“Do good work in there, kiddo. That’s one important arm you have,” he said, and then he blew her a kiss and drove off to his office, a few blocks off the main street.

The physical therapist’s office was next to Beach Buzz Coffee. After her session, she was supposed to hang out at Beach Buzz until it was time for tutoring, and she was really, really hoping Elisa wasn’t working this morning. Not after the other night.

Mitch had let her off right in front of the little market on the corner, where Mrs. Green sometimes sent her and Jeremy to get a lemon or an onion or something else she needed for dinner. Annabelle felt a pang of sadness as she thought of Jeremy, off in Boston and still mad at her. She wished she could send him a talking-animal video and make everything between them okay.

Could she, maybe? Jeremy wasn’t usually the kind of person to stay mad. He wasn’t like Mia, who could—

Mia.

There she was, halfway down the block, between Annabelle and the physical therapist’s office. She was holding some kind of iced drink from Beach Buzz and walking with two other girls. One was tiny, with bright blond hair that had pale purple streaks in the front. Reagan. So she had come to visit, like Mia had wanted. And the other was tall, dark-haired Genevieve, from the bonfire.

“Oh, look who it is!” Reagan said. “Hey, Annabelle! Genevieve was just telling us she saw you Saturday night.”

Reagan said it like it was some big happy coincidence. One of her loud, look-at-me laughs bubbled up behind her loud, look-at-me voice.

Genevieve messed with the straw in her drink. She glanced down at the sidewalk, then up at the sky, then across the street at the preppy store where summer people shopped: everywhere except at Annabelle.

So Genevieve knew, then. She and Ruby and all of those other girls knew that Annabelle had practically thrown herself at Connor when Connor had been there with his girlfriend! And now she felt guilty because she’d told gossipy Reagan, who thought the whole thing was funny.

And even worse, she’d told Mia.

“So Connor has a girlfriend, huh?” Mia said. “That must have been rough to find out.”

Her voice wasn’t all-out gleeful like Reagan’s, but it wasn’t sympathetic, either. It was sort of . . . satisfied. Like Annabelle had gotten what she deserved. Before, Annabelle had thought there was nothing worse than when Mia got all “poor Annabelle” pitying, but this right now was worse.

Mia was glad that Connor had a girlfriend.

She was glad that Annabelle wouldn’t ever catch up in the ongoing competition their friendship had become. This was how terrible things had gotten between them: Something bad had happened to Annabelle, and Mia wasn’t even sorry.

And now she and Reagan and Genevieve would go on with their fun summer day as soon as they said goodbye to Annabelle. Every once in a while, Mia might say something about how ridiculous Annabelle had been to think she had a shot with Connor. Or how happy she was that she’d made friends who weren’t so clueless. But otherwise, they’d do whatever they’d planned—go to the beach, maybe, and the Creamery. Or to play mini golf, except making up silly rules would probably be way too immature for the new Mia, so they’d play the normal way and take selfies at every hole to post on social media so everyone would know how much fun they were having.