“You’ve never been to Wildwood?” I nudge him slightly with my arm, bringing those kaleidoscope eyes down to mine, where I like them best.
“Nope. Mom’s a Cape May type.”
“No!” I press my hand against my chest. Don’t get me wrong, Cape May is lovely and magical, but it’s for grown-ups. It’s candy-colored Victorian inns, interminable waits for brunch, and high-end beach boutiques. The magic of summer liveshere, complete with booty shorts and questionable aquariums. It’s rowdy and happy and cheap enough for folks to enjoy. Cape May doesn’t even have a boardwalk.
I stop dead in my tracks. “So that means you’ve never ridden the Runaway Tram Car?”
Julian frowns. “What’s that?” The real tram car, a yellow and blue institution, passes us then, car after car toting the drunk, elderly, young, and whiny up and down the boardwalk. “It doesn’t seem like it’s running away.”
I blink at him, then yank him by the hand until we reach the best roller coaster on the Jersey Shore. “Prepare to beamazed.”
“Oh, no. I don’t do roller coasters. Ever.”
“This one isn’t scary—it’s just fast and fun. Even little kids love it. You’ll be fine!”
Julian’s eyebrows raise in alarm. “I really have to do this?”
I stand on my tiptoes to whisper into his ear, “You do if you want to keep holding my hand.”
We both look down at our joined hands, his so much bigger than my own, and he squeezes it tightly. With a deep breath in, he follows me through the turnstiles, never letting me go. When we’re seated in the tiny blue car, and the lap bar descends over us, he checks my bar to make sure it’s locked in position, then his, then mine, this his, then both at once. Laughing, I take his hand back firmly in mine.
With wide eyes, he clutches me tight, and then the train’s off, chugging up the small hill before looping sideways into a quick downward rush, and Julian’sscreaming, louder than all the kids combined. But as the train lifts and falls, then dips sideways again, his screams transform into wild shrieks of laughter. I watch him, grinning, as he vocalizes more joy than I’ve ever heard him make, his eyes bright and glazed from the whip of the wind. Our train re-enters the station where we boarded, and he’s grinning now, too.
“That wasamazing, you were—wha?!” His words fall away as the train suddenly jolts forward again, beginning its second full lap of the track. “Again?!”
“It goes twice!”
I laugh into the sunset skies as my heart lifts and leaps, right along his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NOMI
The sun never wants to let go of a Wildwood summer’s day. The light lingers long after it’s set, the skies flaring from pink to orange to an electric violet lit from within. When night finally does fall, the ink black wipes everything else away except streaks of neon and the glow of bulb-lit rides chirping for money. The ocean is only visible by the suggestion of one, the roar of waves you can’t see until the moon finally rises, low and fat, wedging itself between dark water and darker air.
With sandals in one hand, and Julian’s fingers knotted in the other, I pull him gently down the beach toward the cottage. We lost the others after the Runaway Tram Car, but then again, are you really lost when you’re hoping not to be found? It’s easier, being with Julian alone. While Eve and Graham like him, too, I feel their smug amusement at my growing feelings when we’re all together. It’s the most embarrassing ofI-told-you-so’s. The one time your mother was right that the playground bully pulled your pigtails because he likes you. And a small part of me feels ashamed for forgiving him. Because I have—I’ve completely forgiven him. For the mean, judgmental things he’s said, for the way he fought the dispensary without understanding a damn thing about it. For the way he kissed me like I was the most wondrous thing in the world, then declared war on everything I care about most the next day.
But all those things feel small compared to how I feel about Julian now. He didn’t understand anything then, but I didn’t understand him, either. Every glimpse I get of how his mind works, of how strongly he feels, I understand why he did what he did a little more. It’s impossible to hate someone when you understand them.
I pause at the water’s edge, letting foam bubble between my toes. Julian’s face is turned to the sea. His strong features are softened by the dark, and he looks so pensive, it pulls at my heart.
“What’s wrong?”
A full beat passes, filled with the gentleshussshof the water, while he thinks.
“Your life is so full. It makes me realize I’ve been doing everything wrong.”
“Hey.” I pull him toward me, his hair lifting on the whimsies of the wind. “Your life is full, too.”
He releases a low, pained huff. “Full of work, maybe. Full of expectations that I kill myself trying to exceed. Full of anger and bad feelings and—and loneliness.” He swallows as his eyes meet mine. “But you’re doing it right. You have friends and a calling you believe in. You have all this.” His eyes sweep across the rebellious blare of Wildwood’s lights behind us. “And I didn’t even know it existed.”
“Come on. You knew Wildwood existed.” I smile, because it’s easier than letting his words inside the small, lit room of my heart.
“I didn’t know that Wildwood existed likethis.” Julian’s thumb runs lightly over my wrist’s pulse point. “And I don’t think it ever would have for me, without you.”
He lifts his other hand gently to my cheek, cupping it within his warm palm. “You make me realize how empty I was before I met you. And being with you, here, now, is the fullest I’ve ever felt.”
This time, I have no choice. The door to my heart slams open, and his words flood in, filling me with an aching, bittersweet relief that’s as difficult as it is beautiful, just like him.
