and pretending not to notice slugs nestled in the grass.
Up top, Rowan was waiting to haul me up the last few feet, and I stumbled, finally upright, onto the grassy clearing. Nearby, smooth black rock plunged into the water at a forty-five-degree angle, the ocean wild and frothy in front of us.
“People surf here!” Rowan yelled to us over the wind. I looked down in disbelief, watching the water throw itself against the cliff. He shrugged. “Extreme people.”
“Good thing Aunt Mel didn’t see Slea Head; she would have moved her wedding here,” I said to Ian, but he was bent over his notebook again, scribbling furiously through the rain.
I stepped toward the edge, the wind blasting me like a challenge. “Careful,” Rowan said.
I extended my arms out wide, feeling the way the wind fought and supported me at the same time. Rowan grinned, then mimicked my stance, the two of us standing like Ts, spray hitting us full force.
He touched the tips of my fingers with his. Rain speckled his glasses. “I feel like we should yell.”
“Yell what?” I asked.
“Anything.” He took a deep breath, then let out a loud “Harooooo!”
“Harooooo!” I echoed. My voice sailed out over the water, overlapping with Rowan’s. The sound made me feel alive. And brave. I wanted to feel this way all the time.
“What are you guys doing?” Ian dropped his notebook and stepped next to me, the wind whipping his hair into a frenzy.
“Yelling,” I said.
Rowan pointed his chin to the curtain of fog. “Know what’s out there?”
“The Loch Ness Monster?” Ian guessed.
“America,” Rowan said. “This is the westernmost point of Ireland. It’s the closest you can get to the States while still being in Ireland.”
I squinted out into the horizon. America. No wonder I felt so good here. There was an entire ocean between me and my problems.
Ian bumped his shoulder into mine—intentional or not, I didn’t know—and for a second the three of us stood there, the wind pushing as hard as it could and us pushing back. Together. For one second, I imagined what it would be like if this were real life. Me and Ian against the pressure of everything back home.
I wanted this to be real life, not a detour.
The summer had been full of detours, usually of the nocturnal kind.
It was just after eleven p.m. when I snuck out the back door, creeping through the yard and running down the sidewalk to Cubby’s car. His face shone blue, lit up by his phone in the dark, and his radio played softly. I slid into the passenger seat, quickly pulling the door shut behind me.
“What would your brother think of you sneaking out with me?” Cubby’s voice was its usual laid-back drawl, but a thin line of nervousness etched the surface.
“Ian? Good question. Are you going to tell him?” I asked, pointing my finger at his chest.
“Nope,” he said, grinning.
Ian didn’t know I was out. He also didn’t know about the postpractice drive Cubby and I had gone on, or how during the drive Cubby’s hand had just casually made its way over to my knee, as if that was where it had always belonged. And I didn’t push his hand away either. I wanted it there.
There were a lot of reasons I wasn’t going to tell Ian, but the main one was this: Over the past few years my brother’s voice had taken on a specific quality whenever he talked about Cubby. Like he’d just taken a bite of bitter chocolate. And tonight was not about Ian’s approval or disapproval. It was about me.
Me and Cubby.
“You’re sure you want to stay here?” Ian asked skeptically. We sat parked in front of a peeling, burnt-orange building that looked more like a prison than a hostel. Chains tethered the wrought-iron furniture to the porch, and bars lined the windows. “Are they trying to keep people out or in?”
“I think it looks nice,” I said. “Very . . . homey. Authentic.” Rowan and I exchanged a look. It had taken some convincing to get Ian to agree to stay in Dingle overnight. He’d wanted to keep going, but our guidebook stop was at a place called Inch Beach, and this was not exactly beach weather. There was also the minor issue of hypothermia, which was starting to feel like more and more of a possibility.
There was still one problem, though: Dingle was in high tourist season. And that meant no vacancy—except for the Rainbow’s End Hostel, whose way-too-cheerful, Flash-heavy website claimed to ALWAYS HAVE AVAILABILITY!!!! Now, having seen the hostel and all of its charm, I understood why.
“Somewhere over the rainbow,” Rowan deadpanned. “How Irish is that?” He took the key out of the ignition.
“Come on,” I added. “Anything has to be better than driving in that storm.”
“And you get to work on your article,” Rowan joined in. “I’m sure you have plenty of material after visiting the Burren and Slea Head.”
“True,” Ian admitted. “It would be nice to keep up on my writing. That way it isn’t a huge job at the end. Plus, I need to post to my blog.”
“Perfect! Let’s go,” I said. Half a day in Clover, and already every bit of me ached. I couldn’t get out of the back seat fast enough.
For someplace named Rainbow’s End, the interior was surprisingly lacking in color. All except for brown. Brown floors, brown carpet, brown linoleum, and a brass light fixture missing two out of five bulbs. Even the smell was brown: a mixture of burnt toast and the lingering of a pot roast.
I made my way up to a rickety wooden desk. Papers cluttered its surface, and a cup of coffee sat on top of a grubby three-ring binder.
“Hello?” I called out. Brown swallowed up my voice.
“It doesn’t look like anyone is here. Maybe we should try somewhere else,” Ian offered.
“There is nowhere else. Believe me, we tried.” I bypassed the desk and headed down a dark hallway. Light trickled from underneath a door. “Hello?” I called, pushing it open slightly. “Anyone here?”
A guy with a mass of curly white-blond hair sat playing a video game, his dirty feet propped up on the table in front of him. A large pair of headphones encased his ears.
“Excuse me?” I reached out to tap his shoulder, but just before I made contact, he whirled around, crashing noisily to the floor.
“Are you okay?” I scrambled to help him up.
“Okay? Not terribly.” He yanked the headphones off. He was in his late teens or early twenties, furiously tan, and built small and muscular like a rock climber. His accent was decidedly not Irish. Was it Australian? British? He smiled wide, and his white teeth contrasted sharply against his tanned face. “How are you going?”
How are you going? What was the correct answer to that? Good? To Electric Picnic?
He didn’t wait for me to figure it out. “So sorry about the mattresses. I know they’re utter crap. But I guess that’s why we have such an affordable rate. And be honest, you didn’t come all the way to the Emerald Isle to sleep anyway, right? You’re here to explore.”
I raised my eyebrows, completely lost. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.” Someone he’d spoken to before.
His eyes widened. “Oh, no. You aren’t with the German group, are you? Forget what I said about the mattresses. Sleeping at the Rainbow’s End is like sleeping on a cloud.” He sang the last part.
“Nice save,” I said. “Do you have space for three people?”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Didn’t you see the sign? We always have availability. I already told you about the mattresses, but let me sell you on the good parts of our humble Rainbow’s End. We have a killer nightlife here. Party out front after dark every night, heaps of people, amber fluid, everything you could ask for.” He winked, erasing my ability to tell if he was joking or not. “I’m Bradley, by the way. Welcome to the Rainbow’s End, the most westernly youth hostel in Europe.”
“I’m Addie.” I shook his hand. “You didn’t by chance write the content on the website, did you?”
He bobbed his head enthusiastically. “That I did, Addie. That I did. Built the whole thing in forty-eight hours. That thing is pretty bodgy, but it does a lot of my work for me, which means I get to spend my afternoons surfing. ”
“Do you surf at Slea Head?” I asked.
“What kind of crazy do you think I am?” He folded his arms and gave me an appraising look. “Why do you look like you floated here? You weren’t out walking in the storm, were you?”
“Driving. Our car isn’t waterproof.”
“Ah,” he said, like he knew all about it. “I’m not supposed to let anyone in until after evening, but this looks like an emergency. You could use a hot shower.”
“Yes, I could,” I replied gratefully.
He grabbed a grimy white binder from the table and began flipping through pages full of names and phone numbers. The hostel’s record book, I assumed. “Where are you from?”
“Seattle. Well, that’s where my brother and I are from. The other guy we’re with is from Dublin.” A loud creak erupted behind me, and Rowan and Ian poked their heads in. Bradley immediately launched himself at them. “You must be brother. And other guy. I’m Bradley.” He shook their hands enthusiastically. “But why aren’t you two as wet as this one? I thought your car wasn’t waterproof.”
Rowan grimaced. “The back leaks the most.”
“And the back is where I sit,” I filled in.
“Way to be gentlemanly,” Bradley said brusquely, his gaze drifting back and forth between them.
Ian yanked at his sweatshirt strings, his cheeks slightly pink. “She wasn’t supposed to come; we weren’t prepared.”
“Yeah, yeah, save it.” Bradley waved them off. “Now come sign the book while little sister takes a shower.” He turned to me. “Bathroom is past the bunk room. Towels are in the closet next to it.” I was out of the room before he even finished his sentence.
Despite the bathroom’s questionable cleanliness, the shower felt life-changing. I changed into a fresh set of clothes and wandered back into the lobby, tugging a comb through my hair. Bradley sat paging through a dog-eared copy of Encyclopedia of Surfing. When he saw me, he slow clapped. “Huge improvement. Huge. You look one hundred percent less like a boiled rat.”
“Thank you,” I said, biting back a smile. “I wasn’t aware that I ever looked like a boiled rat, but that’s an incredible compliment. Do you know where the guys are?”
He nodded his head to the dining room. “Bouncy one’s in there, trying to track down the Internet signal. Good luck to him. Sad guy is in the bunk room.”
Sad guy?
“Sad guy is here,” Rowan interrupted, walking into the room.
Ouch. “Oh, sorry, bloke. I meant, um . . .” Bradley backpedaled.
Rowan ignored him. “Addie, you ready to go to Inch Beach? It looks like it’s clearing up out there.”
“Already?” I turned to look out the window. A patch of blue beamed brightly among the gray clouds. “That was fast.”
Bradley dropped his book. “Weather turns pretty quickly around here.” He straightened up, dropping back into a sales pitch. “And might I interest you two in renting bicycles for the small fee of three euro apiece? I can also toss in the best free tour guide Dingle has to offer.” He extended his arms out wide. “Me.”
Stretching my legs on a bicycle sounded like perfection. “That’s a great idea! Rowan?”
He hesitated, keeping his eyes firmly away from mine. “Bikes would be great. I have no interest in getting back in that wet car. But . . . I’ve spent some time on the peninsula, so I think I can manage the tour guide role.” He didn’t want an audience for the Heartache Homework. Rowan was really taking this seriously.
“Ahhh,” Bradley sang, looking between us.
“We’re just doing this guidebook thing,” I said quickly. My cheeks boiled even though I had nothing to hide.
“Guidebook thing, is that what the kids are calling it?” Bradley winked. “No worries. I know when I’m not wanted. Bikes are around back in the shed. You can have them on the house. Just don’t tell my uncle Ray. And you’ll come to the party tonight, right? People start gathering on the porch at about nine o’clock.”
Party? I’d forgotten about the party. “Maybe,” Rowan answered for us.
“We’ll be there,” I said. Bradley winked, then took off down the hall.
Rowan exhaled slowly. “That guy is too much.”
“I like him.” I studied the fresh T-shirt Rowan had changed into. This one featured a cat holding a piece of pizza in one hand and a taco in the other. A purple-and-black galaxy played out in the background.
“I think I like this one even more than the hypnotized cat,” I said, pointing at it.
“Thanks.” He lifted the familiar coffee-stained book into the air. “Ready for an adventure?”
“You mean am I ready to walk back out into the cold?” I flourished my hand toward the door. “Why not?”
Poststorm Dingle had a completely different temperament. The heavy clouds had thinned into a soft haze, and water lapped restfully against the edges of the cliffs. We rode past a marina filled with colorful bobbing boats and signs about a local hero, a dolphin named Fungie, who, according to Rowan, had been visiting tourists for decades.
“We’re here,” Rowan called back to me. We coasted off the main road, our bikes picking up speed as we curved down to a small inlet.
“Wow,” I said.
“I know, right?” Rowan said.
The sand at Inch Beach sparkled a deep gray, the sun kissing it with a touch of glitter. The tide was low, and silver ruffles of water unfurled lazily onto the shore. Out on the water, sunlight fragmented into kaleidoscope shapes. Stress melted from my shoulders, and my lungs opened up. I took the first deep breaths I had in days.
Next to the sand was a small, sea-glass-green building with SAMMY’S STORE stenciled on the side. Large swirly script read:
Dear Inch must I leave you
I have promises to keep
Perhaps miles to go
To my last sleep
It reminded me of a paper I’d written for English last year about the similarities between Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and Emily Dickinson’s “A Bird, came down the Walk.” I loved Emily Dickinson. She didn’t get things like capitalization and punctuation right, but it didn’t matter because you could still hear exactly what she was saying.
As we made our way toward the beach, two messy-haired kids emerged from the store holding ice-cream cones and chasing each other in a feisty game of tag. Their mom played along, lifting the young girl up in the air once she caught up with her.
“She reminds me of my mom.” I nodded toward the woman. The girl now sat comfortably on the mom’s shoulders, the little boy speeding around them in a circle.
Rowan pulled his beanie over his ears. “How so?”
“The way she’s running around with them. She played with us. Lots. Even when it meant she didn’t get other stuff done.” My mom had never been a picture-perfect type of mom—the kind with a clean kitchen floor or a PTA résumé. But she was excellent at building blanket forts, and when she read to us, she did all the voices. Plus, she was just always there. Her going back to work had rocked me more than I’d thought it would.
“She sounds really great,” Rowan said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Once, I was talking to Ian, and your mom came in to talk to him about school. I could tell she really cared.”
“She does.” So why aren’t you telling her about Cubby? a little voice inside my head asked. I brushed it away.
“So what’s your family like?” I asked carefully. I’d have to be deaf to miss the longing in his voice.
“Ha,” he said unhappily. “It’s just the three of us—my mum, my dad, and me—and we’re a mess, that’s what we are. Sometimes I wish there were more of us, to spread the misery around.”
In my experience, that wasn’t how misery worked. Or happiness, for that matter. Both tended to expand until everyone had an armful.
I dug my big toe into the sand. “I’ll bet there are lots of perks to being an only child.” The words felt false as they slid off my tongue. Not that being an only child couldn’t be great—I was sure it had its pluses and minuses just like every family situation—but I didn’t even know who I’d be without my brothers. Especially Ian.
“I guess so,” he said very unconvincingly. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders to the horizon. “You ready to do this?”
The wind heard its cue, skipping off the water and blasting us with cold air. I had officially given up on being anything but frozen on this trip. “What Guidebook Lady wants, Guidebook Lady gets.”
We headed toward the water, our toes sinking in the cold sand. When a cold wave slipped over our ankles, we both looked at each other in shock. “Cold” didn’t even begin to describe it. It needed a more dramatic word, something like “arctic” or “glacial.” Maybe “arcticglacial.”
“We’ve got this,” Rowan said, extending his hand to me. Before I could overthink it, I grabbed tight, his hand warm and comfortable in mine as we plunged into the water.
“So, back to the guidebook. What’s your thing?” Rowan asked. “What’s something you survived that you thought you couldn’t?”
“Losing Lina’s mom to cancer.” I was surprised by how easily the words bypassed my filter. I didn’t usually talk about that experience with anyone but Lina. I’d tried a few times, but I found out pretty quickly that most people don’t actually want to know about the hard things you’ve been through. They just want to look like they care and then move on to the next subject as quickly as possible. Rowan felt different.
He looked up, his gray eyes stricken. “I didn’t know her mom died. How long was she sick?”
“Only a few months. It was so disorienting. One minute she was running us around town looking for the best fish taco, and the next . . .” I trailed off. The water tingled against my shins. Whenever I thought about those months after Hadley’s diagnosis, I remembered the sounds. The beeping hospital machines. The whooshing of the ventilator. How quiet Lina’s apartment was in the afternoons when I brought her her homework. I was supposed to be the go-between, delivering homework both ways, but the teachers all knew the score, so they never cared that I rarely brought any back.
The water inched above my knees. “I don’t know if Ian told you, but Lina moved in with us right after the funeral. She was really shut-down. She even stopped eating, which is a huge deal, because she loves food more than anyone I know. I ended up getting really obsessed with cooking shows because the only way I could get her to eat was by making things I knew she couldn’t possibly turn down.”
“You can cook?” Rowan said hungrily. “What did you make for her?”
A tall wave slammed into our knees, sending a spray of salt water into my face. I wiped my eyes on the neckline of my shirt. It was taking every ounce of my willpower not to turn and run out of the water. “Triple chocolate cupcakes. Bacon-wrapped asparagus. Wild blueberry pancakes with whipped cream. Gourmet mac ’n’ cheese . . . That one was probably my best. It had four kinds of cheese plus bacon and truffle oil.”
Rowan moaned. “I haven’t eaten anything but Sugar Puffs since I left Dublin yesterday.”
“I thought you loved Sugar Puffs.”
“I do love Sugar Puffs,” he said adamantly. “But I love bacon and truffle oil more.” He looked down at the water, then squeezed my hand. “How’s this? We far enough?”
For a second I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then I realized water was up past my midthigh, waves kissing the hem of my shorts. “Can you feel your legs?” I asked.
He grimaced. “What legs?”
“This is worse than being in the back seat of Clover.” We dropped hands, and I skimmed my fingers across the water’s icy surface. Rowan’s turn. “What about you? What’s the hardest thing you’ve survived?”
“This year.” No hesitation. And no eye contact. Which for most people meant door closed.
But me being me, I had to at least try the knob. “This year, because of your breakup?”
He exhaled, then wiggled his shoulder like he was trying to shake off his mood. “Is this too depressing? I know you’re going through your own heartache; I don’t want to burden you with mine.”
“You aren’t burdening me,” I said, telling the truth. I liked that he felt like he could talk to me. We were a support team of two. “And what was your girlfriend’s name, anyway? Or . . . sorry, girlfriend? Boyfriend?” I shouldn’t assume.
“It was actually a goldfish,” he said seriously. “We dated for a whole year, but every few hours she forgot who I was and we had to start over.”
“Oh,” I said, adopting his serious tone. “That sounds challenging. Did the goldfish have a name?”
He hesitated for a second and his smile faded. “It’s my parents,” he finally said. “They’re getting divorced.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. His answer was not what I was expecting, but it shouldn’t have surprised me so much. Heartache came in all sorts of flavors. “I’m really sorry,” I said.
“Me too.” He gave me a rueful smile. “If they could get past their issues, I think they’d actually be pretty great together, but . . .” He trailed off, shivering violently. I suddenly became acutely aware of the cold. He gave me a lopsided smile, his eyes not quite meeting mine. “I think I’m about to succumb to hypothermia.”
“That means we have to stand here for one more second,” I said. Are you surviving this moment of discomfort? Have there been other moments of pain or discomfort that you thought you couldn’t survive and yet you did?
“Now!” I said, turning back to shore. We ran. My legs were so frozen, I could barely feel them churning the water to white, but Rowan’s warm hand found its way back to mine, and suddenly I felt that same lightening sensation I had back at the Burren.
It was possible that Guidebook Lady was onto something.
Bradley was not exaggerating about the nightlife at the Rainbow’s End. Music blared from a miniature speaker, and every light blazed. More people than I’d seen on the entire peninsula were crowded onto the porch and steps. Someone had built a fire in a garbage can, and flames licked the edges of the metal.
“The Rainbow’s End’s infamous nightlife,” Rowan said, skidding to a stop. The way back had taken us twice as long since we had to pedal uphill, and my shaky legs meant sore muscles tomorrow. “Any sign of Ian?”
“No, but there’s our host.” Bradley sat holding court in an anemic-looking lawn chair. He’d paired a too-small button-up shirt with a tee featuring Jesus on a surfboard. Bradley caught sight of me and waved, gesturing dramatically to the seat next to him.
The seat of honor. Part of me wanted to coast on the calm feeling I’d carried back from Inch Beach by going straight to bed, but Bradley kept waving his hands excitedly at me.
“I’ll take the bikes back,” Rowan said, grabbing my bike handlebars. “Better get over there. We don’t want to keep the king waiting.”
As I made my way over to Bradley, Ian suddenly appeared at my side, latching on to my arm. He wore double hoodies, and his hair looked more tangled than usual. “Where have you been?” he asked urgently.
I shook him off. “Inch Beach. Didn’t Rowan tell you?”
“I didn’t think it would be all day.”
“All day? We were only gone for a few hours.” Suddenly, I realized that Ian was rocking back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet, which was Ian speak for I have something to spill.
My heart fell. Not another text. Please not another text from back home. “Ian, what is it? What’s going on?”
He set his mouth in a grim line. “Mom called.”
“And?” Huge rush of relief. That was manageable. Mom was manageable. “What did she say?”
“She wanted to talk to Howard.”
Yikes. I hadn’t even thought about that. “Oh, right. We should probably come up with a plan of what to say next time she calls.”
He rocked onto his heels again, spitting the rest out. “I got nervous and I had Bradley pretend to be Howard.”
“What?” I yelped so loudly that a cluster of long-haired girls looked up from the fire. “You asked Bradley to pretend he was Howard? Please tell me you’re joking.”
He grabbed for his hair, twisting the same snarled piece. “It actually wasn’t too bad. His American accent was sort of . . . questionable, but I think she bought it.”
“No,” I whispered. This was a disaster. Less than a day in, and Ian was already jeopardizing us. We were never going to pull this off. “Ian, what were you thinking? You should have waited to talk to me.”
He threw his arms up defensively. “She kept calling and calling. You know how she is about the persistence thing—I think Catarina warped her brain. I had to improvise. And besides, you said you were stopping at a site, not leaving for the whole night.”
The accusation in his voice was too familiar—You know what Cubby’s been doing, right? “This isn’t my fault, Ian,” I snapped. “It was your decision to stay in Ireland, not mine.” I shoved past him, heading for the porch steps.
“Addie!” Bradley called. “Did you hear I talked to your mom?”
“Sorry, Bradley, now’s not a good time.” I stomped into the building and made a beeline for the bunk room, collapsing onto my bed. I was exhausted. And starving.
But instead of leaving the room to forage for food, I dug my phone out of my pocket and searched for Indie Ian. I wanted to see for myself what this trip—and the possible end of our sports careers—had been about. Two articles came up automatically: “Is the Garage Band Dead?” and “I Went to the Mall. Here’s What Happened.”
“Here it goes,” I said aloud.
Two sentences in and I fell headfirst into the world of garage bands. The article blew me away. Ian’s voice rang through loud and strong, but with an extra gloss, like it had been coated with furniture polish and set out in the sun to shine. It was well written and intellectual but approachable, too, packed full of personality and enough enthusiasm to make me actually care.
I quickly pulled up the second article, “I Went to the Mall. Here’s What Happened.” This one was about him wandering around the mall near our house reviewing the music played in individual stores. When had he done that? The only time I’d ever seen him at the mall was when our mom dragged us at the beginning of the school year.
I dropped my phone to the bed, my chest heavy. There was a whole part to Ian that I’d never known existed. One that he hadn’t told me about. That he’d chosen not to tell me about.
You did the same thing, my brain nudged silently.
I hadn’t told Ian about Cubby; he’d found out all on his own. And then he’d confronted me immediately.
“Addie, not him. Anyone but him.” Ian’s voice startled me so much, I almost fell back out the window. It was two a.m., just a few days after our field trip to the troll, and he was sitting at my desk in the dark, his headphones pushed down around his neck.
I recovered just in time, stumbling into the room and turning to pull the window most of the way shut. Cubby’s car was already gone. “What do you mean? Not who?” I said, pulling my shoes off and tossing them onto the floor. I’d taken to wearing running sneakers at night—it made the climb easier.
“I just saw you get out of his car.” Ian stood, sending my desk chair spinning. “Addie, not him,” he repeated, his face pleading.
A slow fury built in my center, surprising me with its intensity. Why did he think he got a say in who I dated? “Ian, I get that Cubby’s your teammate, but you don’t get to tell me whether or not I hang out with him.”
He pulled his headphones off his neck, balling them into his fist. “Addie, I’m with him a lot. I hear how he talks about girls. You don’t want to hang out with him. Believe me.”
But I didn’t want to believe him. And so I didn’t.
I can usually count on sleep to polish out the hard edges of whatever I’m worrying about—like a broken bottle tumbling through waves to become sea glass. But I spent the night as jagged as they come.
The mattresses were, as promised, utter crap, and a little after one a.m. the entire party, including Ian and Rowan, descended on the bunk beds in a stampede. Finally, morning came, and I woke to light filtering softly through the barred windows. I rolled to my side. An orchestra of different snores and breathing patterns wafted through the room. Most of the beds still contained lumps of people. Everyone’s, that was, except Ian’s.
I jumped to sitting. Ian’s and Rowan’s beds were empty, the sheets and pillows removed. Even their bags were gone.
“Are you kidding me?” I yelped into the silence.
They’d left me. Again. Even Rowan. I hurled myself out of bed, stumbling over a child-size backpack propped up against my bed before crashing loudly into a bedpost.
“Hallo?” a startled voice said from the top bunks.
“Sorry.” I raced barefoot out into the hall and into the dining room, colliding face-first with Ian, who, of course, was holding a steaming hot mug of something.
“Addie!” he yelled, the drink sloshing everywhere. “Why are you running?”
The relief was so intense that I nearly folded in half. I rested my hands on my knees, waiting for my heart to slow. “I thought you left me.”
“Left you? What would possibly make you think that?” He opened his eyes wide and then snorted, laughing at his own joke.
Laughing. He was laughing. Had he forgotten about last night’s fight? He grabbed a handful of napkins from the kitchen table and swiped at the spill on his shoes.
“Yes, really funny. So, so funny.” I jabbed him in the shoulder. His black eye looked a little better today. The outer edges were already fading to a dull green.
“What’s so funny?” Rowan asked, joining us in the hallway.
“The fact that I now have PTSD over being left behind,” I said. Rowan’s hair was nicely rumpled. Today’s cat shirt featured a bespectacled cat with the words HAIRY PAWTER.
“That’s not new,” Ian said. “You did that every time one of us graduated to the next level of school. I thought you were going to have a breakdown when I graduated from elementary school to junior high.”
“Ian, shut up,” I demanded, but I relaxed a little. His tone was still teasing. “Why are you in such a good mood, anyway?”
He held up his phone. “I’m only two followers away from ten thousand. Everyone loved the photos of Slea Head and the Burren.”
“Ian, that’s great,” I said, meaning it. I wanted to tell him how much I’d liked his articles, but covered in coffee at the Rainbow’s End didn’t feel like quite the right time. I wanted it to be special.
He nodded happily. “Hopefully, the next stop will put us over the edge. Get dressed—we’re leaving in five.”
“How about six?” I asked. Rowan caught my eye and grinned.
“Five,” Ian said. “Don’t push me, sis.”