She stood tall and cupped her hand behind her ear. “I can’t hear you!”

“NO STOPS!”

“There she is. Now let’s get out of here. We’re nearly past”—she put on her spookiest voice—“the Point of No Return.”

That was true. And Ruby pointing it out meant Marley wasn’t as far away from me as she felt.

We started walking toward Albany Lane.

“Did Aidy tell you we’re grounded?” I said after a while.

“When I tried texting you, and you didn’t respond, that wasn’t really anything new. But when you didn’t answer my calls, I figured something was up. Is that why Aidy had to call me from your house phone?” Ruby asked, but I didn’t have to answer. She already knew. She laughed so hard, it startled me. I couldn’t help but laugh with her. She found her next question—“Are you supposed to be home right now?”—so hilarious she had to hunch over and clutch her ribs. “Sometimes I can’t believe how much I love you,” she said.

“I can’t believe it either,” I said back.

July 11

Five Years Prior

“You guys, come here!” Marley yelled.

Nick and I ended our game of Marco Polo without question. We jumped over the pool’s edge and raced each other to the towels draped over the railing on the other side. It took me five easy strides to beat him.

“Good job,” he said when he reached me. His eyes fell to his feet. At first I thought he was embarrassed, but it was far from the first time he’d lost a race to me. We’d been outside for a few hours and color had already bloomed on his cheeks and his shoulders.

Suddenly, my cheeks warmed too. “Thanks,” I said back. I usually preferred to air-dry, but I snapped up a towel, wrapping it around my newfound self-consciousness.

The back screen door squeaked as it slid open. Too excited to bother washing them, our unrinsed feet tracked grass through the hallway and into the master bedroom, where Marley stood on the bed, hiding something with her right hand and holding a strange object in her left.

“I hit the jackpot,” she said.

I pretended to marvel at whatever she held in her left hand. It looked a little like a miniature rocket. “Everyone else will wish they came to swim with us,” I told her, hoping I sounded confident enough to disguise my cluelessness.

Marley turned the rocket on, which prompted Nick to shove my shoulder. As soon as I shoved back, the only response I could muster, Marley tossed the rocket onto a nightstand.

“Come on, Ollie. It’s a vibrator!” she scolded.

I didn’t know what that meant, not exactly, but I laughed like I did. “So cool,” I said.