Sierra twirls in a circle. “I was just being friendly. Everyone says I’m a flirt, but I’m not. That’s cute you’ve been together since you were little.” She smiles at me, and my heart flutters in a funny way. I glance over at Micah, who looks hurt and curious at the same time.

“We’re just friends,” Micah confirms. “Really.”

“Whatever you say,” Sam says. She does a backward somersault in the water. “Who wants to play a game?”

“Me!” Ivy yells.

“I’m getting out,” I say. “It’s too cold. Nice to meet you.”

Sierra waves and dives under the water and does a handstand.

When she pops back up again, Ivy points out that her clown is running. Black ink drips down the side of her face.

“Oooh, now it’s a horror clown!” Sierra says.

I swim away from the group. They’re already laughing without me before I reach the shore. I realize they’re playing Clueless. We’ve never played it with anyone else before. They keep going underwater, then popping up again and laughing like crazy. I wrap my towel tight around me. As they swim closer and closer to Micah, I get the feeling he’s purposefully guessing wrong so Sierra can tag him. Or Sam. It makes me feel so angry and sad and I don’t understand why. It’s kind of like I’m watching people take something that I thought belonged to me.

I could solve all of this by asking him out. I know he would say yes. But that wouldn’t be right. I love him, but I don’t love him. I wonder how long we can last like this before he finds someone who wants to be more than friends. I turn his bracelet on my wrist and imagine him making it for me, choosing the colors and tying knot after knot to make the pattern. Plenty of people stay friends when they start dating other people, I tell myself. It will be fine.

I lean back on my towel and squint up at the sky. Today it’s filled with puffy white clouds and I can make out all kinds of shapes, but there’s no one here to name them with. I close my eyes and concentrate on the sun slowly drying my bathing suit. Every few minutes, I hear the group laughing and I feel jealous. But I stay on the shore, thinking about Micah and our friendship, and wish for the hundredth time that I could feel the same way about him as I am pretty sure he feels about me. Or did feel, until he met Sierra.

“Rachel, wake up!” Ivy yells. “Oooooh, Mom is going to kill you.”

“What?” I sit up and feel dizzy.

“You were sound asleep, so we left you alone,” Micah says. “We didn’t realize you didn’t have any sunblock on.”