“I haven’t been disappearing,” I asserted. I glanced over to where Emily sat, staring gloomily at her shoes. Her small breasts stretched the elastic of her sundress, and I averted my eyes down to her skinned knees, mostly scabbed over. I didn’t tell my mom that Emily had found me and ruined my secret hangout forever, or that she was an annoying drama queen and a snitch as well. And I especially didn’t admit that I’d thought about kissing her more than once, and I intended to keep doing that, but I wanted to think about it when I was away from Emily, not when she was anywhere close by.

“I don’t have much in common with her anymore,” I said. Which was sort of true, and sort of not, but I didn’t know how to describe the strange middle ground where I’d suddenly found myself regarding Emily Swanson.

My mom was quiet a moment, but I felt her eyes on me, and I sensed something in her silence that led me to believe once again that I’d revealed myself to her though I hadn’t meant to. She reached out and ruffled my hair the way she’d done when I was very young. “Don’t grow up on me too fast now,” she said, and there was a note in her voice that almost sounded like sadness.

I nodded, concentrating on the dirt as I dug the toe of my sneaker into it. The raised voices of my dad and Mr. Swanson caught my attention and I looked up, watching as they spoke animatedly, Mr. Swanson waving his arms around as he gestured. “What are they arguing about?” I asked.

My mom sighed. “Oh, they’re not really arguing, just discussing the fact that the Henleys and the O’Rourkes sold their orchards.”

My head whipped back toward her, eyes widening. “They did? When?” Devin Henley and Andy O’Rourke were two of my good friends, their orchards part of the community of family-run orange groves—including ours and the Swansons’—that stretched for miles, often referred to as Citrus Row.

“Just last week,” my mother said, forehead creasing. “A development company offered far over market value, and they decided to take it and retire.”

Far over market value. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but if they were retiring instead of buying another farm, or going to work somewhere else, it must mean they were offered a lot of money. “Did they…did they offer us money too?” I felt funny, like the whole world had just tilted in some weird way, and while I didn’t totally understand it, I felt like I was standing slightly sideways.

My mother gave a thin smile. “Oh sure. But no amount of money could get me to sell our farm. You know that. It’s my legacy. And yours.”