The Art of Falling in Love Read online

  “Claire.” He turns my name on his tongue like it’s brand new to him. “I’m Foster. Thanks for not stealing my flashlight.”

  He steps toward me and reaches to shake my hand. A breathy laugh escapes me as our fingers brush before I snatch mine away.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. “Will you be back to this part of the beach again?”

  He grins, and I’m graced by an up-close version of his ultra-watt smile. Not too bad.

  “I’m here every night, Claire. Come back any time to pick up trash and save the beach with me.”

  He waves his trash bag in the air again and I laugh. I shouldn’t reward him for that kind of line. But honestly, it might be working. Cute smile and cares about the environment? It's at the very least a positive change from the other boys in the upcoming senior class at my high school. I’m tempted to bring up the time I was ten and spent the entire summer break scouring the beach for soda bottles to trade in for cash. Opa was so proud of me that he retrieved his wrinkled leather wallet from his jeans pocket right there in the grocery store and paid me double what I got in can money.

  And there it is. The heart wrenching pang again. When it leaves me, it doesn’t stay gone for long. All it takes is one stupid anecdote or memory and I’m back to full-time mourning.

  “Maybe I will,” I tell him. I swallow the lump forming at the back of my throat and turn quickly away from him. Seriously, I can't cry here.

  Once I reach the parking lot, I check my phone. The familiar blue-lit screen shows that my parents have been working overtime to get a hold of me. I slip my phone back into my shorts and drive home without reading any of the messages. I’ll be home in a few minutes, and there’s no point in starting the argument five minutes earlier.

  When I pull into the driveway my parents are standing in front of the beach house with their arms around each other’s shoulders. I snuck away to the beach for an hour tops; this seems a bit overkill. My mom is wearing her crying face, her eyes so squinty they look like slits, and even Dad is kind of red-eyed. I get out of the car and jog over to them. Maybe this isn’t about me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Mom shakes her head and starts crying again. She looks up at my dad, but he can’t seem to find words either. A pit forms in my stomach, and it grows larger with every silent second. Headlights creep along the street, and a car I don’t recognize stops in front of the house. We all turn our heads in sync to watch Livvy appear from the passenger side. A boy is driving, but he doesn’t look at any of us as he screeches away much faster than he arrived. Livvy pretends like she doesn’t see us huddled together on the perfectly manicured St. Augustine grass. When she reaches the front porch, she folds her arms in front of her. Mom sucks in a breath like she’s been punched, and I look between my parents and my sister, waiting for someone to fill me in on what’s happening.

  Livvy responds to my panic with a half-smirk. “What? They haven’t told you the whole sob story yet?”

  I manage to shake my head but everything is buzzing, the same disconnect from reality I felt when Mom stumbled into my room a week ago to tell me Opa was gone.

  “Everyone’s just going to have to get used to it,” she says. She glares at my parents’ faces before turning back to me.

  “Get used to what?” I’m almost begging at this point. Please, make it, whatever this is, stop.

  And then my sister holds up her left hand, the slight twinkle of a gem dancing off her index finger, and all hell breaks loose.

  Three

  The voices coming from behind my parents’ bedroom door don’t even resemble whispers anymore. Full-out war echoes through the beach house's thin walls as soon as breakfast ends. They’re supposed to be at work—the family-owned gift shop that used to be Opa’s is a big part of why we’re here every summer. They took the day off to discuss.

  Livvy and I wait outside the door, ears perked up like it’s a radio show. Words I’ve never heard either of my parents say are flung with abandon, and they bounce off my ears like tiny rocks intent on shattering whatever semblance of a peaceful summer we had left. My mom starts sobbing, and I move away from their door because her tears are contagious. The deep vibrato of Dad’s voice overpowers her crying.

  “A promise ring…are you kidding me?"

  Livvy’s cheeks are red like she’s been slapped. I’m surprised to see her show any emotion at all, since she’s been too cool for virtually everything lately. Mom whisper-screams something back to my dad, but it’s unintelligible. This argument could go on all day. I inhale and turn to where Livvy’s buried herself in a pile of pillows on Opa’s reclining chair. Maybe she misses him as much as I do. She hasn’t said much, but maybe apathy is another part of her new personality.

  “Do you want to head to the beach?” I’m not in the mood for the beach, but I’d rather be anywhere else at this moment.

  She nods, and I don’t wait for her to change her mind. We leave behind our parents’ echoing voices and hurry out to my car with our swimsuits tucked under our arms. I scrawl a note letting our parents know where we are and to call us when it’s safe to come back and slip it under the starfish welcome mat before we go. We drive in complete silence. I’m too distracted to turn on the radio, and for once Livvy is too.

  The parking lot is nearly full. It shouldn't be this busy. I gaze out my window at the beautiful day outside—a rare breeze, not too humid, but hot enough that everyone’s dying to go swimming to cool off.

  “Perfect. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it was Saturday.” I slap a palm to my forehead and groan.

  If this summer were normal, I wouldn’t even be here today. I’d be hours away with Opa in a museum by now. Since last summer, he and I had been mapping our trip to as many semi-local art museums as we could find. He was going to help me find my niche. Now the trip is off, obviously.

  I sneak a glance at Livvy, but her eyes are glued to the window. She doesn’t care if I never find a parking spot because it’s not her problem. If I have to be at the crowded beach with my sister and all her drama, at least I can’t deny it’s a nice day. I reach behind the driver’s seat for my swimsuit and beach bag, but a loud hiccupping stops me. Livvy’s arms are wrapped around her head, but it’s still not enough to hide the fact that she’s a tropical storm in progress.

  “Liv?”

  I tread carefully because she may explode any minute. She lifts her head and a cascade of dark-brown curls falls over her face. Agh. I can’t believe I’m still jealous of her hair with everything else going on.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. Her voice is hoarse, even though she’s barely said a word since last night. “I didn’t mean to make everyone so mad. Now Mom and Dad hate me.”

  I blink. I’ve never heard Livvy apologize unprompted for anything before. And here she is crying in my car and actually taking some responsibility for the mess she’s caused.

  “Do you hate me too?”

  She meets my eyes, and I forget to hate her for a second because she looks like my little sister again and not the self-absorbed teen queen she’s turned into. Her lip quivers as she watches me. She’s waiting for me to fix everything for her, like I always do.

  “No one hates you. We’re just worried about you.”

  It’s true. I’ve caught enough of my parents’ latest argument to understand the root of their anger lies in their all-consuming worry about my sister. What if she runs away or gets trapped in an abusive relationship? I obviously don’t want any of those things for her either, but she won’t listen to me anyway, so I keep it simple.

  I take a deep breath and try to flash her my most supportive smile. “You can be in love. But be in love in a normal way. Be fifteen. Don't get engaged or...uh...promised."

  She rolls her eyes so far back all I see is white instead of her normal blue. The spell is broken, and she adjusts her self-granted, invisible tiara with a scowl in my direction.

  “You don’t know anything about love. You’ve only ever dated like one guy.
”

  I glare at her, but I don’t say anything because she’s so obnoxiously right. Met by only my silence, she gets out of the car and prances towards a group of teenagers crowded around the beach. I jog after her but come to a quick halt when I see she's running toward her boyfriend. Typical. Now I’m stuck chaperoning when I should be at home working on my college entrance essays. I drag my feet as I approach her group and wait for her to acknowledge me. She’s by far the youngest person there; everyone else looks like they’re my age or older. Someone in the circle reeks of pot, but I can’t pinpoint who, which means it’s probably all of them. Livvy ignores me until I scoot closer and bump her with my hip.

  “Claire! You know Evan, right?” She smiles up at him as he reaches a lanky arm around her waist and squeezes until a playful screech comes out of her. I wouldn’t believe the categorically happy sound came from her at all if I hadn’t seen her turn from sulk to flirt right in front of my eyes.

  He doesn’t smile at all. Instead, he nods at me without even bothering to focus his eyes on mine for longer than a nanosecond. Awesome choice of boyfriend, sis. I nod back, a barely discernible jerk of my head that hopefully conveys exactly how much he disgusts me.

  After another minute of lurking behind her new friends, I turn to tell Livvy that we need to go before Mom and Dad see the note and freak about us leaving. But she’s gone. I twirl like a manic ballerina until I spot her and Evan heading toward the tide. He’s strutting behind her, staring at her butt while she practically floats across the sand. Hiding at the beach is supposed to make things better, not exasperate them. I groan, nearly tripping over myself to catch her before she disappears entirely. Exhausted, I stop, hands on my hips, and channel my best Mom impression.

  “Livvy! Meet me back here in an hour so we can go home, okay?”

  She turns and grins, walking backward while swinging hands with her zombie of a boyfriend. “Okay. Sure.”

  I’m not buying her glittery smile, so I trudge back toward the parking lot and plop down onto the sand. I choose an area as close to the pier and parking lot as possible, so I can monitor everyone leaving, just in case Livvy decides to run off. I pull out my phone, since it’s all I have with me, and go to the notes section to jot down my art-school essay ideas. It’s not the same as really sitting down to work on them like I wanted, but I can make a little progress while I wait.

  Maybe I should be working on contest ideas, per Opa's brilliant plan for me. But like every other time I’ve sat down since we got the news about Opa, my mind is a frustrated map of grief and ideas are hard to come by. My mind wanders to summers at the beach with him and how different this one will be.

  Two summers ago, Opa surprised me with a new set of pens for sketching. We drove across the bridge to Anastasia Island and parked ourselves on the sparkling sand for hours. Opa napped on a giant towel under his umbrella, tan hat propped over his eyes while I sketched the mountainous dunes and the waving sea oats that dot them. When we went home that afternoon I'd excitedly pulled out my nearly full sketchbook to show my parents. They'd flipped through the first few pages before commenting how 'nice' and 'cute' my drawings were. When Opa found me in my room after dinner that night, he’d spent an hour devouring my work and pointing out his favorites. Then he’d put both giant wrinkled hands on each of my cheeks and held them there, looking at me like I was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Like I was art to him.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  I don’t realize how engrossed I’ve become in my memories until an unfamiliar voice snaps me back to the present.

  I squint up at the voice and shield my eyes from the sun. The boy from last night bends down toward me; he's wearing a frown. Right, his name is Foster.

  “Oh...uh...yeah, I’m okay. I’m just waiting for my sister."

  I am waiting for her, but she’s not the reason my eyes are beginning to water. My face must be too easy to read because Foster raises his eyebrows and shakes his head a little.

  “Want me to wait with you? You look kind of sad.”

  Before I can answer, he sits down next to me, stretching his bronze legs out in front of his body. Maybe he’ll be a good distraction, because it’s hard to want to cry over Livvy and Opa while he’s lounging next to me wearing nothing but swim trunks and flip flops.

  He nods toward my phone. “What are you working on?”

  My digital notepad is blank, even though I've had the app pulled open for a while. Unless I can somehow make an art project out of the stinging pain of how much I miss Opa, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish by the end of the summer.

  I sigh and tell Foster as much. He shrugs. "You can do it." Something small and black peeks from the underside of his arm. A tattoo. A pang of jealousy slices through me. Mom would never let me into the house alive if I showed up with ink—even something small like that.

  Talking about Opa isn't helping. The next best thing is talking about Livvy, but it's not great either.

  “If my sister isn’t back in thirty minutes, I’m going to have to hunt her down." I lean forward with my face in my hands, mouth turned down.

  He raises an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

  I nod. "We're only here today because she..."

  My teeth find my lip as I shake my head. "It doesn't matter, but she's in big trouble and my parents are flipping out. But now that she's run off again, they're going to completely lose it if I go home and she's not with me."

  Mom's face flashes across my mind, her eyes stretched to the limit, her mouth a grim slash across her face. Dad's silent disappointment. And it'll all be on me if Livvy's not there to bear the brunt of it.

  He bends his head over the sand. “I can relate. Your sister sounds like a few of my family members. A little too much sometimes.”

  My first reaction is to defend her, but I can’t anymore. I choke back whatever lie I was about to spew on her behalf. “She totally is."

  He nods. "I'm sure you love her anyway."

  "I do, but sometimes, it would just be easier without her. Today for example." I spit the words out much too fast and sharp, and I’m sure the heat creeping along my neck and ears is a visible pink.

  He raises an eyebrow, his lips pinched. "Oh."

  I've somehow said the wrong thing, because his shoulders stiffen at his sides.

  Seconds tick by like weeks until I think of something else to say. I point to his pocketless swim trunks. “Where do you keep all your cleaning supplies in those, anyway?”

  He throws his head back and laughs even though my joke is dumb.

  “I only clean the beach at night. During the day I work, and sometimes when I have a break—like today—I surf.”

  I smirk. “I thought I had you pegged as a surfer.”

  He laughs louder. We’re both overcompensating for my awkwardness, but who cares? How many times have I smiled since Opa died?

  “You don’t surf?”

  I lift a shoulder. Just the thought makes my stomach turn over. “I stick to safer beach activities.”

  He sees right through me. “Not a great swimmer, huh?”

  I shield my eyes from the blinding Florida sun and squint back at him. I could keep lying, but I’m afraid the conversation will end if I keep cutting him off, and I need the distraction more than I’d thought at first.

  “How’d you guess? My Opa, um––that’s what I call my grandfather—tried to teach me to surf when I was five and I got sucked in by the tide. He had to swim after me and pull me out. Ever since then I’ve spent all of my time at the beach on the sand, far away from the water.”

  “But the ocean is the beach. There’d be no sand without the water.”

  I roll my eyes and try not to wince at the stab of memories. It sounds exactly like something Opa would say. “My Opa felt the same way about the ocean. But we still did other things together. Like walks on the beach and bonfires and stuff.” It’s not like I’m scared of the water. My parents even made sure I took a few summers of swim lessons after
the incident. But after that experience of getting sucked into the ocean, I realized I’m more of a sitter than a swimmer when it comes to the beach.

  I stop and hope he doesn’t pick up on my sudden mood change.

  Foster frowns. “Is he still around, or…?

  My throat is dry. I’m not smiling anymore, and my words crash from my lips like a thousand bricks. “He died last week. He was sick for a while, though, so I guess in a way it was good. He had a heart attack. It was his second one, so he didn’t make it.”

  Hot tears slide silently down my cheeks, and I turn my head quickly to keep him from seeing. The weight of his arm pulls along my shoulders, and through my blurry eyes, I smile, just a little.

  “Sorry. That’s tough.”

  I nod. It is tough. I wipe my tears with the back of my hand, hyper-aware of Foster still touching me, his arm warm and soft but still foreign. I scoot away and run my hands through the sand. I don’t want him to think I’m giving off mixed signals. Or any signals at all. Being a nice guy is one thing, and flirting is something completely different. But I barely know the guy, so it’s hard to tell the difference. I don’t want to get his signals mixed up either.

  I heave a sigh and look around the beach. A quick glance at my phone tells me it’s past the time Livvy and I agreed on. Out of the corner of my eye, Foster follows my gaze.

  “Who are we looking for?” The “we” is not lost on me, but I don’t have time to dissect it because I don't see Livvy anywhere, and that’s not a good sign. I shake my head and push myself up to stand. I almost fall in my hurry to run across the slippery sand, but Foster’s hand catches me and steadies me. I should stop to thank him or at least fill him in, but I don’t have the luxury of maybe-flirting with Foster while Livvy runs off and gets into even more trouble. I shrug him off as I bound across the beach for the pier lookout. While I’m climbing stairs to the lookout, I call Livvy’s phone, hoping she’ll answer and give me a reason to end my stress-filled rampage. The empty ringing serves as a backdrop for my frantic running as I push teenagers and small children out of my path. I almost trip again. This time it’s over a toddler’s Barbie towel, wadded up in a damp heap near the boardwalk. Livvy’s voice picks up right before her phone switches to voicemail. My fear evaporates, and my blood boils hot under my skin.