“It should be.” She snatched the magazine from my hands. “You think our parents know what they’re doing? You think they have some secret formula for adulting that we’re just missing? Because I’m telling you, they don’t. My mom told me last week that there are days when she still feels like a kid playing dress-up, pretending she knows what she’s doing. Some days, she calls my grandma when she’s overwhelmed, just to ask for advice. I’ve caught her in the kitchen more times than I can count, pacing with the phone pressed to her ear, whispering, ‘Mom, what do I do?’ My point is, we’re all just kids. Just taller, slightly more tired children. The sooner you come to terms with that, the easier it’ll be to breathe through all of this. Life isn’t about getting it right. It’s about figuring out how to fake it well enough to survive.”

“Well, that’s not the motivational speech I was hoping for.”

She grinned. “Too bad. It’s the one you’re getting.”

I huffed. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple,” Tiffany insisted. “You just make it complicated. Stop overthinking. Life’s a mess.”

I nodded slowly. “I guess I just thought that by now, I’d feel different. Like I’d wake up one day and suddenly understand what I’m supposed to be doing. But I still feel like the same person I was at twelve. Just…with more responsibilities and better eyeliner.”

Tiffany let out a breath, stretching her arms above her head. “You know what? We need a distraction.”

“A distraction from what?”

“From your existential crisis. And your terrible taste in men. Why take life so seriously if no one ever makes it out alive?”

“My taste in men isn’t⁠—”

“You’re not gonna sit here and mope all day. It’s almost June. You know what that means?”

I stared at her. “Summer?”

“Exactly. And what do we do every summer?”

“Stay inside with the AC blasting?”

“No, Bev. We swim.”

“That’s your big distraction idea? Swimming?”

“Duh,” she muttered. “Every summer since we were, like, thirteen, we’ve gone swimming as soon as it’s warm enough. And I know you haven’t been in the water since last year.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Last summer felt like a lifetime ago, like a version of me that didn’t exist anymore. Back then, everything had been normal. Back then, I could jump into a pool without feeling like something was missing. Back then, I didn’t have to wonder if I’d turn my head underwater and expect to see Blake swimming beside me.

“C’mon,” Tiffany said, batting her lashes. “We’ll go to my uncle’s place. No creepy old guys in speedos, no screaming kids. Just us.”

“I don’t even have a swimsuit.”

She gasped. “We are fixing that immediately.”

I groaned. “Tiff⁠—”