"Trust me. You can do it."
She shoots me some serious side-eye, but, still, she places her hands outside her shoulders.
"On three."
She nods.
"One, two, three."
She pushes herself up and jumps to one side. She lands for a hot second then stumbles off the board, onto the sand.
I catch her. "Great first attempt."
"How do you do this?"
"Practice."
"It's horrible."
"Suits me."
She laughs. "I guess that's true." She wipes sweat from her brow. "It's so hot like this."
"We'll be in the ocean soon."
"You have water?"
"Yeah." I dig it out from my bag and hand it to her.
She pops the lid and takes a greedy sip. She hands it over. Pulls her arm over her chest.
It's funny. That's the same gesture as Bree.
But that's about where their similarities stop and end. Iris is nothing like Bree. She's honest. Smart. Together.
Iris would never pull the kind of shit my sister does.
Her gaze turns toward the sky. "It's beautiful here, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Makes you think. You know, all that stuff about the ocean going on forever? How it never changes?"
"The ocean always wins."
"Yeah." She gnaws on her bottom lip.
It's like last night.
She's thinking something.
Hurting over something.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Maybe."
"Is that your go-to response?"