Kissing Sam was everything the movies make a kiss out to be—magic and lights dancing behind my eyes and my blood rushing so fast I thought I was going to pass out. I already loved her like a best friend, but the second I kissed her, it became so much more.
I’ve never loved anyone like I love Sam. I would do anything for her. I want to make her happy and keep her safe and I wish like hell I wasn’t still just a kid.
I don’t want to say goodbye, even though I know moving is the only way Caitlin can keep our family together. But I wish I were old enough to stay in Maui. The entire plane flight from South Carolina, I’ve been daydreaming about us fixing up the old abandoned lifeguard lookout on the beach and living there with Sam. About what it would be like to come home to a place that was just mine and hers, nobody else’s, where no one could hurt us because it would be her and me against the world.
But now the plane is going down, and I’m going to get crushed into the tarmac like a bug on a windshield, and I’ll never see Sam again.
I swallow hard, but I can’t seem to force my spit down my throat, and the next time the plane lurches, my chicken dinner pushes against the top of my stomach, fighting to get out.
“It’s okay, D.” Sherry, Caitlin’s best friend, squeezes my hand. “We’ll get down safe.”
“Yeah, I know.” I pull my hand away and cross my arms.
I like Sherry, and I’m glad she was cool enough to let me fly back to Maui with her to say goodbye to Sam, but I don’t need to be treated like a baby.
I lift my chin and try to look bored for the rest of the flight, but by the time we land—bouncing back up into the air twice and swerving on the wet landing strip before the pilot gets the plane under control—I have red crescent moons on both palms from where my nails have been digging into my skin. I follow Sherry off the plane, my legs feeling like rubber bands that have lost all their stretch, and we head down to the luggage area to get the suitcases.
The airport in Maui is almost all open to the outside, so the wind from the departing storm whips against our skin as we watch the carousel spin and wait for the bags to get spit out. I check my cell every few minutes, willing the baggage people to hurry. I’m supposed to meet Sam at the Fish Market Restaurant, where we get fried calamari on the weekends, at four o’clock, and it’s already three thirty.
After what seems like a zillion hours, our bags finally slide out of the shoot, and Sherry and I head to the curb to look for her boyfriend, Bjorn. Outside the sun is shining again, like the storm that almost killed us was just a dream, and there’s a rainbow stretched across the sky above the sugar cane fields.
“There he is!” Sherry makes a squealing sound and jumps up and down, waving like an idiot, as Bjorn’s old yellow truck pulls up.
When he gets out, Bjorn has a big, dumb grin on his face to match Sherry’s. I try to stay cool, but I can’t keep from rolling my eyes when they kiss, making all these lovey dovey sounds, and cooing about how much they missed each other.
I may be in love, but I’m never going to act like those two.
They’re too barfy for words.
We load up and Bjorn heads out of the city of Kahului, toward the village of Paia, where he and Sherry live, and where I’m meeting Sam. By the time Bjorn pulls up in front of the Fish Market, I’m getting sweaty palms. Sam and I have talked and texted a ton, but I haven’t seen her in ten days. It’s the longest we’ve been apart since we met, and a crazy part of me is afraid things are going to be different between us.
But then I see Sam’s crazy, curly hair through the window, and she turns to look out at the street, like she can sense that I just hopped down onto the sidewalk. Our eyes meet, my stomach flips like it always does, and it’s like no time has passed at all.
“Be home by eight, okay?” Sherry says. “Bjorn and I will be looking for you. I promised Caitlin I’d be super tough about curfew.”
“Yeah, cool, thanks,” I mumble, but I don’t turn to look at her when I wave goodbye. I can’t look away from Sam.
Her blue eyes are sadder than I’ve ever seen them, and her skin looks so pale she must not have been to the beach for days. All I want to do is pull her into my arms and hug her tight, but we don’t do that kind of thing in public—we both hate couples like that—so when I reach her table I keep my hands to myself.