Page 14 of Surfside Sisters

I wish I could spend more time with you. You and me, alone. I think you get me in ways no one else does. Because of your writing and my art, I mean. My pretensions to art. But more than that.

I think you’re beautiful.

I’ve written and deleted that line about ten times. I’m kind of hanging off a roof here, emotionally speaking, and I don’t know if you’ll grab my wrists and pull me up or step on my fingers. (You can tell I’ve been watching too many thrillers.)

So, can you do this? Email me and well, let’s have a conversation. And please don’t tell anyone about this, especially Isabelle.

XO Sebastian

Keely didn’t scream. She didn’t burst into tears. This moment was too profound for that. She sat there, reading the email over and over, stunned with joy.

She hit “Reply.” She wrote:

I think you’re beautiful, too.

She deleted that.Act like an adult,she told herself.Act like Sebastian’s email isn’t as miraculous as the creation of the universe.

She wrote sentence after sentence, deleting them all. Her parents came home. She shut down the computer and went out to help make dinner. She moved as if she were an imaginary Keely, a dream Keely—abeautifulKeely.

Later, she emailed Sebastian.

Wow, Sebastian. Thanks for the compliment. I’d love to have a conversation with you. I’m definitely ready to grab your wrists and pull you up onto the roof.

I think you’re beautiful, too.

XO Keely

She pressed “Send.”

Keely waited until midnight for a reply from Sebastian, but nothing came. Nothing the next day, either. Paranoia crept over her. Had Sebastian been fooling around, playing with her, and now making fun of her? She couldn’t concentrate on her homework. She couldn’t even eat.

Two days later, his email came.

Sorry not to answer sooner. College is tougher than high school. I don’t have time to do much but study.

But thanks for your compliment. Glad you want to have a conversation. Afraid it will be short now that I’ve been loaded down with course work.

Let me know how you are.

XO Sebastian

What?Keely thought. The emotional temperature of his two emails was totally different. Was it only college courses that made him shortchange his email? She burned to talk with Isabelle about this, but of course she never would. She never could.

She didn’t send a reply to Sebastian. She needed to figure this puzzle out. Days passed and her grades were sinking. She wrenched her mind out of its obsessive daze and forced herself to concentrate on her homework.

Isabelle was busy with homework and girls’ basketball. She and Keely talked and emailed, but Keely noticed a distance growing between them. Of course they didn’t have as much time because of school, but Isabelle was absentminded, even cold toward Keely.

Keely decided the entire Maxwell family was insane.

She wept into her pillow every night, when not even her parents could hear her.

—

The first Friday night in October, a gale force wind and a full moon slammed the island, exploding into the air with crazy ions.

Isabelle phoned. “Keely, come to Surfside with me. I’ve got to be there!”

“Pick me up now,” Keely said.

---