Anger.

She was angry with herself, yes.

But she was angry with Connor, too.

Sorry, he’d texted.

Well, she was sorry, too. She was sorry for the version of herself who’d heard Connor say she was all grown up when she stepped out of the pool that day and gotten so excited about what that might mean.

And she was sorry for rosy-cheeked Caroline, all snuggled up next to Connor on the bus right now, with no idea how he treated other girls.

She thought of Connor running over to congratulate her after her second meet with the team. Rushing so he wouldn’t miss her, with his goggles pushed up against his forehead and those red goggle indents ringing his bright green eyes.

She imagined herself grabbing the front of those goggles, pulling as hard as she could, and letting them go—snap!—so they’d smash right into his handsome, flirtatious, confident, charming face.

Then she closed his last text message and called the person she should have called in the first place.

“Belle!” Mom said before the phone even finished ringing once. “Stay right where you are, baby. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Mom had come straight to Boston as soon as she’d gotten the text Annabelle had sent this morning.

She’d taken the car on the ferry, and she’d been on her way to the college where Jeremy’s summer program was, figuring Annabelle might have gone there. Then Dad had called her after Annabelle had left the coffee shop, so she’d started heading in that direction instead. And when Annabelle had finally turned her cell phone back on, Mom had tracked it to the station and was already on her way there.

Mom ran up to where Annabelle was waiting, in front of the soft pretzel place, and pulled her in for a long, tight hug.

“I’m so sorry,” Annabelle said. “I’m sorry I always make you worried and I keep messing everything up.”

Mom pulled away, and the line between her eyebrows looked different this close up. Concerned instead of worried. Those two words sounded pretty close to the same thing, but they weren’t.

Concerned was the opposite of how Connor’s voice had sounded when she told him she was stuck.

“Honey, you don’t always make me worried,” Mom said. “Why would you think that?”

“Because . . . school, and then . . . Connor, and my hand.”

Mom held on to Annabelle’s good hand and led her back over to the empty bench where she’d been sitting before.

“Annabelle. You make me happy and proud. And sure, sometimes a little worried. But I don’t know any moms who don’t worry about their kids. It goes with the territory.”

“But . . . Saturday night, you and Mitch sounded so happy before you knew I was home. When it was just the two of you. I’m not like you. I mess everything up.”

Mom was still holding Annabelle’s hand, and now she squeezed it tight. “Do you know what Mitch and I did after you went to bed Saturday night? We watched all the videos he had on his phone of you racing this summer. Swimming so much faster than those girls who were twice your size. Getting right back up there after you got disqualified.”