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Me: So, I bought the tickets, but he asked if he could use them for himself and the new GF.
Brooke: YOU bought those tickets? Meg, get on that plane now.
Me: I’m not sure I can. I mean, my hamster just died.
Brooke: Then you have nothing at home to feed. GO.
I’m chewing on my thumbnail and staring at Brooke’s message when another text comes through. A new thread.
Kyle: Come on, Meg. We both know you aren’t going. You don’t have it in you.
Kyle: Carma says—pretty please.
I drop my phone onto my bed, peering at the closet where my suitcase hides.
Okay Hawaii. Let’s do this.
4
Meg
“I don’t need that,” I say to Autumn, staring at my open suitcase that she won’t stop adding items to.
“Yes, you do.”
I stamp my foot, seeing my fence through my bedroom window and hoping I’ll have enough time to paint it when I get home. “I leave for the airport in fifteen minutes. And I’m not packed. Stop arguing with me!” I smack the back of her hand. “And stop adding things to my suitcase!”
Autumn stamps right back. She sets one hand to her hip and glares at me. “This,” she says, holding up my old one-piece, something already packed and ready to go, “needs to be recycled—or better yet, burned! You cannot wear that in Hawaii.”
And sure, it’s my high school swimsuit, a decade old, fraying at the ends, and slightly discolored from my one year on the girls’ swim team. But it’s still functional. Yes, the black suit is now a dingy brown, but I can still fit into it. It’s ugly—I get it, but it works.
“I don’t have time to buy anything new, and I won’t be seen in public in this.” I take her red bikini from my bag and throw it. Bullseye—it hits Autumn right in the face. Sure, I was aiming for her stomach, but either way, I make my point.
“You have to have a swimsuit!” she yells.
“Do I?” I never actually planned to put the brown atrocity on. I packed it to appease Autumn, and then she pulled out this strapless Barbie Doll contraption.
She huffs. “You’re going to Hawaii, Meg.”
“Am I?” Because she’s got me thinking that this whole thing was just one big dumb idea. Mom was right. Heck, I was right.
“Yes, shut up. You’re going. You’ve already decided.” She smacks my shoulder. “Don’t make me say, pretty please.”
My stomach rolls as she quotes Carma. “Am I a jerk? Who goes to Hawaii just so their boyfriend’s girlfriend can’t go?”
Autumn’s big brown eyes flick up in a dramatic roll. “Ex—your ex, Meg. That’s a very important word you left out. And Carma has nothing to do with this. She can go, she just has to pay her own way. My best friend isn’t paying for her trip!”
Only Carma does have something to do with this, even if Autumn makes a valid point.
It was Carma’s pretty please and my mother’s certainty I’d never go that drove me over the edge. That Hawaiian cliff of red bikinis.
“This is a little childish, don’t you think?” I ask. “It’s like I’m running away from everyone’s opinions. I don’t really care about everyone else’s opinions. I’m invisible. They go right through me.”
“You are not invisible, Meg. I don’t care what’s getting you there as long as you go,” she says, stuffing the red bikini beneath the rest of my clothing.
I’ll toss it out later.
Her hands fly to her hips, and she stares down into my bag. “And why so many books?”
