I hadn’t realized I’d been biting the skin around my thumb. I took it out of my mouth, glancing at the raw and bleeding mess before I wiped it on the side of my denim shorts.

“Bad habit,” I said, my face getting hot. I must have been tomato red. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to say sorry to me,” Izzy said. “Maybe to your thumb, though.” When I didn’t laugh, he said, “Bad joke.”

He looked like he wanted to melt into the crowd of kids, too. Instead, he pointed up the street we’d turned onto, which didn’t have sidewalks, just like some of the neighborhood streets at home. The familiarity calmed me.

“I flipped over my handlebars right up there when I was ten,” Izzy said. “I literally skidded across the pavement on my face.”

My eyes wide, I couldn’t help but check his face for scars. The only thing I saw was enviably clear skin. I touched the painful mound on my chin I knew would turn into a pimple soon, then put my hand away, thinking of my mom warning me that touching it would only make it worse.

“Were you okay?” I asked.

“It hurt, but yeah,” he said, laughing. “Mostly I was embarrassed because I’d been trying to ride no-handed.”

“Uh . . . why?” I asked.

“Because Ella McDonald was watching.” It was subtle, but he blushed.

I rolled my eyes, thinking boys did strange things to get girls’ attention.

“My best friend did that once,” I said quietly.

“Tried to impress Ella McDonald?”

I sighed and shook my head. “She hit a pothole and went over the handlebars. But she landed in the grass.” I paused, scratching a horsefly bite near my elbow, remembering Colette. “She wasn’t riding no-hands, though; she was just terrible at riding bikes.”

“She’s luckier than I am, then,” Izzy said.

No, she’s not. You’re alive.

“When my family came here last summer, she came with us,” I said, following the kids ahead, turning onto Pine.

“Oh, yeah?” Izzy asked, pulling at the front of his T-shirt a few times to let in some air. “Why didn’t she come this year? Cooler places to go?”

Tell the truth and sound pathetic.

Tell a story and be a liar.

“Looks like we’re stopping,” I said instead, pointing at the Mexican restaurant with a porch overhang held up by two logs. It seemed like everything here was made of logs.

“Sweet, that place is killer,” Izzy said.

Karly announced that she’d buy us all chips and guacamole using the snack money our parents had paid with camp fees, then held open the door to the restaurant, smiling at everyone but saying an especially syrupy “Hi, Tess” as I went by. I took one more look around outside to make sure . . .

What? Stop doing that!