“I didn’t think anyone would be here either,” she said.
I waited for her to leave, but oddly, she came to me and sat beside me on the sand. For a while, we sat shoulder to shoulder. Then, one by one, she picked jam and cake from my hair, dropping it to the sand with a plop.
“Grayson is looking for you,” she said softly. “He looks like he’s about to start a fight.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek.
I just needed a minute to myself.
“I think that’s all of it.” She swiped the cake from her hands on her pale gossamer dress.
I’m going to get in a lot of shit for talking back to them. If anyone was going to throw a fit, it would be Aundi and Pipa.
As if Lottie read my mind, she said, “I’ll tell anyone who questions that I said you could t
alk. So…don’t worry.”
“Why are you friends with them?” I asked the question that had been burning my tongue for months.
Lottie’s brow wrinkled. “I mean, I don’t really get a lot of options for friends. You don’t really get options for…anything. This is who your friends are, this is who you’ll marry, and if you disobey…” She swallowed thickly, then blinked, like coming out of a dream. “Do you ever feel like this is the most you’ve ever needed a drink, but once again, fate is giving us the middle finger?”
She leaned back, elbows digging into the sand, one hand on her rounded belly.
I leaned back, doing the same. “Yup.”
We sat in silence, with only the sounds of the crashing waves. Lottie picked at her thumbnail.
“I feel like I should say something to you,” she said softly.
I laughed jaggedly. “Please don’t.”
“I just want you to know the world doesn’t believe you, my parents will lie and pretend they don’t believe you…but I do.” Her eyes slowly drifted to mine.
Tears clogged my throat again, and thankfully, Lottie looked away. After a minute of grinding my teeth and forcing the tears down, Lottie spoke again.
“Why were you yelling?”
I contemplated lying. I contemplated putting up a wall. I felt like Lottie and I were connected, and like how it had been with Grayson, we were the only ones who understood each other. I didn’t sense any malice from her, and I hadn’t for months. We were both stuck on this vine together, forced to poke each other with thorns when we would have rather cut the vine. Because sometimes, in life…we don’t get many options.
“Do you ever…” I stared out at the black ocean waves crashing on the sand. “Do you ever have deep fears that you’re afraid to say aloud? But once you speak them…it’s like…” I struggled to find the way to explain it. “It’s like saying Voldemort’s name. When you don’t say them, they fester inside you, and they get bigger and bigger, but when you finally speak them… It’s so silly, but oh my God. I feel so much better.”
Lottie was silent for a while. The music from outside bled through the hedges and into our air. When she spoke, I almost mistook it for the party.
“I have something inside me.”
I turned my head. “A fear?”
“A secret…and a fear,” she whispered.
“Maybe you’d feel better if you screamed it out loud.”
Her brow wrinkled, and she stared at her stomach, when Grayson’s pained yell tore our attention backward.
“Story!”
Behind us, Grayson stood on the empty beach, one foot forward as if about to sprint to me. The breeze spun his white shirt, giving a devilish glimpse of his golden abs. His rose gold hair whipped wildly around burning blue eyes.
I was standing before I realized it, my walk turning into a run. The minute I stood, he was already running to me, and we met in the middle. He crashed me into a caged hug.