Goodbye, Rebel Blue Hardcover (16 page)

Me. Nate cares about me. A strange wave of something light and electric washes over me, and I steady myself on my shovel.

After the last ceramic tile is in place, I rinse my shovel in a shallow inlet and take it to Bronson’s Mustang. Nate stands at the trunk—shirtless—loading the supplies. A small gold cross dangles from a chain around his neck. Mud streaks his arms and legs, and sweat dampens the waist of his sporto shorts, a look that totally beats his funeral suit. I almost drop my shovel before I can slip it into the trunk of Bronson’s car.

“You need a ride, Nate-O?” Bronson asks as the other three club members climb into the sports car. He says nothing to me. “We can make room for you.”

“Nope.” Nate grabs his shirt from a fence post. “Reb and I have one other thing to do.”

Bronson scans me from head to toe, and I feel every bit of cracked mud and dried sweat. Unlike Nate, I don’t rock the sweaty-construction-worker look. I pick a line of mud from my fingernail and blow Bronson a kiss.

After they drive off, Nate grabs my hand and takes me out of the mudflats and along the boardwalk. His pace is unhurried, his sun-bronzed face relaxed. He loves it out here. Like me. When I first arrived in Tierra del Rey after Mom’s death, I spent hours at the beach. Aunt Evelyn thought I was trying to avoid the family, and she even took me to a counselor, who finally helped me convince her that I simply love the sand and water and wide-open spaces.

At the end of the boardwalk, Nate pulls me into a boat rental shop managed by one of his friends.

When he sees us, the friend drags out a long, narrow boat.

“Kayaking?” I ask. “We’re going kayaking?”

“Better than kayaking.” Nate slides the boat along the sand toward the ocean, and I remember another item from the “fun” section of Kennedy’s bucket list:
Ride in a gondola in Venice, Italy, with the love of my life.

I dig my toes into the cool sand. Nate Bolivar is certainly not the love of my life, and I’m not headed to Italy, but the kayak is a long, skinny boat, much like a gondola. It could work.

“Reb, you good to go?”

I almost laugh out loud at the goodness washing over me like sunshine. It’s good, all good.

Nate and I carry the kayak to the swash zone, where we both rinse off mud and sweat. He holds the kayak steady as I climb into the backseat, and soon we’re paddling through the harbor. Mr.

Athlete’s strokes are fast and smooth, and I watch the bunch and stretch of his arm and back muscles.

Soon I fall into a nice rhythm with him.

We glide past a kelp bed, and Nate shifts his body and points to a harbor seal sunbathing with her cub. The sun glints off his hair, painting it with streaks of gold. If Bella’s Discount Beauty Supply could bottle that color, they’d make a million. “Now ready to see something that’ll take your breath away?”

You’re doing fine, thank you very much.

We paddle past the mudflats to a rocky cliff. Dozens of pelicans nest on the jagged face, most squawking as we draw near. Nate taps my leg and points to the shallows, where a pair of narrow, shadowy figures glide. “Leopard sharks,” he says quietly but keeps paddling.

The cliff face grows closer, blocking out the sun. My hands tighten around the paddle bar. “Hey, we’re going to cr—”

Nate angles the kayak and sends us into a fissure in the cliff, the opening so narrow, I can reach out with both arms and touch the sides. The air cools and darkens. I slip off my sunglasses. The sea is a black mirror. Nate continues to paddle, steering us through a twisting passage. The air grows heavy, dank, and the ceiling slopes. Nate’s hair brushes the top of the cave, and the walls close in on us so tightly, we can’t use our paddles. Nate pushes off the sides of the cave with his hands.

We round one more bend and burst into a sea of brilliant light. Above us stretches blue sky. The boat glides along on a pane of sparkling blue glass. Fish, neon blue and yellow and green, play beneath the glassy water. I breathe deeply.

Nate tilts back in his kayak seat and crosses his arms over his chest as if he’s watching a movie.

“I call it God’s Masterpiece.”

I’m too busy marveling at the light-filled cavern and bright blue water to argue the ludicrous name. “I’ve lived here six years and come to the beach almost every day but never knew this existed.”

“We’re not supposed to be in the sea caves without a licensed guide. It can get pretty dangerous out here with the tides, but no worries, we have a good hour before the water level starts to shift.”

I’m not worried. Nate has everything under control.

A school of long, silvery fish dart under the kayak. A trio of sunny orange fish tumbles by like a bowl of spilled fruit. Nate swipes the water with his paddle, and we glide toward a rocky shelf. On it sits a constellation of sea creatures. Starfish and flowerlike anemones, hundreds of them. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” I say on a rush of air. “I wish I had paint and paper.”

“How about a photo?” Nate’s fingers brush against mine as he holds out his phone, and I can’t help but remember the warmth of our intertwined hands and his words.
I like you, Rebel
. Heat rushes along my neck. Nate presses the phone into my hand, but my fingers fumble. The phone tumbles toward the water.

Nate lunges across me and rescues the phone before it hits the water. On his way back to his seat, he pauses for a half second. His head dips, and he brushes his lips across mine. A single kiss, as swift and fleeting as the rainbow of fish below.

So many colors in the water. Colors in my head. Bright and silvery and flashing. A different shade of confetti light.

I open my eyes. Nate sits in his seat, his eyes looking everywhere but at me, his hand worrying the side of his hair, now ruffled. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He fumbles with the paddle. “I told myself I wasn’t going to do that. I’m sorry.”

I dig my paddle into the pebbly bottom of the sea cave, steadying the rocking kayak. I wait until he finally looks at me. “I’m not.”

“WHAT’S YOUR TIME?” PEN ASKS FROM HER PERCH on the top step of the bungalow’s front porch. Her backpack and gym bag sit at her feet.

I press my palms against the small of my back and walk up the brick path. I breathe deeply, forcing the cool, early-morning air into my lungs. “Nine. Forty. Two.” My hair hangs damp against my neck, and there’s an ache in my chest. My body feels spent but good, a nice buzz tingling along my limbs. I’ve been running every morning for two weeks, pushing myself to go farther and faster each time, and I’ve smoked only six cigarettes in twelve days. Ms. Lungren would be proud of this lifestyle change.

Pen plucks at the paper crane dangling from the zipper pull of her backpack. If she glanced at me, I wonder if she could see the other change—if she could tell that I’d kissed Nate. Nate’s kiss had warmed me to the tips of my blue hair. It made me forget about failing math grades and a dead girl’s bucket list. It felt right.

A yellow VW Bug with daisy hubcaps pulls up in front of the house. The driver, a Cupcake, honks. Pen straightens the crane’s wings. “So here’s the deal.” She unfolds and refolds the crane’s tail and doesn’t say anything else.

I lift my hair, letting the breeze fan my neck. “Sometime this decade would be nice.”

Pen stands and heaves her backpack, crane and all, onto her shoulder. “With Kennedy gone, we’re down a member on the track team. We have two more meets and regionals. After doing the math, it’s clear that if we want to go into regionals as top seed”—she sighs and finally looks at me—“we need another body.”

The post-run buzz bubbling through my veins ices. “Pen, I’m not a runner, and I’m certainly not a team player. Can you say ‘soccer’?”

Aunt Evelyn made me play soccer the first year I was here to help me “make lifelong friends and get physically fit.” I joined Penelope’s club team of little soccer superstars who’d been playing since being drop-kicked from the womb. At first I loved soccer. I loved running and booting the ball. I loved how the lead scorer performed a funky little dance every time she made a goal, and I couldn’t wait to show everyone my funky little dance. But there were so many rules and flags and whistles that no one bothered to explain, and I never got to perform my happy I-made-a-goal dance, not even when I kicked the ball through the posts for my first and only point. Unfortunately, I’d kicked the ball into the other team’s goal. Coach pulled me from the game, and my teammates snickered and started calling me Wrong-Way Reb. Cousin Pen was mortified.

“Track-and-field isn’t like soccer,” Pen says. “In soccer, if you score more goals, you win. In track-and-field, it’s a numbers game. We need to participate in X number of events with Y number of people and earn Z number of points.”

“You know I suck at math, right? Plus, there’s the little fact that I’m not a good runner.”

“I know that. We don’t need someone to make the final rounds. We just need another body to replace Kennedy Green so we can max out all of the events. All we need for you to do is show up.”

She fiddles with the strap of her backpack. The crane twitches, as if it’s having an epileptic fit.

I savor the moment. Squirm, Pen, squirm, for you are not in charge. She’s not showing me around
her
school, introducing me to
her
friends, or ordering me when to fold my hands in
her
church. She’s not telling me which dresser drawers to use or lecturing me on how the family opens Christmas presents. With the toe of one running shoe, I push on the heel of the other and kick. Pink leather flies

across the porch, and I wiggle my toes. For the first time in her life, Cousin Pen needs me.

We should probably help her.

My toes dig into the heel of my other shoe.
This is none of your business, Kennedy
.

You’re pushing me away again.

I slide off the shoe and lob it across the porch, wishing I could do the same thing with Kennedy Green, but she’s wormed her way into my head. I hear her daily, which makes sense, given that I haven’t missed a daily random act of kindness. With a growl, I yank off my socks. Joining the track team would qualify as a random act of kindness. Hell, it would be the extreme edition of random acts of kindness. Doing a favor for Pen. Running with the Cupcakes. Wearing the dorky little sporto outfit.

I shiver.

The Cupcake in the driveway honks again.

Pen stops fiddling with her backpack, and the crane stills. In her stillness, she’s nothing like the shouting, stabbing, quivering girl who accused me of causing damage and destruction to everything I touched. During the past week, she scooped me off the pavement and gave me pink shoes. There’d been peace in the bungalow. Plus, she had to go and mention Kennedy Green.

“Just show up?” I look at my shoe leaning against the screen door, as if it’s trying to escape this crazy conversation.