What Foster said about stealing Johnny’s car suddenly registers, and my blood roars in my head. “Johnny’s going to kill you! Why would you take his truck when you know how crazy he is?”
Foster glances down at his empty fingers and shakes his head. “He’s probably pretty angry, but I’ll be fine.”
I lower my head to my hands and groan into my palms. Everything is so messed up right now. Foster’s here, just like I begged him to be, but it’s all wrong. The competition and my chances of a spot at Flagler are ruined. Whatever Foster and I had is over. All that’s left is the ensuing mess. “Why are you here, Foster?”
He studies my face, searching for who knows what. “Carolina told me about the competition. I didn’t know what you were thinking, but I just wanted to be the one to tell you it wasn’t me. I didn’t try to sabotage your chances by saying you cheated. I wouldn’t do that.”
I frown. “The thought never even crossed my mind.” I’d accused Foster of a lot of things in the past week, but being a saboteur is not something I would ever attribute to him.
“I have no idea who got me kicked out, but it’s not important right now.” I straighten up and knit my eyebrows together. “You shouldn’t be here. We're not together anymore. And you’re just causing more trouble for yourself.”
He turns away from me and faces the window. His face is red, and his fists are balled into tight knots in his lap.
“I know." He still won’t look at me, so I crane my neck to peek at his face. His eyes aren’t narrowed in anger like I thought. His bottom lip is puckered out, and he’s not crying, but his eyes look wet and droopy.
“We're just not good for each other. You were right.” My hands sit in my lap, and I stare at them, tracing the lines on my palms with my eyes.
“I came back for you. I know I'm too late, but I'm here now."
I blink. I force a nod. “Yeah, well. It is too late.”
If only things would go back to the way they were before he left to live with his brother. But I can’t take him back, because I really don’t trust him anymore, no matter how much I wish I could. I can’t magically make things the way they were before everything got complicated.
“I guess I didn’t really give you a reason to trust me,” he says. “Maybe I’m more like Johnny than I thought.”
I close my eyes and turn away. “You’re not like him.” I whisper it into the steering wheel, but I know he hears me because his face relaxes slightly.
Next to me, he draws a breath. "Claire, I love you."
The words I would have done anything to hear just a few days ago. Now, they feel like an insult. A sharp stinging slap in the face of everything that's happened between us.
"Don't say that," I hiss.
His jaw tightens. We sit in silence until my parents pull into the driveway. They wave, and Foster goes to say hi to them, feeding them some lie about being in town to pick up his belongings, before striding down the street, back the way he came.
Thirty-Nine
I wake up early the next morning. The sky is still black, but today is the day I have to figure out what went wrong with the competition. If there's some way to salvage my chance at Flagler, I'll find it. Somehow, I have to get everything back on track. So I scrawl a note for my parents and make the drive to Flagler in the cool and hushed morning air. But first, I stop at the beach.
Just as I suspected, Foster is sprawled out on the damp sand a few feet away from where I stand under the pier. He’s either in a coma-like sleep or he’s not breathing. I hold my breath and edge forward to nudge him with the toe of my sandal.
He rubs hazy eyes and looks around the empty beach. “Claire?” Purple circles his right eye, and there’s a trail of dried blood staining his puffy bottom lip. He props an elbow behind him and tries to sit up, but a sharp groan escapes him.
The skin on my arms prickles.
“What’s—” I stop because my voice is so raspy that the words stick in my throat. I clear it and try again. “What’s going on?” Foster blinks back at me for so long I wonder if he even heard me. I try again. “Did you sleep here?”
“It was either spend the night here or go back to Alabama to face my brother. Unfortunately, he found me anyway.” He gestures to his mangled face as a low moan escapes him again.
I take a deep breath and extend my hand. He glances at it and flinches, like he’s afraid that I might hit him too. “Come on,” I say, nodding toward my outstretched fingers. “This has gone too far. Your problems are next on my list.”
He grins and grabs my hand. Together we work on hoisting his body up as carefully as possible.
I instruct Foster to wait in the car while I go into the administration building at Flagler to sort out the events of the day before. He refuses. Instead, he follows half a step behind me as I power-walk up to the desk of the same secretary who’d led me to my interview. That interview feels like it was years and not weeks ago. He smiles up at me, no recognition in his eyes. “Name?”
I sigh. “I don’t have an appointment.” A fact I refuse to let hold me back from speaking to someone this morning.
The secretary plasters on an even brighter smile and nods. He clicks through the computer system, following the screens with his eyes. “Okay, let me read you the available appointment dates, and you can set one right now if you’d like.”
I match his demeanor. Smiling through my teeth, I say, “It’s an emergency. I need to see someone as soon as possible, but don’t worry, I can just wait right here.” I point to one of the two empty seats in the waiting area, and Foster quickly follows me with a flustered frown.
The secretary stands, his practiced politeness breaking at my defiance. “You’ll need to come back when you have an appointment.”
I step closer to explain once again that I’ll be waiting here all day if necessary, but a voice interrupts me.
“Did you say your name is Claire?”
Poking her head out of an office behind the waiting room is an older lady with flaming red hair and a carved-into-her-face smile. I blink back at her as she shuffles her way toward me, clapping her hands.
“I just left a message with your parents,” she says, looking far more ecstatic to see me than I think my demands warrant. Especially considering the way I was thrown out of the contest. But maybe she doesn’t know about that. “I’m glad you’re here. Come into my office so we can talk.”
She points to the room she just came from and waves me forward. I can’t resist flashing a near-smirk at the secretary who’s watching us with his mouth hanging open. Foster nods to me and sits down, signaling he’ll be waiting for me. Once in the office, I’m not sure whether to sit at the chair opposite her desk or stand against the wall and hope I’m not in for any more trouble from the cheating accusations. I settle for standing near the chair. She slides into her own leather-studded seat and shuffles a stack of papers before drawing one from the top.
She slides it forward across her desk, and I lower myself into the chair, so I can reach the paper. Before I read it, I arch an eyebrow in her direction. “What is this?”
A hand flies to her mouth to cover a round of giggles. “Well, first of all, I wanted to apologize on behalf of the judges and all of the staff here at Flagler for the terrible business that happened in the middle of your contest yesterday. It was a combination of a contestant’s overprotective parent and a slightly overzealous judge.”
I look up at her, eyes wide. There's a bubbling warmth as her words sink in. An apology is far from what I was expecting.
“You should not have been eliminated for something so inconsequential, and we are sorry it happened.”
I exhale. It doesn’t change the fact that I was kicked out of a contest I spent my whole summer preparing for, but it does take some of the weight off. I straighten my shoulders as if there was really something there that's been lifted.
She points to the paper again. “And the second thing I wanted to discuss with you is this letter. We r
eceived it from your grandfather’s lawyer yesterday. You should read it."
I skim the words on the page until I pass the legal jargon and hit on something I understand. Something that makes my heart race and my palms sticky with sweat.
My client leaves for his granddaughter, Claire Haynes, a trust fund in the amount of $15,000 to be used for school expenses. This trust fund can only be accessed for school funds when Claire has completed the creative challenge of participating in a sand sculpture contest held by Flagler College. Enclosed is the account information.
“So, the contest was some sort of test? Opa planned it this way?” It turns out Opa did know what kind of art would make me happy all along. After all my doubt at the beginning, I wouldn’t take sand sculpting back now—even if I could.
She nods, lips curved. “It seems like it,” she says with a small shrug. “Either way, you’ve earned it, it seems. And we’d like to further apologize for the contest mishap by extending you an invitation to join us at Flagler for your freshman year. Your interview and portfolio really impressed our judges.”
“Thank you so much. I can’t believe it.” Still in shock, I stand and shake her outstretched hand. She holds up a finger and slips me another small paper. I wait until I’m in the hallway between her office and the waiting room to inspect it. My breath catches when I see Opa’s tiny scrawl on both sides of the familiar seashell sticky note.
Dear Claire,
If you’re reading this, that means I’ve finally kicked the bucket.
Don’t be angry with me for sending you on a little summer scavenger hunt via the sculpting contest. I know you live for those stuffy museums and dead painters, but I thought it would do you some good to shake things up a little. If it didn’t work—you’re still not allowed to be angry with me.
I hope you let this summer happen. You tend to unleash your charms on the world if everything’s not going the way you want. Be patient. Things always work out better than you expect.
My lawyer has instructions to give this to you after I pass. I know you miss me. Our summers together have been a highlight, always something I could look forward to when getting old got to be too depressing. But a teenage girl obsessing over her grandfather isn’t healthy. Don’t forget me, but don’t hang on to me either. Be happy without me.
I’ve always told you that you are an artist. Even when you were too small to responsibly hold a paintbrush on your own, you made magic happen. I hope you did that with this contest. Made beautiful art. Expanded your talent. Most of all, I hope you had fun with it.
And when the competition is over, please accept this trust fund in your name. I put this money aside for art school for you a long time ago.
I only wish I were there to see you take the art world by storm.
Love always,
Opa
I’m conflicted whether to laugh or cry. It’s so like Opa to get everything about this summer right. It turns out he didn’t even need to be here to know what’s going on in my life. I spy Foster staring at the ceiling of the waiting room, and his eyebrows shoot up, causing him to wince. He’s going to be so confused about all of this. But first things first. I point to him and set my teeth.
“Your thing next.”
I think Foster would rather me go in with him, but I refuse. I sit in the car and wait in the parking lot of the square, brick government building. He didn’t want to go in at all, even after Johnny’s latest abuse, but I talked him into it.
His body shakes as he slips open the passenger door and sits next to me. “I did it. And they believed me. They said we could work something out so I don’t have to live with him anymore. I can stay here.” He’s lighter, less adult, more teenager already.
I let my head drop against the back of my seat. “I’m so proud of you.”
It would be the perfect moment if there wasn’t all of this awkward tension between us. We’ve both conquered our fears, solved our mysteries. All that’s missing is what I want so badly: Foster.
Forty
It’s been almost a week since I’ve been to the beach. That’s a record for me, especially during the summer. It’s time to take back my beach. I stand in the parking lot and stare at the pier, watching the people come and go. They’re laughing and talking. Exhausted kids, pink from the sun, wear sand-covered clothes. Surfers shoulder wet boards and suits. Old couples walk around me hand in hand with bags of seashells to store in jars in their guest bathrooms. It’s like coming home.
I slip off my sandals and hold them in one hand as I stroll across the sand. I weave in and out of the warm water, splashing my own feet as I go. I pass by the underside of the pier. It’s empty, but I’m not ready to go over there yet. Someone waves at me from across the beach and I squint into the sun.
“Claire!”
I recognize Carolina’s voice immediately and sprint toward her, almost losing my balance in the process. We grab onto each other as we meet and laugh. “Congratulations on your third win in a row!” I exclaim.
Her face pulls down. “I still can’t believe we didn’t get to battle it out.”
I walk a little ahead of her so she can’t see my face. I’m brave, but I’m not immune to being sucked into the reminder of how awful that day was for me. Now that the trauma of being accused of cheating is over, my safe place feels that much safer. I shake my head. “It’s fine. And we can battle it out at Flagler next year since we both got in!”
Carolina smiles and squeezes my arm. “You’re awesome. I don’t know what I would have done if it were me. At least it worked out, though.”
I shrug. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’d texted her to give her the update after the crazy turn of events. Now I never want to hear about it again. “Do you want to keep walking?” I point toward the setting sun and turn in its direction.
Carolina shakes her head. “I already told my parents I was heading home. I just saw you and wanted to say hi.” She walks in the opposite direction, and I wander toward the far stretch of the beach. But the pier still catches my eye, and I hesitate, motionless.
I clutch my shoes to my side and make my way toward the spot under the pier, where my summer began and ended. Where I thought life might end at seventeen. I graze my fingers along the old wood. It’s just wood, just a fixture on the beach. No one else sees anything out of the ordinary. But I’m suddenly vindicated. I wrap a hand around the post and exhale.
Something to the right of the pier catches my eye, and I walk toward it carefully. It’s just sand smoothed out into a pattern. For all I know, some little kids were building sandcastles, the same thing I’ve seen a hundred times before. I take a step backward to try to make sense of the shapes carved into the smooth area. Shells are swirled in a circle around the structure—they look like the same small white seashells Foster found the day we went swimming. In the center of the circle is a sand sculpture in the shape of an alligator.
My breath catches at the sight of painted-over bottles and pieces of glass adorning the alligator’s back in place of scales. Foster’s work has such a distinct look. Even if the alligator hadn’t clued me in, the recycled beach trash is an obvious tell. I crouch next to the sculpture, letting my eyes pass over each miniscule detail. A gleaming green bit placed in between the eyes catches the light, and I reach for it. It’s an emerald-green miniature alligator figurine. I’m pretty sure it’s something from the gift shop at the Alligator Zoo.
I hold it in my open hand for a moment before pushing the alligator into my back pocket. He wasn’t being subtle, that’s for sure. Foster knew I’d come here, and he wanted me to see this. But why? We’re not so compromised now that we solely communicate via sculptures, right?
I sigh. Whatever it’s supposed to mean, it will take more than an alligator charm and some sand to fix our relationship.
I pack my bag with the papers I need and head toward the school administration building after lunch. I need to meet with the counselor who’s going to be helping me with my enrollment
next year and ask for a small favor. There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and today is the perfect day to get it off my chest. After an hour of sorting things out, I thank her for her help and drive back toward the beach.
Foster is standing at the bottom of the pier. It’s hard to forget that this beach was the first place we met, where we kissed, and also where we said good-bye. My stomach flip-flops at the exact moment he spots me and grins. I wave, and butterflies beat against my chest, even though there’s nothing left to be nervous about. Nothing is going to happen, I remind myself. I asked him to meet me here, but I still react this way whenever I see him. The alligator sculpture thing was sweet, but it can’t fix everything that’s happened between us just like that.
“Hey. I was just gonna come find you.” Foster rubs a hand through the back of his hair. His other hand rests in the back pocket of his swim trunks, the only thing he’s wearing after what looks like a day of surfing. I focus my eyes on his. Better to not tempt myself with his wet, tanned skin anyway. It would be so easy to fall back into a pattern, kissing him, wanting to be close to him. I can’t lie and say I don’t still care about him, but it’s complicated now.
“Oh, yeah? I kind of did something sneaky.” I laugh, and shakiness rumbles through my chest. Surprises have been hit or miss with the two of us. This, I think he will like.
He shifts his eyes. “Oh boy. What’s going on now?”
I suppress a grin and pull an envelope addressed to him from my bag. He turns it around in his hands before sliding a finger under the fold and opening it. I bite my lip and wait for his reaction while he reads.
“I don’t understand.” He drops his hands and looks at me, a smile of half-confusion, half-wonder on his lips.
I shrug. “I had an interesting conversation with the Flagler admissions board. They kind of owed me still. And something happened during my first interview that made me realize I can’t let you give up on something you love. Something you’re really good at.”
The Art of Falling in Love Page 21