He doesn’t offer to do something else. I bet he’ll go without me. I bet he’ll go and hang out with Sam and Sierra. I try to think of something fun for us to do instead, but what else is there on a hot summer day? There’s always the movies, but that costs money.

Maybe I could go to the beach if I wear long sleeves and a hat.

I text him back and say I want to go after all.

What about your burn? he asks.

I’ll cover up.

We agree to meet at his house in an hour. As soon as Ivy finds out, she begs to go with us again and I feel too guilty to say no.

The beach is more crowded today, and I’m hot and grouchy. I wear my long-sleeve shirt into the water, which actually feels kind of soothing. We play Clueless for a while, but it gets boring pretty fast.

Micah starts to float on his back. Ivy tries, but her butt sinks and she can’t stay up.

“You have to relax,” I tell her. “And breathe.”

She tries again but keeps sinking, so Micah and I spend the rest of the morning trying to teach her how to float. After a while, I get the impression that she knows how to do it but just likes the attention. Luckily two of her classmates show up and she leaves us to go play with them.

Micah and I stay in the water, wading in the deep at the far corner of the rope line.

“So about the party,” Micah says. I knew it was only a matter of time before he brought it up.

I roll my eyes and twirl in a circle.

“C’mon,” he says. “It could be fun!”

“Don’t say everyone’s going to be there.”

“Why not?”

“Because for one thing, it’s probably not true. Do you think Russell Colvak will be there? Or Maggie Wilson?”

These are two kids in our grade who no one really talks to. Maggie acts like she’s still five years old. No one really knows why. People try to be nice to her, but I think people are also a little afraid of her, which is totally unfair, but sometimes people are afraid of what they don’t understand. Or who. Micah and I tried to eat with her at lunch once, but her aide told us she prefers to eat alone. Russell is a boy who spends every free minute playing this strange game on his phone that he’s addicted to and refuses to talk to anyone. Micah downloaded the game on his phone and we tried to play to see what was so great about it, but it made us both feel carsick, so we gave up.

“OK, well, maybe not everyone,” Micah says. “But a lot of people.”

“Why do you want to go so badly?”