Mae makes a startled, choked sound. “Micah—”
Drew starts to say something, too, but I beat them both to it. “If that’s the kind of person you think I am, then there’s nothing more we need to say here. So you can turn your ass around and go back to Logan Airport.”
“I…” Micah shakes his head. “Fuck.” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he looks back up at me I see what I feel every morning, when I first wake up, flash across Micah’s face—all that shame and regret, all those what-ifs. “I’m sorry. I’m just—baby, what the fuck is happening right now? We … you’re my … I don’t understand.”
“Is it true?” Mae says from behind Micah. She’s staring at Drew. I have never seen violence on my sister’s face before. I think she might hit him. “Are you the one giving her the pills?”
Her eyes, they are so big. Ringed with shadows. I hadn’t noticed the shadows before.
“I … was,” Drew says. “I’m not anymore. That was a mistake. A huge mistake.”
He doesn’t know what’s in my pocket. Just because he’s stopped dealing doesn’t mean I’ve stopped buying.
“You asshole,” Nate growls, stalking toward Drew.
Micah pushes in front of Nate, shoves Drew, his palms splayed across Drew’s chest. Drew’s hand falls out of mine and he backs up, his hands raised, as Micah stalks after him.
“Fucking right it was a mistake,” Micah snarls. He has become one of the mountain lions that live in Malibu Canyon. “So you saw Hannah and thought, what, that you could take advantage of her grief? Get her high and then do whatever you want with her?”
He launches himself at Drew, but Drew’s faster, dodges those tan fists.
“Stop it!” I scream. “Micah!”
“You’re scaring her,” Drew says, his hands at his sides. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“Oh, we’re doing this,” Micah growls. “You drugged up my girlfriend—”
I grab Micah, turn him to face me.
“I sat in that room with my mom,” I say, “and I kept hoping you’d walk through that door, Micah, and you didn’t. You didn’t.” I close my eyes. “It’s not about pills. It’s not even about Drew. Or the wave. It’s about you and me and her.”
I open my eyes, look at him. At this boy who broke my heart. I have finally, finally told him the truth. About the acorn. About me. The three of us.
“Her,” he says, his voice suddenly dull, all the fight gone out of him.
I nod.
Micah turns to Mae.
“I thought you said you didn’t tell her.” He steps closer to her. “That you’d give me a chance to make it right. Why the hell did you bring me out here?”
“Hey.” Ben is there, next to Mae, pulling her away from Micah. He’s so tall, his arms wrapping around her like the wings of a protective bird. “This entire thing is a shit sandwich, but you don’t get to talk to Mae like that. Ever.”
I look from my sister’s stricken face to Micah. “Tell me what?”
Mae is so pale I can see the veins that snake down her neck. She turns to me.
“I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice is small and trembling, kicked to the curb. “I was so scared. The pills and … I didn’t want to lose you, so I didn’t tell you … I should have, but … I didn’t know what you’d … I thought it would be another wave, Nah, another wave if you knew, and he said he loved you and it was a mistake and the wave made everything wrong and we all react in different ways to grief, which is true, you know, and I thought if he came, if you two … You said he was the Temperance card. Balance. I was trying—I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Her chin wobbles. I have never seen my sister cry. Ever. “I was trying to work the problem. I … failed. I should have told you.”
“About what?” I am yelling. I am yelling because I know. And all I can do is yell.
“About Cathy,” Micah says. “You said her. You said it’s not about the pills, why you’re with this dude. That it’s because of you and me and her.”
“I was talking about the baby,” I say. “So who’s Cathy?”
Micah’s tan disappears.
I walk past Micah. When I reach my sister, I stop.
She looks up at me, so small.
“How long have you known?” I ask.
“A month,” she whispers. “Thirty-seven days, actually, but—”
Nate steps forward. “Cuz. We didn’t know what to do. She thought you might kill yourself, okay? Seriously.”
I stare at him. “You knew?”
“We were trying to help you,” he says. “That’s why she flushed your pills. Why she invited Micah here. To help. To make you happy. She didn’t know things had … changed for you.” He gestures toward Drew. “You’ve been in a bad way, cuz. Bad.”
“So you both knew that my boyfriend was cheating on me and you let me think he … You let me keep planning to move back to LA and … What? Marry a cheating bastard because I’m too weak or—what? What?” I grab at my hair. “Why the fuck is everyone in this family a liar?”
“We’re not. We … we love you, Nah,” Mae says.
“No.” I shake my head. “When you love someone, you have their fucking back, Mae. You don’t let them stay with some asshole who is screwing some other girl.” My eyes fill. I think about Mom. Did she know? She knew. I think she did. She died knowing. Oh God, she did.
“I’ve had your back,” I sob. “You don’t know it, but I have. You think I’m weak, that I’m upset about Mom and Dad dying—well, yeah, I am, but that’s not all of it, okay? That’s not all of it, and I’ve been protecting you so that you can fucking get out of bed in the morning. I’ve been watching out for you, and you … you were going to let me stay with someone who betrayed me, someone who told me to get rid of my baby. Why am I protecting you, Mae? Why? WHY?”
I shake my head. Don’t. Don’t. It will kill her.
“What are you protecting me from?” Mae steps forward. “Nah … tell me.”
I turn away from her, wrap my arms around myself. Drew steps closer. I stare at the toes of his worn sneakers, the cuffs of his faded black jeans. I wish I could tell him that I broke my promise to him about the pills the day I found out my mother was in a pit. Because I’m in that pit, too.
Micah is behind me. I know it’s him, so familiar. The endless churning energy of the sea. He kissed someone else. Someone named Cathy. He slept with her. Maybe more than once. Because he didn’t love me enough. Or at all. I wasn’t enough for Mom and Dad. Not enough for Micah. Just Hannah. If the wave had taken me, would anyone have felt this empty about me being gone? Mom maybe. But she’d have Mae.
I think the world would be okay without me.
It doesn’t need me.
Just Hannah.
Just.
I wish the wave had taken me, too. I wish I’d been swept away.
Micah touches my shoulder. He’s wearing the watch my dad bought him when he turned eighteen, a twin to his own—we’d called them Indiana Jones watches because it made them look like gentleman adventurers. My gift had been a photographic flip book I’d made out of all the years I’d been watching him surf, my camera pointed at the sea. Hundreds of pictures that showed him devouring wave after wave over the past three years. We liked waves then. Thought they were fun.