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He nods and saunters over to the next item on the shelf. A framed picture of a woman at the finish line of the marathon portion of a triathlon.
"Is this you?" he asks.
"No."
"Who is it?"
"The winner of the Montauk Triathlon."
His head whips around to make eye contact with me. "Did you enter?"
"No."
"Hmm." He makes a noise that sounds like sarcastic surprise.
When he's done inspecting the small amount of personal items I have here at the summer house, he turns back to me. He's relaxed, like he doesn't care that my dad or brother could discover him at any moment.
"Do you like planning parties?"
"I like making money for charities."
"But, if you had your choice, what would you do?"
I'm not sure why I'm telling him this, but I want to say it out loud to someone. It's been silent inside me for too long. "I'd be a sports therapist."
His eyes widen. "Really?"
"I'd like to help the athletes, you know, they get injuries sometimes that can end their hopes and dreams."
"Are you going to do it?"
"No," I say softly.
He takes a step closer to me and my heart is pitter-pattering like crazy. "If you know what you want, you should go for it."
It hurts to hear him talk about my life like this when I'm so stuck here in this situation. "My dad needs me to do the charity work."
"Someone else could do that."
"He doesn't think so."
He nods and looks at the tiny hooks holding the lights up. There's a ton of them.
"Come dance with me."
"What?"
"You can't tell me when you hung this up, you didn't think of dancing in it?" He stands in the middle of my sunflower forest, the lights swaying where he brushed them.
"I actually, um, didn't." I cried the entire time I was hanging the lights. Each package I opened spawned a new wave of tears. When I was done, I wept because I didn't have any more lights to hang.
He holds out a hand, palm up. "Just for a minute."
I can't believe this is real.
I'm not even sure what song is playing, and my heart is in my throat so I can't speak. My eyes are red from crying, and I have zero makeup on. My hair is a straggly mess on top of my head, and Foster is standing in my sunflower garden with dainty bumble bee lights bumping his handsome forehead.
I'm scared to go to him, but I want it too. I don't know how my heart will survive dancing with Foster, but that doesn't matter. My heart is crushed anyway.
