“Oh. Uh, I didn’t…”
I’d just assumed Noah would tell her.
And honestly? I’d been trying to avoid this exact conversation.
“How are you doing, honey?”
“Oh, sure. I’m fine.” I returned her smile to prove it. “Fine” was pushing it a little, but I was taking it better than when I broke up with him last year. “I guess maybe I should’ve seen it coming. Even without the distance, like this summer, it’s not been smooth sailing all the time. But, yeah, I’m okay. Is Noah, um…is he…doing okay?”
June glanced away, looking through the doors at him. “He’s hurting, but if you don’t mind me saying, I think maybe it’s for the best. For both of you. College is a huge change. And you guys…” She clicked her tongue. “I think it’s fair to say things have gotten a little intense from time to time. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you’ll both have a little space to figure a few things out on your own.”
Intense was putting it mildly.
But June seemed to know what she was talking about, and I didn’t really have much reason to argue—especially since I hadn’t fought against the breakup—so I just nodded.
“And obviously you know that, whatever happens, you’re always part of the family, Elle.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks, June.”
She squeezed my hand again, and I bumped my arm against hers gently.
“And, Elle.”
Oh no. She was back in serious mode. What now?
“Do you mind if I ask you something?”
This had really better not be about Noah. I got the impression she was going to ask me anyway, but I nodded and said, “Sure, go ahead.”
“Do you really want to go to Harvard?”
I let out a long breath, surprising myself when it turned into a laugh. “You want the honest answer? I really don’t know. Noah made a pretty good point about me applying on a whim, and now I feel kind of bad about turning down Berkeley and Lee…”
“The thing is,” June said slowly, cautiously, “all this time you’ve talked about college, I’ve never once heard you say what you actually want to study, or what it was about a school that made you want to go there. I know Berkeley has ties to me and your mom, and obviously Noah was the pull for Harvard, but I’ve gotta wonder if you only ever applied to the schools you did because that was what you thought other people wanted, instead of what you wanted for yourself. It’s all well and good applying for schools because of the people you love, honey, but loving Lee and Noah has nothing to do with what you want to do with your life.”
Berkeley had always been the dream school. It wasn’t too far away and it was where our moms went, and like Noah had said, it was where Lee and I had said we wanted to go as soon as we were old enough to know what college was.
Harvard, on the other hand, was anybody’s dream school. Shouldn’t that have been enough?
“Noah said something kind of like that, too,” I confessed.
She smiled, as if she wasn’t too surprised to hear it, and I wondered if they’d talked about it—about me—together.
“Maybe it’s time you start thinking about what you want, Elle. What you need. Figure out what you’re passionate about and pick a school that suits you. Everything else…well, you can figure all that out afterward. If it’s that important, it’ll work itself out.”
“You think?”
June gave me a wide, warm smile. “I know.”
I had to look away from her, hunching over my coffee instead. How could she sound so confident? I’d spent weeks—months—agonizing over college applications. I’d gotten myself into such a frenzied crisis mode that Levi had had to come and talk me down from it. I wanted to go to college, I knew that much.
But June had a point, just like Noah. I hadn’t applied to anywhere that I’d picked just for me.
Lee had already come to terms with going to college without me. Noah and I had broken up. Maybe it was about time I was really, properly selfish and picked something that suited me and the future I wanted and didn’t take either of the Flynn brothers into consideration.
Except…
“That all sounds like really great advice,” I told June, “but there’s one little problem.”
“What’s that, honey?”
“I have no freaking idea what I’m passionate about.”
June laughed, sipping her coffee. “Oh, you’ll get there, sweetie. I’m not saying you need to decide now what you want to do with your life—God knows your mother and I had no idea, and she applied to about thirty different jobs before she found one she liked the sound of. But it’s worth thinking about what you might like to do. Working with kids, running a business, journalism…” June leaned back to squint thoughtfully at me. “I could see you doing something creative. Something crazy. Look at what you guys did with the kissing booth! The whole summer bucket-list thing! Just look at what you did with race day!”
It was my turn to laugh now.
“What, you think I’m going to make a career out of Mario Kart?”
“Well, hey. You never know. Stranger things have happened.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Our final days in the beach house were either miserably somber or we were almost manic in our mission to make the most of it. Everything from near-silent days as we moved around, packing things up, to a midnight feast our final night on the beach, which ended in Amanda going skinny-dipping and then immediately regretting it. She shrieked that she was “freezing her ass off” and raced all the way back to the house, butt naked.
On our last morning at the beach house, it was a somber kind of day again.
I’d been back in my old bed, sharing the room with Amanda, these last few days while Noah was back—it seemed silly to make him stay on the couch or for him to keep making the drive back and forth between the beach house and his parents’ place. This morning, I crept out of bed before Amanda woke up and went to make myself some breakfast.
I stood in the kitchen, not tasting any of the Froot Loops I was slowly munching on, and surveyed the place.
It felt so wrong.
The cupboards were almost empty. Boxes sat piled up, half full and waiting to be closed. The couches looked so bare without the colorful assortment of old throw pillows and blankets. Noah had taken the TV home two days ago, leaving a gaping space against the wall. We’d scrubbed the floors to within an inch of their life, but I didn’t think they’d ever looked so old and worn. And despite all our efforts to be careful, they were already sprinkled with sand again. All the walls had been repainted. They looked too clean, too bright.