You will start getting bored, so you will stand up, fold up your towel, and put on your T-shirt.

Actually, I told myself, I’m not really that bored. I could hang a few more minutes. I need to think.

Rrrrrvvvvv, went my mind.

You will be annoyed by the children playing tag nearby, kicking sand on your legs. You will stand up, fold up your towel, and put on your T-shirt.

No, I can handle those kids. I’ll just hang out here a little while longer … and think.…

Rrrrrvvvvv …

You will think about standing up and leaving but you will not. A Frisbee will hit you in the head.

What? I scrambled to my feet and tried to get over the cycling that had my mind whirring and my head pounding. More nonsensical images flashed through my brain, which might or might not have become part of my future: pine needles, goopy black tar, a pink smiley face, brown craft paper.

Then, clunk. The Frisbee bounced off my shins. I screamed, unfortunately like a girl, in front of two hot chicks in bikinis. They laughed at me mildly, like I was a bad entertainer planted there for their amusement, and rolled over onto their stomachs.

That was it. Thinking was barely possible on script. How could I expect to analyze the situation with all those possible options whirring in my head like chain saws? Yes, there were bad things in my future, things I somehow couldn’t change or prevent, but maybe I just wasn’t meant to. After all, that was what the future was like for most people.

But Nan …

Finally I trudged through the sand toward the street, noticing the girl in the yellow bathing suit with the pink smiley face on her round tummy. She was probably Emma’s age.

Crap. Step one: I needed to get away from the beach. From everything that reminded me of that little girl.

Nan used to have a boyfriend who would take me fishing off the pier at Fifth Avenue. That would always calm my mind, kind of like the ocean once had. I needed calm. I didn’t want to go home and listen to my mom’s moans of pain from the cycling. My head ached like there were a thousand needles in my scalp, and I knew she was feeling just as bad. Probably worse.

Almost without thinking about it, I found myself at the bait shop, getting minnows. I must have stopped by the garage to pick up the net, bucket, and poles, but I couldn’t remember doing it. I held them in my hands, so tight I knew I’d probably get blisters, and they smelled like brine and old seaweed. The guy at the register gave me a careful smile as he handed over the roll of bait wrapped in brown craft paper: a smile because he’d known Nan for fifty years; careful because every local on the island had heard the Crazy Cross stories.

I was so deep in the thought that I didn’t realize how quiet my mind had become until I heard a sweet voice whisper, “What did you get?”

I turned and saw Taryn. Not two hours after her grandmother gave me the tongue-lashing of my life, not two hours after I promised myself I’d never see her again. She was smiling as if that conversation never happened, as if she hadn’t called me one of the despicable “them.”

I should have been able to say something tough, something to show her that she’d made a huge mistake telling me to leave her alone. Instead, all I could mutter was “Huh?”

She pointed at the board over the counter. “I was going to get a number eleven. The Italian. But number six looks good. And then there’s number twenty.”

I looked up at the board above the head of the guy at the register. It might as well have been in Chinese. I never bought subs here. “Uh—”

“You’re the local.” She pointed at the paper-wrapped roll in my hands. “So I’ll let you make the decision for me.” She turned to the guy behind the counter. “Give me whatever you got him.”

I grinned slowly. Revenge.

At the guy’s confused look, I said, “You heard her.”

He got busy packaging up her “sandwich,” as Taryn gave me a shy glance that made me a little remorseful for what I was doing. Just a little. I’d shaken it off, when suddenly my nose began to sting. Out of nowhere, I thought of pine trees.

She asked, “What’s in it?”

I pressed my lips together. “It’s a surprise.”

“No anchovies, I hope.”

I shook my head.

She quickly peered over the counter at the worker. “Oh, and make mine without onions.”

He looked at me, even more confused.

I shook my head at him. “Doesn’t come with onions.”

“Oh, good.” She looked down at her toes, the nails of which were now painted bloodred, a striking contrast against the paleness of her skin. I had the momentary vision of those pale toes against a backdrop of black-green water. “I’m allergic.”

“Um,” I began, focusing on a rack of chips and pretzels behind her head, a display of car air fresheners shaped like pine trees dangling near the register, not sure where I was headed. “Fancy meeting you here.”

The shy look returned. “I heard this place had the best subs in town.”

I shrugged. As if I had any idea.

“Really,” she said, as if she had just been caught in a lie. Then she smiled. “Actually, no, I followed you in here.”

Too good to lie. God, I was liking her more and more. And she was not what I needed right now. What I needed was to find out what was going to happen to Nan, and try my best to prevent it. Alarms were blaring in my head, but instead of helping me, they were crowding out the You Wills, allowing my hormones to take control. All I could do was raise my eyebrows and savor this new thrill surging through me. It was the first time a girl was admitting to following me instead of running in the other direction.

“I wanted to apologize,” she began.

“Order up,” the man behind the counter said. He pushed the package over to her.

I took it before she could put her hand on it. “Allow me,” I said.

She grinned. “Seriously? Thanks.”

It was the least I could do. “It’s nothing.”

As I paid for the two packages, she inspected the net, poles, and bucket at my feet. When I collected my change, she said, “Look, do you have time?”

I stared at her. Time? Did she want the time? I pointed to a clock on the wall.

She shook her head. “No, do you have time for a talk? I want to explain things.”

“Things? You mean the”—I stretched out my hands and wiggled my fingers—“touch?”

She nodded.

“Fine,” I said, but then I realized that if I had to be present when she opened that wrapped package, it wouldn’t be pretty. Didn’t need a vision of the future to know that. She might sic her scary grandmother on me. “After lunch? I’ll be at the pier.”

“Great,” she said, chewing on her lip. “Again, I’m sorry for acting a little crazy, but you don’t know … well, I’ll explain it. After lunch.”

She started to shuffle down the stony path in her flip-flops, cradling the fish in the crook of her arm, and then turned. “You really have no idea why you’re the way you are,” she mused. “That’s fascinating.”

“What way am I?” I asked, amused by her attempt to understand me. Most people wouldn’t bother. There were so many easy ways to fill in that blank. Neurotic. Looney. Obsessed. Pathetic.

She narrowed her eyes. “Duh. Able to see your future.”

I was too stunned to follow her. I just stood there, surrounded by my fishing gear, mouth hanging open.

I spent the rest of the time walking back and forth on the boardwalk, feeling like crap. This was useless. First of all, when I got out there, I realized the reason my nose had begun to sting in the sub shop. It would be fried by the time I got home, but I didn’t have enough money with me to buy sunblock. And every time I set out to cast a line, I saw the outcome of my expedition. No fish. It wasn’t that they weren’t biting. It was that my hands would be shaking too much to steadily reel in the line.