Page 82 of When Ellie Falls in Love

“I love you too, Ellie.”

As Isla stood, Ellie hugged her too. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, angel.”

Looking down at the chair, Ellie couldn’t help but laugh. One of its legs was completely broken, leaving a piece dangling while the other half sat buried in the sand.

“I told you we were going to break it.”

“Eh, we need a new one anyway.” Effortlessly picking up the chair, Isla carried it back to the house as Vera and Ellie followed behind.

Ellie kept her gaze down as she grabbed her phone off the chair where she’d been sitting earlier and headed upstairs to her room. Plopping onto the bed, she typed out a message to Sadie.

I miss you. I just thought you should know.

It was barely a minute later when Sadie’s message came through.

I miss you more.

Taking a deep breath, Ellie rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling fan. Her mom was right. She and Sadie had time to figure things out. And even if they eventually broke up, things would be okay. At least that’s what Ellie was going to tell herself until she finally believed it.

Chapter 28

Sadie

Florida in the summer meant hot temperatures and warm water. Even with her fair skin, Sadie still loved nothing more than floating in the pool of their old house while she read a book. It relaxed her in ways nothing else could. She loved the feel of her toes in the water while she floated along her merry way, lost in her own world.

Which was why she was pissed to currently be under the covered back porch while rain poured out of the sky in buckets.

Another byproduct of a Florida summer.

In fact, it had been raining since they’d arrived back in the Keys a few days ago. A tropical storm had decided to set up camp, which meant Sadie hadn’t seen the sun since the Cape. That also happened to match her mood. She’d been in a funk since leaving Ellie, and everyone had noticed it.

Or, well, her mom and Charlie had noticed it. Sadie hadn’t seen anyone else. Penny and her family were on vacation, which meant yet another school break would go by without seeing her. Normally, that would have bothered Sadie. Especially since Sadie had decided to forge her own path and not go to the college she and Penny had talked about attending together for years.

But Sadie knew she had to do what was best for herself in the end. Even if Penny had called her selfish and stopped speaking to her about it. Nevertheless, Sadie was happy for Penny who had her own scholarship for the school of her dreams. Friends grew apart; it was just life. Sadie knew that all too well.

After her parents’ divorce, she’d lost several friends who sided with her dad. It was so dumb; Sadie didn’t understand why adults had to be so petty sometimes. Sadie had also lost most of her friends when she moved to Maine. It was hard to keep in touch with everyone from so far away, especially as they stopped having things in common as they grew up.

But Sadie knew she could not let that happen to her and Ellie.

Even if Sadie’s brain was filled with anxiety over what would happen when she left for college.

Would she and Ellie still be girlfriends?

Would they break up?

Was it dumb to do long distance when they wereonlyeighteen?

Each question seemed to double Sadie’s anxiety and add another knot in her stomach.

Back in the Cape, she hadn’t considered those questions. She’d been too caught up in her limited time with Ellie that nothing else seemed to matter. But now, with the rain pouring down a few feet away and her book doing very little to keep her attention, Sadie couldn’t help but overthink everything.

Ugh. This is dumb. Stop it. You have time to figure it out.

I mean.

Not a lot of time.

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