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I open the envelope and see some pictures among the negatives. I can scan those and use them for the slideshow. I glance at the machine and huff, seeing the slideshow of Rylan’s and my pictures. Those were hard to watch. And because I’m clearly a masochist, I turn the machine back on and flick through the pictures.
I click past the ones from when we were in our early teens, handing out water at a race in Sunrise Bay when Rylan’s uncle was running for mayor. I went with my cousins Maverick and Jack, and I only agreed because I wanted to see Rylan. Since the double date that ended in us almost being arrested, I couldn’t stop thinking of Rylan differently—the way my hand tingled in his as he helped me out of the windows, or the time he had to help hoist me down because I was scared. I knew something had shifted because of the way my body reacted.
By the time we were fifteen, I tried to hide my feelings, but when Great-Grandma Dori asked me to pretend to be dating him as part of a ploy she and Ethel had planned to get Rylan’s brother, Xavier, with his best friend, I couldn’t say no. I land on the picture of that day—the two of us eating ice cream, hand in hand. It was the first time Rylan showed me he was so much more than a soccer jock.
Rylan and I were already in the gazebo, pretending to be a couple as Xavier and his best friend, Clara, drove into Lake Starlight. Dori and Ethel were really pushing them together after their friendship had had a falling-out a few years before. At the time, I’d thought it was cute how these two grandmas meddled in the lives of their loved ones because they wanted them to find love and happiness.
After they suggested we get ice cream and hold hands, I suspected we might be a couple they were trying to get together as well. But we were so young. Surely they didn’t want us to fall in love?
We were walking back to the gazebo when Rylan finally spoke his first word to me except for when he asked me what flavor ice cream I wanted.
“My dad is sick. Cancer,” he said.
My stomach lurched and I glanced at him nonchalantly licking his cookie dough ice cream. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, that’s why Xavier’s back in town. He hasn’t been coming home during off seasons much since he and Clara had a falling-out, but he’s helping my mom with my dad.”
I had no idea what to say and he looked so sad. I couldn’t imagine losing my dad. Even today, my dad and mom had gone away for the weekend and Great-Grandma Dori was watching us, but I knew they’d be home Sunday night.
“It’s weird, you know. He was always so strong and healthy, and now I see him struggling to walk up the stairs to bed, or sometimes I find him on the couch in the morning. He’s just not the dad I remember.”
He waited for me to step into the gazebo first, and we sat next to one another.
All the words I wanted to say were locked in my throat. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. His free hand was on the wooden plank of the seat, and I covered his hand with mine and squeezed, causing him to look at me. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
He nodded but said nothing.
“Did Aubrey tell you about her and Declan getting caught making out in his basement?” He changed the subject.
Although I wanted to help him talk through this stuff with his dad, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
I giggled. “Yeah, she told me.”
I didn’t mention that she’d also told me his hands were up Aubrey’s shirt, although Declan had probably already told his best friend. He’d undone her bra and it was the first time they’d gone that far. I hadn’t even had my first kiss yet, which felt embarrassing at fifteen.
I looked at Rylan and he smiled, biting into his cone.
“How many people have you kissed?” I blurted out the question.
The way his eyebrows shot up to his hairline when he looked at me, my cheeks heated and I wished I could take the question back. “Why?”
“I just wondered. I mean, Aubrey told me about how at your school, the girls really like you.” I’m not sure why she always wanted to tell me that, it only made me depressed, but I still denied to anyone who asked that I felt anything other than hatred for Rylan Greene.
He shrugged. “Not many.”
“So, like, under five?”
He turned in my direction. “Man, you really want details? Is this so you can call me a manwhore or something? Another arrow to draw at me?” The smile on his lips said he was teasing.
“Never mind. It’s none of my business.” I looked at my dad’s restaurant, where Xavier and Clara were being set up by Dori and Ethel.
“How many have you?”
I didn’t look back at him. “I asked you first.”
He slid closer. “Do you want to kiss me, Calista?”
I turned my head to face him. My gaze landed on his lips where his tongue slid along his bottom lip.
