“What was that?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Louisa?”

“You know the whole time we were growing up, I don’t think you ever called me Louisa except . . .” Her voice trailed off.

He remembered.

It was the night of their first kiss. Their sixteenth birthday. Their parents had thrown them a party, and they’d snuck two extra pieces of cake and were eating them on the dock out back, their first moment alone.

They had a ritual of spending the last moments of each birthday together, eating cake and exchanging their birthday wishes. The wishes had to be written down—one of Louisa’s rules. Her other rule? They each got up to five wishes. He told her that was greedy. She said it wasn’t too much to ask since it had to last a whole twelve months.

She handed him a slip of pink paper, and he set down his slice of lemon cake with almond cream cheese frosting (Louisa’s favorite), then handed her his small piece of paper. She set down her slice of strawberry cake with homemade strawberry frosting (Cody’s favorite), and then she smiled at him.

That smile—it did him in. He had no doubt it could light up the midnight sky. He also had no doubt he was a goner. His little crush had become so much more, but telling her? It had been a dumb idea—misguided and foolish.

But it was too late, and he knew it. No way she was going to give his paper back to him now.

“Ready?” she asked.

He thought about all the previous years when they’d done this. His wishes had ranged from “Drive a dump truck” to “Visit Greece.” Hers had ranged from “See Justin Timberlake in concert” to “Live in Nantucket year-round.”

Every single one of her wishes was in a box in his closet, and he was pretty sure his were in that big old hope chest in her bedroom. And since they were always on Nantucket for their birthday, the wishes stayed here. As if that was where they belonged. It was their thing.

What if the words he’d written this year ruined that?

“Can I make one change to mine?” he asked.

“No way, Boggs,” she said. “Once it’s handed over, it’s a done deal.”

Louisa was his best friend. Was he making a terrible mistake?

“Here we go,” she said. “On the count of three.”

He nodded. She counted. On “three,” they both opened their papers. Cody’s was scrawled on a sheet of scratch paper he’d found by the phone in the entryway. Louisa’s was neatly typed and printed from the computer in her father’s office.

Louisa’s said:

Lou’s Wishes on the Day She Turns Sixteen

1. See the Rockettes at Christmastime

2. Convince my parents to get a dog

3. Buy a car

4. Tour Italy

5. Tell Cody how I really feel about him

Cody’s paper read: