As I walked into the condo that night, mentally rehearsing my arguments for staying in Orchard Hill, I started to wonder if I was emotionally deficient in some way. Was I really going to let the fact that Jake Graydon was staying here make my decision for me? He’d basically lied to me for months. He’d let me babble on about how much I missed my dad and ramble pathetically about how I had no idea where he was, and the whole time Jake had known. He’d known exactly where I could find my father, and he hadn’t told me. When I thought about the number of times he could have just said something, the number of times I’d made a fool out of myself in front of him, it made me want to break something.I slammed the door behind me so hard the old fashioned knocker on the outside of it—the one the designers had added to give the newly built condos that old-school Orchard Hill charm—swung and banged back against it. I took a breath and thought about Jake. Really thought about him. I thought about that thing he’d said on the night of Shannen’s party, before the birthday girl had sent my world crumbling down around me.“Yours,” he’d said. “From now on.”My knees, right there in the tiny hallway of my overly warm condo, went weak. It was like I could feel his breath on my neck. The perfect words still prickling in my ear. So, I guess there it was. That was why I wanted to stay. I wanted to see if what he’d said that night actually meant anything to him. I wanted to find out if I could get past those months of secrecy. I wanted to know if he was worth forgiving.“Ally?”“Hey, Mom.”My mother walked over from the living room and stood at the end of the hall, between me and the kitchen. I moved past her and dropped my bag on the table. She was wearing a white polo-shirt-style dress and no shoes. The second school ended every year, my mom sported nothing but sundresses until September rolled around again.“Did you eat at the mall?” she asked, opening the refrigerator. “I was just going to make some dinner.”Before I could answer, the phone rang. My mother froze for a moment, staring into the fridge. I saw her knuckles turn white as she gripped the handle tighter. Then she took out a plate of raw chicken cutlets and placed it carefully, almost deliberately, on the counter. As if it took all the power within her not to hurl it at the wall.“Are you gonna get that?” I asked, sensing that I shouldn’t go near the phone.“Nope.”“Aren’t you even going to check the caller ID?”“I know who it is,” she said, removing the cling wrap from the dish and balling it up.On the third ring, I walked to the phone. It was my dad.“He’s called every two hours all day,” my mother said as she tossed the cling wrap into the garbage and let the lid slam. “And I swear, Ally, if you ask me why I’m not picking up for him, I might scream, so please just let it go.”My face stung at being admonished for something I hadn’t done. But I had been about to do it, so I said nothing.My mom blew out a breath, leaned back against the counter, and smiled at me tightly. “So. Food?”“I’m not really hungry now, but if you make extra I’ll eat it later.” I swallowed my ten thousand dad-related questions and glanced into the deserted living room. There was a packed suitcase on the floor. Just seeing it made me feel hollow inside. She was really going. The question was, was she going to make me go with her? “No Gray? No Quinn?”She took out the grill pan and placed it on the stove. “I thought it should be just us tonight. Since I’m leaving tomorrow.”I froze. Did she just say “I’m leaving?”“Wait . . . I thought you said you hadn’t talked to Dad.”She rested her hands on the counter for a moment, then turned to face me, running her thumb along the back of one of the chairs. “I wanted to make sure this is what you really want first.”My throat tightened. What I really wanted was for her to stay home with me. For her to pick up the phone the next time my father called. For him to explain everything away, and for it all to go back to the way it used to be. For us to be a family.“I know you don’t want to be around your old crowd this summer, Ally,” she said. “But you won’t necessarily have to see them.”“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Come on, Mom. You have to remember what it’s like down there.”What it was like when all the Cresties were on LBI was one giant, two-month-long slumber party. All the families had houses on the same stretch of private beach in Harvey Cedars. Every night there were cocktail parties and barbecues and swimming in the ocean and boating in the bay. Every night people crashed at random houses, or passed out on someone’s boat. On weekends, one or two of the dads showed up at whatever house had claimed the most people from the night before, toting bags of bagels and elephant ears and steaming cups of coffee. You couldn’t not hang out with everyone. They were in your face every minute of every hour of every day.Which used to be really fun. But now it sounded like the worst form of torture. Every year, it all culminated with the Kirkpatricks’ end-of-summer brouhaha—an elaborately themed event that often raged on for three days. Yeah. I couldn’t wait for that.“Yes,” she said. “I do.”She looked disappointed. Hurt.“Why don’t we both stay home?” I suggested hopefully. “We could get a membership at the town pool, see movies, go shopping. . . .”The word hung in the air. Shopping hadn’t been much of a pastime for us the last couple of years. And the pool membership was probably expensive. But maybe I could help pay for it. And then Gray would be three hours away, and my dad—and Jake—would be just five minutes up the street.“That is not an option,” my mother said, turning back to the stove.“But, Mom—”“Ally, Gray invited us to the shore, and I’ve already accepted,” she said, twisting the knob to turn the gas on under the grill pan. “I’ve prepared him for the fact that you might not come, which was difficult enough for him to hear, but—”“Why?” I asked. “Why does he care whether or not I’m there?”“Because he cares about you,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.Well, I don’t give a crap about him, I thought, but didn’t say. As boyfriends went, if my mother had to have one, Gray was all right. But now my dad was back and all I wanted was for Gray Nathanson to go away.“He’s very disappointed that you might not come, but he understands,” my mother continued, dropping slices of chicken into the pan, where they sizzled and spat.“Understands what?” I asked, irked. What did I care whether or not Gray understood me? Why did she care whether or not he did?“That you haven’t seen your father in two years. That you want to reconnect with him.”“What about you? Don’t you want to reconnect with him?” I demanded.My mother half groaned, half sighed as she turned on the water in the sink to wash her hands. “We’re not talking about that right now, Ally.”“Why not? I thought we could talk about anything,” I said, sounding both pathetic and annoyed.She turned the water off with a bang and grabbed a towel. “Not this.”I got up from the table, my sudden anger so fierce it wouldn’t let me sit still. How could she keep shutting me down like this? Didn’t she understand that I wanted to talk about my dad? That I had to? Why was she being so selfish? I turned toward my room, envisioning a good door slamming and some quality time with my iPod, but my mom stopped me in my tracks.“Wait.”I didn’t turn around. I needed to hear what she had to say first.“Fine. If it means that much to you, you can stay with him,” she said quietly. “I mean, if that’s what you really want to do.”I hesitated. For a moment I scarcely believed that she’d actually agreed. But then it sank in, and nervous flutters filled my chest. Staying meant being near Jake. It meant giving him a chance. And my dad a chance too.But there was something else. An odd shiver of nervousness crept over my shoulders. As I turned to look at my mother, I suddenly realized it also meant being away from her after two and a half years straight of being there for each other every day, through everything. I was seventeen years old, and the idea of being without her scared me.But going down the shore with her and Gray and Quinn like one big happy family, and being thrown together with Chloe, Shannen, Faith, and Hammond every single day . . . that idea horrified me.“Yeah,” I said, somehow managing to look her in the eye. “That’s what I want to do.”