“Man, isn’t this the life?” Violet asks.
I turn my head to the right to look over at her and smile. “It really is. Hey, those glasses are really cute.” Large white frames, way too big for Violet’s face, sit perched on her straight nose.
“Thanks.” She grins at me. “So, did you see how Rich was looking at you yesterday when we were at the arcade?” She pulls her glasses down and wiggles her eyebrows. “Talk about cute.”
I laugh, but my cheeks heat. “Come on, he was not looking at me.”
“Oh, he so was. I think he wants another kiss.” She blows a kiss at me, and I roll my eyes.
“That was almost six months ago,” I reply.
“So because you’re seventeen, now you don’t want to kiss Rich Travers anymore?”
Truth is, Rich is cute and popular. But it just doesn’t go beyond that. “He’s nice and all, but there’s just no—you know—spark.”
Violet laughs. “Anastasia, not everything that happens in movies and books happens in real life. Sometimes there’s no spark but a nice connection.”
“I think I’ll wait for the spark.” Closing my eyes, I settle back against my towel, a smile on my face while I imagine the guy whom I will marry.
It’s silly, I know. I have my whole life ahead of me, but I seriously cannot wait for the day I meet the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Will he be tall? Handsome? Will he be a doctor? Or a police officer like Dad?
Thoughts of my dad used to dampen my mood, but lately they remind me of what a wonderful man he was. Seeing Pastor Reeves weekly has helped a lot, too. Knowing that one day I will see my dad again in paradise brings me a lot more peace than I’ve had in the years since his death.
“Oh!” Violet turns toward me and pulls her glasses down. “I heard about a party at Lisa’s tonight. You wanna go?”
“What time?”
“It starts at eight, but she said it’ll go all night. I think Rich is going. Josh, too.” She lies back and pretends to swoon.
“Sorry, I can’t. Curfew is eight.”
“Oh, come on! Mine is nine, but I’m going.”
“I can’t.”
“Sometimes I wish you’d break the rules just once,” Violet fakes a pout. “But I get it. And I love you anyway. I’ll tell you all about it. Maybe I can even get Rich to fess up about how he feels about you.”
“I’m good, thanks. Like I said, there’s no?—”
“Spark. I’ve got it.” She grins. “If you change your mind, I can pick you up at the end of your street at nine.”
A sinking feeling settles in my gut. I’ve never been one for breaking the rules, but Violet loves to bend them as she can. Since Weston and her mom both work at the ranch, they’re in bed nice and early so they can get up and take care of ranch chores. Will they know that she’s sneaking out?
“Hey, why don’t you skip the party and just come over? We can do mani-pedis, and I’ll put that color in your hair you love.”
“As fun as that sounds, this is supposed to be the party of the year. The decade, maybe. I can’t miss it.”
“Are you sure?” That twisting in my gut gets worse. I know it’s likely only because she’s talking about sneaking out, so I do my best to shove it aside and focus only on the warmth of the sun above me and the heat of the sand beneath me.
“It’s going to be life-changing,” Violet tells me. “You’ll see.”
As I prep lunch, my mood is still a bit on the low side. Last night was amazing. Sawyer and I danced for hours, ate pizza, and then lay on the deck and spent the rest of the evening looking up at the stars. It was the absolute perfect night.
But then that dream hit me. A memory that I’ve had to live with for a long time because I stayed silent when I should have spoken up. What would have happened if I’d just told Weston she was sneaking out? Or if I’d told my mom so she could call their mom?
Would my friend still be alive?
Violet would have forgiven me; that was just who she was. And at least, she would have been alive to hate me if she didn’t.
