Good crowd, Mark had said when he was trying to convince Janine about the party.

Mark was Connor’s friend, and if there really was a good crowd at this bonfire, then probably Connor would be there, too. And maybe when Annabelle and Connor texted next, he’d invite her to come along. She got excited for a second before she remembered Mom and Mitch were barely letting her leave the house. There was no way she’d be allowed to go even if he did.

The next day, Annabelle was lounging in front of the TV when her phone buzzed with a text. She lunged across the couch for it hoping maybe it was Connor, but it was Elisa instead.

Hey Annabelle, Elisa had written. Kayla’s coming over tonight for pizza and movies. You should come too!

Annabelle smiled as she read the words. Elisa and Kayla didn’t have to be nice to her when she wasn’t even swimming with them anymore, but they actually wanted to hang out with her. And then her smile grew as she read Elisa’s next text, with her address.

In Bailey Sound. Where there was going to be a bonfire that Connor would almost definitely be at. That maybe Elisa and Kayla would want to go to, if Annabelle could only get permission to be at Elisa’s house.

Chapter 24

Mom was working an afternoon wedding, and it took about two seconds for Annabelle to convince Mitch she should be allowed to go to Elisa’s. He called Mom’s cell and somehow convinced her, too.

“We both think it’s good for you to have some time with nice friends,” he told Annabelle.

Annabelle knew how Mitch’s brain worked, so she was pretty sure she knew what else he was thinking. Maybe if she developed some good, wholesome friendships with girls like Elisa, who had pizza-and-movie nights instead of sneaking off to meet Connor Madison and sprain their wrists and fracture their thumb bones, Mom would think going back to the high school team was good for her after all, once she finally recovered. Maybe she could get back by the end of the season, before the South Shore rematch.

Mitch tried to make conversation on the way to Elisa’s, asking about how Annabelle’s wrist was feeling and whether she wanted to make s’mores at the little beach tomorrow night, and whether she thought his daughters might like a snorkeling trip out on Jeremy’s dad’s boat when they visited in August. It all felt pretty forced, though, so after a while, Annabelle turned up the radio and zoned out, trying to remember what it had been like to sit in her dad’s car when he drove her places when she was a kid.

She wondered if he still had the same car he’d had when she was little, that black Honda. If he still listened to sports radio and liked rolling down the windows instead of using the air-conditioning, even on the highway.

He must have gotten her letter by now, and she imagined him first seeing her handwriting, which was smaller and more mature than it had been when she’d last written him a card. She wondered if he’d been surprised to hear from her, since it had taken her so long to write. If maybe he’d started to believe she wouldn’t.