Page 25 of The Last Thing You Said

“It’s a long story,” I say. “Complicated. And it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Okay.” Simon grows quiet. After a minute he says, “What about his sister? Are you still friends with her?”

I swallow. “She died.”

“Oh.” He drags out the word. “I’m sorry.”

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter.” The words rush out.

“If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be spending so much time looking over there,” Simon says, his voice light.

“Trust me,” I say. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” He stands up and drops a few singles on the table. “Well, I’m ready for you to show me the town. Let’s go for a drive.”

I stand up. Simon holds out his hand and I hesitate.

“Take my hand,” he whispers. “That will get your boy’s undies in a bunch.”

I can do this. I can. And it’s just for show, right?

I link my fingers with his, warm and soft and strangely comforting. We walk through the restaurant, and Clare winks at me as we walk past.

I get into the front seat of Simon’s car. As we drive out of the parking lot, it’s all I can do to keep my head from swiveling around to see if Ben has come out of the café and is watching us drive away.

“Where to?” Simon asks.

We’re headed north, out of town. “Keenan’s Cloud 9 Vacationland,” I say. “Take a right at the next stoplight.”

“Cloud 9? Sounds euphoric.”

“Oh, you have no idea. It’s this 1950s-themed campground with a water park and an outdoor movie theater and mini-golf. It’s impossible to not have a good time at Cloud 9.”

“Sounds weird,” he says.

I shake my head. “You’re not allowed to dis Cloud 9. It’s like walking onto the set of Grease. And maybe, if we’re lucky, Grease will be playing at the amphitheater tonight, too.”

Simon groans, but after we arrive, the smile doesn’t leave his face. He insists on paying for our two-hour passes, and we weave our way through the crowd—lots of tourists and a few people I recognize from school. We head to Blueberry Hill, the mini-golf course.

“I’m absolutely terrible at this,” Simon tells me as I hand him his club.

He is. There’s no other word for it. I’ve played this course a thousand times and could make par with my eyes closed, but Simon knocks the ball onto the next green, into the stream, everywhere it’s not supposed to go. At one point, we let the foursome behind us go ahead. But he laughs at himself, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and sings along (badly) to the fifties music at each hole.

We don’t bother to add up our scores. We walk back down the hill toward the Snack Shack. He buys a bag of popcorn, and we sit on a bench near the amphitheater.

“That was fun,” he says. “What’s up next? A Grease sing-along?”

I reach into the pocket of my shorts for my phone to check the time and my fingers graze the agate.

I think about the way Ben glared at us at the restaurant.

I want so badly to move on, to just be a normal girl playing mini-golf with her date.

I’m not.

“I need to get home.” I stand up and Simon does, too. I crumple up the greasy popcorn bag and toss it in the trash can next to the bench. “Long day tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah, me too.” He follows me as I walk toward the exit. “I mean, for starters, I’m planning to sleep until at least ten. Then I might hang out down by the lake.”