“Hi, Sadie,” he says tenderly. “Ready to feel the sand between your toes?”
I smile, something like carbonation fizzing in my veins. “Let’s go.”
Then I turn off my phone again because how can I develop the main character in my own story if I keep letting the side characters distract me?
31
SADIE
I don’t closemy eyes. I open them wider, taking in the vast expanse of the ocean, soaking it in as the water rushes over my feet. My toes wiggle, soft sand scooping and spilling from their movement. The breeze seems to lift beneath my arms, as if I can sprout wings and fly over it.
I laugh, and it sounds light and full of oxygen—no restraint, no tension. No worry about what someone might think if they saw a woman greeting the sea with her hands held out, hoping the sea would hug her back.
I catch movement from my periphery, a bright yellow that stands out against the blue. She looks eleven, maybe twelve. Her body afloat as she smiles up at the sun, her skin turning golden from the rays.
My heart flutters. She is me—me before the world grew fingers that snatched away what felt possible. Before the world bared its teeth and showed its darkness. Before the world silenced, swayed, and made me small.
I feel him before I see him, his warmth crawling over my skin before he reaches me. Milo’s always had that power, even if he didn’t realize it until we’d grown up a little.
Milo was eight when he moved in with Joe. I heard therumors. His mom had left before he could walk, and his dad—well, as Joe told me once, his dad never learned how to be one. Joe never said it out loud, but I knew he blamed himself. He gave Milo everything he didn’t give Milo’s dad. Or at least, he tried to.
I met Milo at Vacation Bible School that same year. My mom was in charge, and she’d gently put her hand on my lower back and shoved me toward the boy with bright blond hair and blue eyes who wore dirty jeans and shoes that were untied.
I smiled at him when I reluctantly approached.
“Hi,” I said, clicking my heels together repeatedly, thinking about Dorothy and Kansas.
He looked at me, and there was something in his eyes that seemed different. Not like the boys I knew—the ones who tried to stick their gum in my hair or burp in my face.
“Hi,” he replied.
“I’m Sadie Summers,” I said confidently.
“Milo,” he answered, then after a few seconds added, “Carter.”
“Have you been to church before?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t know much about Jesus.”
“You can learn with me,” I replied.
“Okay.” His voice was timid and low.
I nodded toward his shoelaces. “Do you know how to tie your shoes?”
His face flushed red.
“It’s okay,” I said, brushing off his embarrassment. “I just learned a few weeks ago. Want me to tie them for you?”
Milo glanced around before he nodded and said, “Okay.”
I knelt before him, repeating the phrase in my head about bunny ears and holes, until I had tied both his shoes. “There.” I stood up with a smile.
He grinned at me in that moment, and I would never forget it. The way it stretched across his boyish face like a sunset that went on forever, warm and spacious. I was only eight, and yet this moment etched itself upon my very soul.
“Hey,” Milo says, and I feel the memory settle back into my bones.
“Hey,” I reply, turning to see him giving me that same grin now.
