Our Way Back to Always, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Nina Moreno
Cover art copyright © 2021 by Erick Davila. Cover design by Karina Granda. Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Moreno, Nina (Young adult fiction writer), author.
Title: Our way back to always / Nina Moreno.
Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2021. | Audience: Ages 14 & up. | Summary: Told in two voices, Lou Patterson reconnects with her neighbor and ex–best friend Sam Alvarez, now seniors in high school, after they rediscover their childhood bucket list.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020047224 | ISBN 9780759557475 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780759557611 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Family life—Florida—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Florida—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M66953 Our 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047224
ISBNs: 978-0-7595- 5747-5 (hardcover), 978-0-7595- 5761-1 (ebook)
E3-20210903-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Lou
Sam
Lou
Lou
Sam
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Lou
Sam
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
To us,
before, now, tomorrow, and every timeline in between
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A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.
—VIRGIL, THE AENEID
AUGUST
I AM STILL waiting for the perfect summer my twelfth one promised me. That was the year Papá El sold mangonada Popsicles in the town square, Sam and I started a YouTube channel, and my parents let my curfew stretch past dusk. That miracle was only because everyone in Port Coral reported our whereabouts anyway, but the freedom was intoxicating. And it was that summer when two preteens—high on spicy, sweet mango—discovered the Port Coral High tradition known as Beach Day.
On the first Saturday of every August, incoming seniors take over our local beach with all their drama, excitement, and bass-heavy speakers. Sam and I spied on them from the harbor like they were starring in a music video. Which made sense, since watching them made me feel the way Janelle Monáe songs did: bold, carefree, and flushed with new feelings. They were so alive, with their broad shoulders and filled-out bikinis. Sam sat beside me, just as enraptured. We couldn’t wait for high school, and that spicy mango excitement went into penning our bucket list of all the things our thriving future high school selves would do.
But Popsicles melt, summers end, and Sam Alvarez turned thirteen and into an idiot.
And now after almost five years, I found that cursed list in a notebook after digging through my closet last week. “Clean your room,” Mom said. “You have to become more organized!” But now look at me: cursed. Because by reading that little slip of paper, I opened a tomb. This was breaking-a-mirror bad. I’ve earned myself seven years doomed luck, because it turns out that I’ve barely accomplished anything Seventh-Grade Lou dreamed up for herself. And while I’m used to being an underwhelming disappointment to everyone else, letting my bright-eyed former self down is brutal.
So it’s time to remedy that.
From my perch at the edge of the bathtub, I shout, “Mom! I need shaving cream!”
The door whips open and my heart jumps. My mother never enters spaces quietly. “What? Why are you in your bathing suit?”
“I’m going to the beach.” I gesture to my stubbly legs. “But I ran out of my coconut stuff.” The shaving cream is so fancy, it calls itself butter. I stole it from Elena when she moved out, and I was stretching it out by saving it for special occasions.
Mom searches the cabinet, then tosses me a metal can.
I catch it, disappointed. “This one is Dad’s.”
“So? The other one was your sister’s.”
Dad’s smells like mint and medicine and does nothing in the way of helping me feel bold and carefree. I lather one leg. “I smell like an old man now.”
“You and your picky nose. I think it smells nice.”
“You would. I’m attracting all the wrong energy.”
“I get enough of the energy talk from your sister.” She checks her watch. “Hurry up, Elena should be here in ten minutes. A towel, sunglasses. ¡Vamos, niña!”
She leaves but doesn’t get far, as I hear her call down the hallway, “And your brother will be late for tutoring if he doesn’t get up now! You get one more warning!”
I finish in five and smooth (also stolen) lotion over my legs before slipping into denim shorts (not stolen—my hips sailed past Elena’s last year). My suit is a dark blue one-piece with sunflowers all over it. And while I’m confident I could fill out a two-piece just fine these days, I like the coverage and retro appeal.
I turn one way, then the other in front of the mirror. Nerves twist my stomach, and I press a hand against my fluttery middle. I try to call back the taste of spicy mango and bright-eyed moxie, but I am now so far from the person I thought I’d be back then. I’d imagined parties, great kisses, and midnight adventures, and I cast it all in a washed-out filter that made high school look like an indie teen movie. But where Sam became a golden social butterfly, for me, school hours mean acquaintances whose tables and circles I move through like a stray cat. It’s fine, because I save all my quests for home, where my throne is a gaming chair and my computer lets me disappear into another hyper fixation with like-minded souls in servers and online RPGs.
And maybe I don’t have a lot of friends because my abuela is right, and all that screen time really has melted my brain along with forcing me to need these reading glasses. I slip them off my nose. To my uneasy reflection, I murmur, “We’re really in it now, Janelle.”
Back in my bedroom, I find Jupiter in my beach bag. My orange tabby cat is too big for it, but she doesn’t care. I snap a picture for her account. Hers, not mine. After documenting the many feral cats and kittens I fostered last year, a post about Jupiter—my feline assistant—went viral. She now has over a hundred thousand followers.
My personal account is private and has twelve followers, two of which are my older sister and younger brother.
Jupiter curls deeper into my bag before closing her eyes. I wonder if I can bring my cat to the beach just as my bedroom door swings open and the knob bounces against the wall behind it.
My hand flies to my chest and I yank on my cover-up. “Mami, please.”
She moves through the room, picking up discarded clothes along the way. My mother is a hurricane of order. “Which sunscreen do you want?” She holds up two bright blue bottles, shakes both, then makes a face. “This one is empty.” She slips the other in my bag beside Jupiter. “You know you can’t take her, right?”
“I know that,” I lie.
“Your new friend is going to meet you there, right?”
“Please stop making me sound like I’m five. But yes, Rocky is coming.”
Veronica Chen moved to Port Coral last year. I met her over the summer at the animal shelter where we both volunteer. She’s there for mysterious community-service reasons but has recently given me permission to use her nickname, Rocky. Feeling like this is a pretty significant step for us, I told her about her new school’s Beach Day tradition. Her reply was a long-s uffering sigh and quick shrug, so I’m hopeful she’ll actually meet me there.
Mom finally stops tidying my room to knock on Max’s door again. “Last! Call!” She heads downstairs, confident in her threat.
With Mom gone, I check the bucket list, tacked on the bulletin board, behind all my other checklists that haunt me with their various scholarship and application deadlines. This board has recently invaded my room and headspace because two things happened in May:
• I started researching impressive colleges that weren’t ten miles away.
• Elena, the perfect older daughter and my super smart nineteen-year-old sister, informed us she was pregnant and not taking Princeton up on its offer.
It’s been a real busy summer in the Patterson household.
Jupiter gets up. “Ooh, big stretch,” I croon before she nimbly hops out of the beach bag. “I guess you don’t have to come with me.” I shove a purple towel into the spot she vacated.
On my way downstairs, Max growls as he walks past me to the bathroom. He’s taken to puberty as happily as I have to planning for college.
I grab a Pop-Tart and glass of orange juice, and watch Mom do five things at once. My mother is a professor at Port Coral Community College and also a published author who’s written a lot of short stories, important papers, and poems. They’re successes to be proud of, but Mom continues to struggle in academic spaces that want nothing to do with her or her politics. Mom’s parents were both immigrants from Colombia, who worked hard in a foreign land, and it’s the sort of feel-good story of sacrifice and success that most people love about people like us. But now my sister is five months pregnant and on her way to becoming a teen mom like her grandmother before her, which means the huge pressure of writing the next chapter of my family’s American Dream is all on me.
Lazy Lou and her digital kingdom of video-game fanfiction.
I try not to choke on my juice.
Max takes a seat at the other side of the table and tries to brush his cowlick down without opening his eyes. Mom pours his cereal and checks the time. “She’s late.”
I glance at my phone. No new texts. My sister is technically late, but she also knows how big a deal it is for me to want to do anything involving other people. She remembers her own senior Beach Day, and I’m sure that—
My phone buzzes.
Hey, listen, soooooo sorry but I can’t drive you. I’m stuck on the bathroom floor. I swear morning sickness is a never-ending hangover.
Disappointment strangles me as I discreetly set my phone aside. I was meant to share the Honda with Elena, but because I failed the driver’s test twice, everyone collectively decided Elena needed the car more.
“She’s not picking you up, is she?” Mom asks, the bloodhound.
“Elena said—”
Before I can even get the words out, Mom is grabbing her purse and keys. “Come on, I’ll take you.”
Max finally wakes up. “No tutoring?”
“Yes tutoring,” she says without missing a beat. “Finish your cereal.”
My anxiety kicks into overdrive. First, I have to smell like an old man, and now this? Janelle Monáe would never. I grab my beach bag and sunglasses and race after her. “I’m not going to be dropped off at the beach… in front of everyone… by my mother.”
Mom stops on the front porch and turns to face me. “Then how are you going to get there?”
Across the street, the front door opens. Sam Alvarez steps outside wearing a white shirt and short, faded blue swim trunks. He heads toward his black truck. Because if anyone is attending Beach Day, it’s Golden Boy Sam.
For the first time in five years, I shout his name.
“Sam!”
HALFWAY TO MY truck, I stop. A girl calls my name again, louder this time. I stare across the street, dumbfounded. Luisa Patterson is calling my name. The very same girl who hasn’t spoken to me in years.
I spin my keys around one finger and walk closer, my curiosity piqued. “What’s up, Luisa?”
She visibly flinches before slipping on a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses.
“Sam?” Mrs. Patterson asks Luisa, sounding shocked.
I’m shocked, too, I think while holding on to my pleasant smile.
“Yes, Sam,” Luisa insists. “Sam can drive me.”
My mind is registering the delightful rasp in her voice. I cock my head, confused but willing enough to play along. “Nice to see you both.” Neither says anything. It’s a real weird vibe I’ve stepped into. “Warm out already, huh?”
Mrs. Patterson hikes her purse onto her shoulder, and something in her gaze softens toward me. “How’s everyone?”
I spin the keys around my finger again and hold back a sigh. So many months later, and I still hate the question. “Abuela moved in and took over half the house, and Mom’s working too much.” Didn’t mean to say that. With a smile, I aim for levity. “Cora’s starting third grade this year and has decided that means she deserves a dog.”
“Better than Luisa with all her cats,” Mrs. Patterson teases, jerking a thumb back at an increasingly annoyed Lou.
Oh yeah. This is Lou. I can’t help but smile at the little electric zing that hits me as my mind slips right back into the habit of using her nickname.
“Can we go?” Lou says, marching past us with her huge bag. A purple towel sticks halfway out.
“Go where?”
“The beach,” she impatiently shoots back. “I need a ride.”
“Oh, are you—?” Before I can even get the rest of the question out, she points her death ray gaze at me. Or so I guess, since I can’t see past the hearts, but the threat is implied. Beach days are a dime a dozen when you live on the coast, but this is a senior-year tradition and our turn. And yet, I’m surprised Lou is going. She isn’t someone you ever see at rah-rah events like this. No one would ever mistake her for the school-spirit type. “Yeah, sure. All right, then. Take it easy, Mrs. Patterson.”
“Sunscreen, Luisa!” she calls before climbing into their minivan with Max.
“How old’s your brother now?” I ask Lou on the way to my truck.
“Listen, we don’t have to do this.”
“Wait, so you don’t really need a ride?” I ask, but she continues to my truck and tries to open the locked door. When it doesn’t, she quickly yanks on the handle twice.
I lift the key fob.
“Yes, I need a ride,” she says in a near growl. “But we don’t have to do the awkward small talk.”
“I only asked how old Max is, but awkward silence is fine with me.” I hit unlock and we both get in.
She curls her legs beneath her in the seat next to me and holds her bag tightly in her lap. Two seconds into sitting and she already has her feet up off the floor. Funny how I remember that about her.
Or… is it because of the mess on the floor? I’d meant to clean the truck earlier in the week, but between work and getting ready for band camp, it’s one more thing I forgot to do. I lean forward to grab the shoes and drumsticks beside her feet and toss them all into the back seat. I crank the truck, and the AC hits us with a blast of cold air. With a hand behind her headrest, I turn to check behind us as I back out of the driveway.
She settles deeper into the seat, looking the definition of grumpy. “I’ll rate you five stars if you stay quiet.”
I hit the brakes a little too hard for the stop sign at the end of our road. “You have a real weird way of asking for a favor.”
“You’re right. My bad. Elena bailed on me, so I appreciate it.” And then quieter, to herself, “I got this.”
Lou may think she’s got this, but I’m not so sure I do.
I’m a good driver. Cautious and never one to speed or text. But having Lou sit beside me is a distraction. Especially as I feel her attention skip from me to the back seat. The receipts in the cup holders, my aux cable. I can’t help but wonder what new picture of me she’s drawing in her mind. As I feel her gaze on my legs, goose bumps spread across the exposed skin of my thighs.
I sigh. “Abuela put my swim trunks in the dryer. They’re not supposed to be this short.”
Ever since she moved in with us, if my grandmother sees clothes anywhere in the house, they’re fair game. And she’s a new convert to the power of a dryer.
I wait for Lou to ask me what it’s like having Abuela move in. Is she getting along with my very Midwestern white mother? Speaking of, how is it watching Mom become a widow who lives with her mother-in law? Two islands, no bridge, dead dad. The tension is great, and my clothes are all shrinking, thanks for asking.
