I nod, but Cloudy narrows her eyes. “Wait. You said last summer you’re lactose intolerant.”
Jade laughs. “Hey, I’ll say whatever it takes to keep Ashlyn from forcing her disgusting yogurt-kale-avocado smoothies on me.”
The present-tense slipup is jarring—like Ashlyn can run a blender any old time. All three of us go silent.
“I’m sorry,” Jade says.
“It’s fine.” Cloudy shrugs. “She also added kiwi and banana to those drinks and they were delicious. But, yes, a milkshake sounds good.” She heads through the crowd, back up the stairs, and into the dark alleyway with Jade and me behind her.
Cloudy’s on edge again and my stomach clenches. Her sandals slap, slap, slap ahead of us, while Jade’s heels click, click, click on the concrete next to me.
Jade says, “I can’t believe I’m finally in the presence of the famous Kyle Ryan Ocie.”
Ashlyn started calling me “Kyle Ryan” when we were first getting together, and I called her “Ashlyn Rose.” We didn’t have actual nicknames for each other—just first and middle names. Last names, too, when we were being especially sappy. (“I adore you, Kyle Ryan Ocie.” “And I adore you, Ashlyn Rose Montiel.”)
“I’m really not famous,” I tell Jade.
“Sure you are. We’ve never met, yet I’m able to first-middle-last name you. That should tell you something.”
“I’m able to first and last name you, Jade Decker. Maybe you’re famous.”
With a smile, Jade shakes her head. “Um, no. First and last name? Not the same at all.”
Cloudy reaches the door first, and Jade and I follow her into Astro Burger. From the outside, the place is generic, but inside, it has a 1950s theme with tiny jukeboxes at each table.
“I want to enjoy the nonfreezingness of LA as much as possible,” Cloudy says, standing in line. “You two go grab one of those outside tables. I’ll buy the shakes, which also means I get to surprise you.”
Jade and I do as we’re told, and settle in across from each other at a round table with an umbrella on the lit-up patio. “Tell me the truth,” she says. “How’s Cloudy been doing since . . . you know. Everything that happened with Ashlyn?”
It’s weird—someone asking a question like that about Cloudy. A million times weirder still that I’m the person being asked. For the first time, someone’s assuming I’m not the one who’s most wrecked over Ashlyn’s death. “She’s all right, I think.”
Jade lifts her eyebrows. “Really? Because the Cloudy Marlowe I’ve known since elementary school has always been the girl who walks into a room and owns it. Right now, it’s like she doesn’t want to be seen. I had to catch her in a lie to get her to visit me today. I had to beg her to start dancing at the club. Before, she was always up for anything at any time.”
Annoyance stabs at me. Especially since, okay, maybe Cloudy had to be coaxed to dance, but she was already singing and having fun with me before that. According to Jade, if Cloudy isn’t generating maximum energy every moment, there’s something wrong with her? “We’ve been on the road for two days and had to sleep in my car last night. She’s tired.”
“It’s more than that. One glance confirmed it for me.” Jade purses her lips. “What’s the big mystery, anyway? Why are you two in California?”
Cloudy knows I told my dad about the organ recipients, but we agreed not to let anyone else in on the secret. “It gets so cold in Bend. We’re on midwinter break, so we figured, why not go somewhere warm?”
Jade nods, but I can tell she isn’t satisfied. “You hang out with Cloudy all the time?”
Ashlyn used to call me from camp, complaining about Jade being pushy. At the time, I’d chalked it up to jealousy over her having to share Cloudy, but now I get it. I wait several seconds before answering Jade’s question. “Do you mean in the past day and a half, or in general? I can write you our hanging-out schedule, if it helps.”
Jade lets out a short laugh. “You feel like you’re being interrogated?”
“Aren’t I?”
She eases back against her chair, as if she no longer intends to pounce. “It’s hard for me to be there for Cloudy the way I want to be. She’s eight hundred miles away. After losing Ashlyn, it makes sense that the two of you would gravitate toward each other. More than anyone, you can understand what the other is feeling and help each other get through it, right?”
Now it’s my turn to nod. Not because I’m trying to lie or rewrite history, but because there actually was one specific day when it was true—a day I try never to think about.
While Ashlyn was in the ICU, Cloudy and I went every day. The hospital had strict rules about how many visitors could go in at a time and for how long. We took our turns whenever we could get them without complaint.
One morning, the Montiels were gathered in Ashlyn’s room, waiting to hear test results. Cloudy and I had skipped school for this. We hadn’t talked about it. We didn’t do it together. But we both showed up. We sat alone in the waiting room, elbow to elbow, no empty seats between us. She had a magazine open on her lap, but wasn’t turning pages. I’d never prayed in my life, but I did then, inside my head, for half an hour: I don’t believe anyone’s reading my mind, but if I’m wrong, you should help Ashlyn, okay? Please. Because she deserves to get better. She should have a full recovery.
I went over what she’d told me she wanted to do in the future: She’s never left the US, but she hopes to visit every continent in the world. She’s saving up to volunteer for a month in Costa Rica at a rescue center for endangered animals. She wants saving animals to be her career. Her life, basically . . .
I listed off things Ashlyn had done that proved she was a good person: She visits nursing homes and takes up collections for clothing and toy drives with her team during the holidays. She served food to the homeless one Thanksgiving. She smiles at random people in the hallway at school. If someone spills something, she’ll help clean it up. . . .
In my thoughts, I repeated and rephrased everything so my argument became even more convincing. Ashlyn would get better, I’d decided. It wouldn’t make any kind of sense for her not to. There were animals that needed her. People who needed her. Her team, her friends, her family. And me. I needed for her to be okay.
But then Ashlyn’s mom came stumbling out of the ICU. From her expression, I could tell right away she’d forgotten we were out there, the doctor’s news hadn’t been positive, and she was trying to get space from what she’d been told.
My mind went all over the place. Ashlyn’s recovery was going to take a long time? She’d never fully recover? No more cheer? Or walking? Or . . . what?
Cloudy asked the questions I was unable to speak aloud: “What’s wrong? What did they say?”
Mrs. Montiel let out a shaky breath, dropped into a seat across from Cloudy and me, and told us Ashlyn wasn’t coming out of her coma. Not ever. Tears ran down her face as she explained that machines were keeping Ashlyn’s body alive, but her brain was dead.
Dead.
Ashlyn was dead.
My bones turned to liquid and I slid onto the floor.
Cloudy’s magazine landed next to me with a whump! She leaned forward, took my liquid hand in her solid one, and said, “Kyle.”
Just that. Just my name.
DEAD.
I couldn’t breathe, but my bones slowly solidified and I was able to slide myself over to kneel in front of Cloudy. I sobbed onto her knees. She wrapped her arms around me and her tears fell into my hair. I knew, in that moment, that we were in this together.
JADE JOLTS ME out of it. “Cloudy’s hands are full.”
She jumps up and pulls the glass door open. I blink hard a couple of times to make sure I’m going to be okay.
Cloudy sets down a tray with three Astro Burger cups and slides onto the chair next to mine. “This place blends strange ingredients into vanilla ice cream. But not avocado, so here’s banana for Jade,” she says, pushing it across the table. “And sadly, Kyle, no
chocolate mint. I got you pineapple, but if you hate it, we can trade. Mine’s apple cinnamon, which I was told tastes like apple pie minus the crust.” As we unwrap straws to stab into our shakes, Cloudy says, “Tomorrow’s Monday and you have school. What do you recommend Kyle and I do all day?”
Jade talks about the Santa Monica Pier, Third Street Promenade, and Venice Beach Boardwalk, but I kind of zone out.
After I’d gotten up from the hospital waiting room floor, Cloudy convinced me to go see Ashlyn for the last time. I didn’t say good-bye because I knew Ashlyn couldn’t hear me, but I did sit beside her. I studied her face. I wanted to memorize her tan skin, her thick lashes, her shiny black hair spread over the white pillow, but I couldn’t stay focused. It was as if I was somehow outside my body, watching myself watch her through a haze of tears. I held her hand, and it felt like the warmest hand in the world. At that moment, I was the colder of the two of us, shaking all over and nauseated, knowing her warmth was artificial and temporary. Afterward, Cloudy drove me to Matty’s and all I could think as I lay on the couch and cried until I passed out was that I had sat in a room alone with Ashlyn, but since she wasn’t really there anymore, what had actually happened?
I still can’t answer that question, but I do know this: the worst day of my life was also the worst day of Cloudy’s. I was completely useless to her, but she helped me get through it.
Jade pulls out her phone to tell Theresa where to meet us, and I watch Cloudy in profile. She catches me looking and smiles, nodding toward my shake. “How’s the pineapple? Any good?”
“It’s perfect,” I tell her.
Cloudy
“You’ve got to come out here.”
I look up from the kitchen table—and the long list of “Things to See” Jade’s parents left for us: Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the Griffith Observatory, the Getty. It’s almost like they don’t want us alone in their house all day.
Even though I’ve known the Deckers since I was ten, they wanted to talk to Kyle and me before we settled in last night. But “want” may be the wrong word. I don’t think they desired our company at eleven thirty p.m. so much as needed to be sure I’m not suddenly a cultist on the run—or that when Kyle mentioned bringing in Arm, he wasn’t talking about, you know, an arm. Afterward, I took the guest room, claiming I didn’t want to disrupt Jade’s regular school-night routine by bunking with her. Mr. and Mrs. Decker ate that up.
Not Jade, though.
From the moment she zeroed in on me at AMPLYFi, she was . . . studying me. It was in the way her eyes scrunched up at the corners whenever she looked my way. And if anyone could spot a difference in me, it would be Jade. I suspect that friendship plus distance has a way of magnifying the things that should stay hidden. When you change so gradually, the people you’re with every day don’t have a chance to notice.
So all I have to do is avoid the kind of time she wants to spend together. Last night, a separate room and a locked door seemed like a decent start.
Now Kyle’s standing in the doorway, fresh from a shower, in his brand-new clothes.
“I thought you were checking on the car,” I say.
“I was. Then I saw it.”
I follow Kyle out into the foyer, then pat my back pocket for the extra house key Jade left before going to school. Arm is still curled up on the couch—hopefully the Deckers don’t mind her crashing here while we’re out. I’m not sure Rodeo Drive is as welcoming as half-empty diners in Sacramento.
We’re out the door, onto the porch, then down the stairs. The sun and the wind have an agreement going here—just when the breeze gets too chilly, the sun picks up the slack. Kyle jogs into the street, right across to Ocean Park Boulevard’s thin, grassy median. The Deckers live in a small bungalow on a street that points straight to the ocean—the same direction Kyle’s gesturing now.
“Holy. Shit.”
Kyle shakes his head, incredulous. “It was too dark when we got here last night. I didn’t notice it.”
“Jade said it was close, but . . . it’s so close.” Well, not really. The Pacific is barely an inch-wide stripe across the horizon, but I can see it clearly. It’s as if I can hold up my thumb and smudge the inky blue of the ocean into the sky. “Let’s go.”
“To the beach?”
“Yeah, I want to go in the water.”
He glances at me, dubious. “Cloudy, it’s February.”
“Kyle,” I mimic, “it’s frigging Southern California. It’s not like they shut down the ocean.”
There’s an amused twist to his lips. “I think sometimes they do, actually. Something about rain runoff.”
“Oh. My. God,” I whine. “Come on.”
I set off, Kyle chuckling behind me. Neither of us knows where we’re going, but straight ahead should be as good a direction as any.
We walk for fifteen minutes along a path that lies parallel to the beach and should be front and center in a postcard. The perfectly spaced date palms reach way up into a vibrantly blue sky. Santa Monica might border on annoyingly perfect, but I’m already too in love to care.
Once we cross over onto the beach, I kick off my shoes and roll the cuffs of my jeans. We shuffle through a long stretch of cool sand, and Kyle stops where it starts to dampen. I go on, right to the shoreline, ignoring the chill that creeps up into my bare feet. So maybe I was a little overzealous earlier, but after being a brat about the whole thing, some part of me is going into the goddamn Pacific.
“How is it?”
I don’t bother turning around as I give Kyle the finger. “It’s freezing,” I admit. “Satisfied?”
“Nah. Just curious.”
“You can come feel it for yourself.”
“It’s freezing enough right here,” he says, “but thanks.”
A small wave swells up, foamy around my ankles, and I have to grit my teeth so I don’t shriek. It gets easier to adjust every time, so much so that it becomes close to comfortable. Or my feet have gone numb.
Eventually, Kyle comes up beside me, his sneakers dangling from his fingertips. “Are we really here, looking at this?” he says.
I cluck my tongue. “Sedona desert boys. So impressed with water.”
“And Bend girls?” He elbows me. “You prefer your water at a glacial temperature?”
Bend might have every other body of water—rivers, lakes, streams, waterfalls—but we’re totally lacking in saltwater. “This one summer, my parents took us to Lincoln City. It was the first time I’d ever been to the ocean, and I ran straight in because I thought it was a lake.”
“Not so much?”
“Most lakes don’t have waves that’ll knock a five-year-old on her butt.”
“True,” he laughs. “But if you do end up at USC, you could get some practice in.”
“What do you mean?”
He gives me a sideways glance. “USC’s only a few miles from here. I looked it up. You’d be able to come here every day, if you wanted.”
I could. Every single day. Without Ashlyn.
I’ve never imagined myself anywhere without her—certainly not college. Before, our course was so set. And now, it’s all up to me. There are hundreds of places I could end up, schools or programs or neither of those things because I don’t know where I’m going. The thought seizes me, ping-ponging around my brain until I’m light-headed.
I anchor myself here with this: Ashlyn and I will never go to USC like she intended. We’ll never be on this beach together. Yet in her own way, she still managed to get me here.
Kyle and I stand, shoulder to shoulder, at the edge of Santa Monica. Up and down the beach there are others, all determined tourists probably, doing the same—staring ahead, watching the water, hypnotized by the vastness of it. It’s so big out there, so much more mysterious and promising than what’s at our feet.
Behind me, a kid squeals, and I imagine her bolting across the sand, her mom or dad or someone who loves her chasing closely behind. The people riding bikes on the same walkway
Kyle and I were on earlier. Beach apartments and small cafés and a few blocks inland, a high school where one of my oldest friends might have already figured me out. And everyone here, looking the opposite way. We’re all staring out to the ocean like the answers are in front of us when, really, the whole world is at our backs. Waiting for us, hoping we’ll turn around and take notice.
But I’ll let it wait. I won’t worry about the rest of the world, or USC, or Jade. I just pick out a spot on the horizon as my feet sink deeper into the sand.
KYLE AND I are having fun. Possibly. It might be fun. Fun or it’s that we’re showered and not wearing our parkas and the salty air is going to our heads. Either way, Kyle hasn’t frowned in an hour, so I’m checking that off in the having-a-blast column. And I’m feeling it, too—a lightness, in the way the beachy wind flirts with the curly ends of my hair and how the sun warms but never burns.
We end up doubling back, away from the Pacific, up to wide Ocean Avenue—we want to see the Santa Monica Pier from where it begins. I’m disappointed we’re a couple of months too early to catch the jacarandas in bloom. The spindly trees fan out with trumpet-shaped purple flowers, like in a Dr. Seuss book. We definitely don’t grow those in Bend.
The big blue Yacht Harbor, Sport Fishing, Boating, Cafés sign curves above the street. I dig my phone from my pocket and tap into the camera.
“I can take it,” Kyle says. “If you want to get in there.”
My eyes move to him and the sign, the cars zooming by on the street behind him, the palm trees canopying above us. And I’m so . . . present. Grounded on this sidewalk, with Kyle, on a trip that Ashlyn is leading us on. It makes me say, “We should get one together.”
His forehead wrinkles. “Um, okay. Good idea.”
He doesn’t sound so sure, but I hand over my phone anyway—he is the tall one. As he raises his arm to aim it, I inch closer until my sleeve just barely brushes his chest. We stretch and duck around, trying to find the best pose; when we do, my shoulder is digging into Kyle’s torso; his fingertips are pressed to my back. I keep entirely still.
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