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I nod, smiling at the geekiness of this shit. “Hufflepuff for you?”
“How did you know?” She narrows her eyes at me.
“I had you sorted from the second day in the cave.”
“Not the first?”
“I was getting Slytherin vibes before that.” I laugh at my lame joke, and she hits me with our joined hands.
“Likewise.” She makes a snake sound for that house’s mascot.
“So you’re a Hufflepuff. Who likes the colors green and purple, and likes reading. Favorite book?”
“Wuthering Heights. Followed closely by—” she cringes— “The Great Gatsby.”
“What’s wrong with those two? What would you rather have said?”
“Little Women. Harry Potter.”
“But you didn’t, because?”
She shrugs. “I enjoy a bit of drama.” A small smile tilts her lips. “A bit of melancholy, I suppose.”
We walk in easy silence for a while, trekking horizontally across what’s getting to be the middle part of the volcano’s wide base. We follow the trail up a set of stone stairs before starting back the other way, the ocean to our right now.
I watch Finley out of the corner of my eye. I catch her gaze on me a few times, too.
I think about the last question she asked: What was my favorite part of life in Boston? I’ve realized since she asked that I don’t know. Every month leading up to November, things got worse and worse without me realizing…and at the end there, I’d stopped doing everything I liked.
She tugs my arm, and I glance up to find a boulder over to our right, jutting out over the zigzag path below.
“Look out there.” She points out at the ocean. “Do you see that??
?
She hurries over to the boulder and tosses her bag down, digging in it frantically. “Hurry!”
I climb up behind her, taking the binoculars she hands me and focusing them on the water. “Are these…dolphins?” I squint.
“Whale dolphins. They’re two-toned, correct?”
I nod as I watch them jumping. “Black with a white belly, looks like.”
“That’s right.”
I watch them for a while before handing the binoculars to her. Then I watch her watch. She’s so damn pretty. She could be a model if she wanted to. Finally, she sets the binoculars in her lap and digs into her bag, smiling as she brings out a package of Pop-Tarts.
“Step up from an Atkins bar.”
She opens them and passes me one. I’m not hungry, but I never am. I bite into it.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You’re still feeling poorly. You like Pop-Tarts—you said so—but you look queasy at this moment.”
“Do not.”
She peers at the ocean out in front of us, and her mouth bends into a frown. “It was dolphins that took us to sea. That day,” she adds softly. “It was my birthday…and I wanted to see dolphins.”
It takes me a full second to realize what she’s talking about. Then I’m not sure what to say, what’s adequate. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Finley.”
