“She’s not disappointed, Natalie, she’s sad for you. We all are. Which is why I’m going to get you super dressed up and take you out to show him what he’s giving up.”
“I think he knows.”
She sighed. “Do you really not want to go?”
Chewing my lip, I thought hard about her question. Did I want to see Mason? Of course. Still, my stomach felt like it was being squeezed by Hulk fists anytime I thought about it. Because if I saw him, I would want him, and for the first time in two years he wasn’t mine.
But I couldn’t spend my whole summer mourning him, even if that was the easy thing to do. I’d have to face him sometime, and maybe he would see me and realize he’d made a mistake.
“You have any magic makeup in there to make me look better than his new girlfriend?”
Willow grinned, waving her hand at me. “Oh please. Like anyone can out-makeup me.” She winked and grabbed my hands, pulling me up off the bed and into the bathroom. I stared at the photographs I’d taken on our family vacation to Hawaii a few years ago as she prepped everything on the counter. The images of the straw huts and fires on the dark beach always soothed me.
Photography was my passion. It had been for longer than I could remember. I was the lead photographer for the yearbook all through high school and I had more digital files of my friends and hometown on my computer than I had hard drive space to store it. It was the one and only thing that made me feel comfortable and safe.
Other than Mason.
Who I didn’t have anymore.
“Can I take my camera tonight?”
Willow dabbed foundation below my eyes. “If you want to. You have about a million photos of all of us out at Hay Stacks, though.”
“I know. It just makes me feel better to have it with me.”
She chuckled. “You’re kind of weird, Nat. But I love you anyway.”
“I love you, too. Thanks for this,” I said, gesturing to her spread. “I know you guys are right. I’m scared, but I know I can’t hide forever.”
Willow smiled, outlining my eyebrows with a light pencil. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”
I tried to return her smile, but it fell flat and I settled my vision on a photo of Mauna Loa, instead.
That was the first moment where I felt the shift.
There was something about that summer that would change me, it was already beginning, and a part of me knew it. It was like I was walking in the dark toward a distant light, but I couldn’t drag my feet fast enough to figure out what it was. I could only think about one thing at a time, and that night, it was about being in the same place with the boy who had broken my heart just one week prior. I wanted to be prepared, I wanted to be confident, I wanted to be okay, but the truth of the matter was that I just wasn’t.
I was far from okay.
• • •
Two hours later, I wiped my sweaty palms on the harsh fabric of my jeans as Willow and I weaved through the weekend crowd to Hay Stacks. Crowds were never my thing, but I felt particularly uneasy that night and Willow sensed it. She held out her arm and I looped mine through hers, clinging to her like a lifeline the closer we got to the bars.
The Crawl was a small strip of clubs, bars, and restaurants near the Poxton Beach boardwalk and pretty much the only place to go out within a thirty mile radius. It was always crawling with tourists, but locals were there in heavy crowds, too. Poxton Beach was the second best tourist spot in South Carolina, right behind Myrtle Beach, and The Crawl was just about the only adult entertainment in the town. Everything else was very family-focused, just the way Dale’s ancestors wanted it.
Even though I had just turned eighteen in November, I had been to The Crawl more times than I could count. Hay Stacks and a few other bars were eighteen and up, which made them favorite spots for my group of friends on the weekends. When we weren’t at The Crawl, we were throwing house parties or bonfires on the beach.
Still, on that night, my stomach lurched when the neon sign for Hay Stacks came into view. It was the only country bar at The Crawl and though I loved country music, I was the exact opposite of excited to be there. I knew Mason would be inside, probably at the same bar he had kissed me at the night after homecoming, and I had a pretty good hunch he wouldn’t be alone. Willow tried to soothe me with her never-ending flow of wise words and clichés, but nothing she could say could make me want my couch any less.
“If you don’t loosen your grip, I’m not going to have an arm left for them to slap a wristband on,” Willow said as we reached the doors. The twangy music was spilling out onto the strip and I swore I heard Mason laugh through the noise.
“Sorry,” I murmured, removing my hand from her arm and stretching out my fingers as she rubbed the spot I’d been holding fast to. My nervous hands reached for my camera next, and once they found their comfortable placement on either side of the sleek, black object, I immediately felt a subtle calm wash over me. I idly ran my thumbs up and down the cool metal. “I don’t think I can do this, Lo. Everyone is going to judge me.”
“Try being one of only three black girls in the town, Nat. Trust me, you’ll get used to it.” She winked and I shook my head, smiling a little. She was exaggerating, of course, but not by much. Poxton Beach definitely wasn’t known for its diversity and Willow stood out both with her skin color and her personality. She was confident, smart as hell, and usually the life of the party.
So basically, she was my polar opposite.
Still, I trusted her more than anyone. I questioned a lot of my friendships in Poxton Beach, but never hers. She liked me before we were old enough to realize money meant something in the world. It wasn’t that I thought my friendships were fake, but after graduation and the lack of phone calls from friends to see if I was okay, I wondered if all the people who claimed my friendship actually wanted it. Maybe they just wanted the privilege that went along with it.
If only they knew everything that went along with it. The Poxton name was splattered all over that town, on everything from the local pharmacy to the bank and everything in-between. I couldn’t even walk into a convenience store to get a pack of gum without everyone knowing who I was. There were eyes on me at all times, and that was more pressure than I knew how to handle most of the time. I wasn’t born a Poxton, I was married into it — and sometimes I felt like I let Dale down.
Like right now — when I couldn’t even handle a stupid break-up.
When I started chewing my lip and clicking the shutter buttons on my camera, Willow realized how shaken I was. She inhaled a deep breath and pulled me to the side of the building, away from the crowd waiting to get in.
“Listen to me, Natalie,” she said, her hands finding my shoulders as she leveled her eyes with mine. “Mason made a huge mistake letting you go, and I know he’ll recognize that some day. I’m not going to lie to you and say it’ll be tonight because it probably won’t be. If I had to bet money, I’d say he’s going to have that new brunette Barbie hanging around his arm and he’ll likely pretend like you don’t exist or like nothing happened between you two at all and everything is normal. Either way, don’t let him get to you. Hold your chin high and walk in that bar like you haven’t been fazed at all. Take illegal shots out of this flask with your best friend and dance until those cute red boots of yours shred to pieces.” Willow smiled, holding up her favorite, sleek black flask, her bright white teeth glowing against her dark skin in the neon light of the bars. Her long hair was still braided to one side, elongating her face even more than usual and reminding me how flawless my best friend was. I put her in the same category as my mother — effortlessly beautiful.