"Why's that?"

She shrugged. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Then why did you bring it up?"

She pulled away from me then, and I could see the tears clouding her eyes. I don't think I'd ever seen her look so beautiful.

"Sea?" I asked. "Why did you do that earlier?"

"Do what?"

"You know," I said quietly. "My shoulder."

"Oh, that." She sighed. "I don't know."

Seattle looked away, but I couldn't stop staring at her. Without even thinking about it, I reached for her chin and turned her face toward me.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but didn't jerk away. I cupped her face in my hands and leaned toward her, feeling her breath growing hotter on my face until our lips were touching. My heart beat wildly in my chest. The whole time I kept thinking, What am I doing? All I knew was that it felt right.

Sea pulled away from me so abruptly that I banged my head against her ear. "You shouldn't have done that."

My mouth was hanging open so far I must've looked like a goldfish out of his bowl. I watched as her hands flew to the top of her head, feeling for the dreadlocks I'd lopped off what seemed like forever ago.

"You're just feeling bad because of Sarah," she said, not looking at me. "That's all it is."

"No," I said. "It's not."

It was all so confusing. Sarah, Sh.e.l.li, Sea. Especially Sea. I wondered if things would've been different if Layla hadn't hooked up with Frank. What if Sea and I had met on our own? Would we still have been friends? And if we had, would I still have felt so confused?

"It is because of Sarah," Sea said firmly. "It has to be."

"Maybe," I said, because I knew it was what she wanted to hear. "Maybe it is because of her."

A shaky smile spread across Sea's face. "It's going to be okay," she said. "For both of us." She patted my knee, stood up, and went back inside.

seattle.

The Goodbye Boy.

Layla left for the night shift around nine-thirty; twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. Scott.

"I've got something for you." He handed me one of those huge Bloomingdale's bags with the twine handles. Inside were not one but two skateboards. The first was my old Kryptonics, with fresh grip tape on top and a set of brand-new wheels on the bottom. "For backup," Scott said.

The second was the one he'd built me. It was gorgeous. He'd coated the deck with shiny black paint. On the underside of the tail, he'd screened a cartoon outline of a girl's face. Her mouth was a cherry red heart and she had electric blue dreadlocks sprouting out of her head.

I could barely breathe. "She's beautiful!" I said when I found my voice.

"Yeah, she is," Scott said-but he wasn't looking at the board.

"I don't even know how to thank you."

He smiled. "Your face just did."

We stood there, me on one side of the door and him on the other. "Can I come in?" he asked in a tentative voice.

"Oh, right," I said. "Sure."

I held the new skateboard across my chest like a shield. Scott gestured to it and said, "You shouldn't ride it for another day or so. The lacquer needs time to set fully."

I nodded, still clutching it to me. "So when do you leave?"

"Tomorrow night," he said. "I'm taking the red-eye back home."

So that was it. He was really going, and I was really never going to see him again.

"I told my parents about you."

"Oh," I said, surprised. "Why?"

"Because they couldn't understand why I almost turned the job down."

This was . . . unexpected. Was it possible there really was some awesome job he simply couldn't pa.s.s up?

"What changed your mind?" I asked.

"They told me if I came back early, they'd pay for me to fly out here over winter break."

It took a minute for the words to sink in. "So you are coming back?"

"If you still want me to," he said slowly. "Then again, it is six months from now."

"Right," I said. "Maybe you'll have a girlfriend by then."

He shook his head. "I like you so much, Seattle. You have no idea how much I like you."

His words made me blush, and I couldn't hide the smile. "I like you, too," I confessed.

"I want to know you better. I want us to write, and talk on the phone, and I definitely want to see you again."

My smile turned into a nervous grin. "Me too," I said. "But what if-"

"Things change?" he finished for me. "Then we'll be honest with each other. I don't want to turn out to be another person who disappoints you. You don't deserve that."

He was saying all the right things in all the right ways, and yet something was still wrong. Maybe it was me. Maybe I was what was wrong.

Scott squeezed my hand. "Can I see you tomorrow after cla.s.s? We never did get to log any skate time."

I shook my head. "This is hard enough as it is."

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I know. Didn't hurt to ask, right?"

I walked him to the door. He leaned in for a goodbye kiss, but at the last second I turned my head, and his lips landed on my cheek. He looked startled and maybe a little hurt. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

"It's okay," he said. "I understand."

He hopped off the front stoop and gave a little wave. I stood there, watching him walk away, feeling like someone had ripped my heart right out of my chest. He was halfway down the street when he turned and hollered, "I will see you again. I can feel it!" He let out a whoop and thumped his chest like Tarzan. It made me laugh.

I closed the door and turned around. Critter was standing about six inches away and I yelped. "Jesus, you scared me!"

"Sorry," he said. "I just wanted to see if you were all right. I heard yelling."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good," he said. "Now you can help me get ready for school."

Stoopid, Part II.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked.

"Go on," he urged. "Do it."

Critter thrust the shaver into my hand-the same one he'd used on me the week before.

"But you love this hair," I said.

"Correction-used to love it. Now I just want a change. Okay?"

I flicked the shaver on and felt it vibrate in my hand. "Can I at least close my eyes?"

"No!" he said. "Come on, Sea. It's no big deal, right? It'll grow back."

Fifteen minutes later I buzzed off the last bits of his bleached blond hair. Now Critter looked more like a marine recruit than the womanizing crooner he'd admired since he was seven. Together we probably looked like the founding members of a Vin Diesel fan club.

"Nice," he said, checking out the new do in a hand mirror. "My head feels ten pounds lighter."

"It's really white. You need to self-tan your scalp or something."

"Oh, hush," he said. "You're just jealous because I look so much better than you do bald." He scrambled to his feet. "I hear fireworks. Want to go see?"

"Sure."

It was dark outside, and the fireflies twinkled gold against the asphalt. When I was little I'd thought that fireflies were fairies. I thought if I caught one and held on to it long enough, it would turn into Tinker Bell and make me fly.

"Pretty," I murmured.

"Yeah," he said, but he wasn't looking at the lightning bugs.

I pretended not to notice his stare. "I don't see any fireworks."

"You can hear them, though, if you listen hard."

Sure enough, I heard the low, faraway booms. It made me sad, not being able to see them. I couldn't remember the last time we'd missed the big display. Even before the Riverfront had opened, we'd always made the trek to Rockford Park. I still had all the glow necklaces I'd collected over the years, though they'd long since lost their juice.

"What are you thinking about?" Critter asked.

"I'm thinking," I said, "that it's been a h.e.l.l of a summer so far."

"No doubt," he agreed. Then he groaned. "I can't believe our vacation is already over."

The thing was, I was actually looking forward to starting cla.s.s. For the first time in my life, I craved routine. That and the chance to finally prove not just to Layla or even Jesse, but to me as well-that I was really capable of more.

Critter, though-he just looked so . . . deflated. "It won't be that bad," I said, ruffling his nonexistent hair. "Summer school will be over before you know it. And then we'll hang out for the rest of August like we always do."

He chuckled softly. "Sure."

I looked down and noticed that the edges of one of my scabs-from my big lipslide wipeout-had started to curl. I picked at the loose flakes and sighed. "What do you want me to say?"

Right then, an enormous explosion of color lit up the sky. Swirling tendrils of red, purple, and green streaked through the darkness, followed by electric spiderwebs of white.

"Whoa," Critter said, his head popping up. "Did you see that?"

I didn't have time to respond, but he wouldn't have heard me anyway. There were more explosions, big and loud and bright, followed by the ones that shriek as they burn. The neighbors started spilling out of their houses to watch the show, and it wasn't long before Layla and Jesse came outside to join us.

The whole thing lasted maybe six minutes, but it was long enough for me. Critter, too, if the carefree smile he was wearing was any indication. The four of us were squeezed on the stoop, Layla to my right and Jesse to Critter's left, and after the c.r.a.p we'd all been dealing with, it felt really good to just sit there with them- my family.

"Hey, rock star," I whispered in Critter's ear. "Love ya."

He nudged my shoulder gently. "Yeah," he said, still smiling. "Me too."