I kiss her, and she kisses me, her legs sliding against mine under the water, and we kick to keep ourselves afloat, spinning and grabbing on to each other, and I can feel the future coming for us like waves gathering far, far offshore.

I swim with the Grays and let Emma feel the soft hold of the water, and when I’m too cold to stand it, I head toward shore. Waves break against the backs of my legs, pushing me gently toward the beach. The Grays get out and stretch out on the beach in their underwear and bras and tank tops, soaking in the moonlight like the weirdos they are. They wave at me and shout as they get covered in sand. I run over and join them — they’re my weirdos.

Hawthorn gets up and starts drawing something in the sand with a long stick.

“What is this?” I ask as I get closer.

It looks like a bottle.

“Lie down inside of it,” June commands, and when I do, they press in around me, standing above me, their salty-wet seaweed hair dripping, their smiles crowding out the moon.

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask.

“You’re supposed to pull everything about this moment in and keep it,” Hawthorn says.

“That’s what Grays do,” Imogen informs me.

She’s telling me that I’m one of them. They’re all inviting me in. I breathe those words in deep and add the feeling of the sand under me and the water drying on my skin and the smell of California, balmy and soft.

“What if I don’t get to stay?” I ask, thinking of Mom and her threats.

“You’ll still be magical if you’re in Michigan,” Lelia says.

“And you’ll still have us,” June promises.

“But you should stay,” Rush adds, in that raw voice of hers that doesn’t even try to hide what she needs. I love that voice. I don’t want it to be a fading memory at the other end of a long-distance phone call.

I scramble to my feet. “I’ll be right back,” I say, already running down the beach. I reach the small pile of my clothes, and my skirt drinks in salt water as I pull it over my legs and find the lump of a cell phone in the pocket. It feels like a guilty swallow that I started taking hours ago, one that’s been stuck in my throat all night.

There’s something I need to do.

I take it out, turn it on, and start dialing the only number I know by heart.

“Mom?” I say, tears streaking my voice. “I’m alive.”

“Danny,” she says. “Danny, Danny, Danny.” And it keeps going, her voice reminding me who I am, and she doesn’t stop for the longest time.

Acknowledgments