The Last Song(88)

26




Ronnie



After her dad and Jonah had taken off for the day, Ronnie went to look for Blaze, hoping to catch her before she was due at the aquarium. She figured she had nothing to lose. The worst that could happen was that Blaze would blow her off or reject her out of hand, which would leave her in the same position she was already in. She didn’t expect Blaze to suddenly change her mind and didn’t want to get her hopes up, but it was hard not to. Will had a point: Blaze wasn’t anything like Marcus, who had no conscience at all, and she had to be feeling just a little guilty, right?

It didn’t take long to find her. Blaze was sitting on the dune near the pier, watching the surfers. She said nothing as Ronnie walked up.

Ronnie wasn’t even sure where to start, so she began with the obvious.

“Hi, Blaze,” she said.

Blaze said nothing, and Ronnie collected herself before going on.

“I know you probably don’t want to talk to me…”

“You look like an Easter egg.”

Ronnie glanced at the outfit she was required to wear at the aquarium: turquoise shirt with the aquarium logo, white shorts, and white shoes.

“I tried to get them to change the uniform to black, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Too bad. Black’s your color.” Blaze flashed a quick smile. “What do you want?”

Ronnie swallowed. “I wasn’t trying to pick up Marcus that night. He came on to me, and I don’t know why he said what he did, other than because he wanted to make you jealous. I’m sure you don’t believe me, but I want to let you know I never would have done something like that to you. I’m not that kind of person.” It had all come out in a rush, but she had said it now.

Blaze paused, then said, “I know.”

It wasn’t the answer Ronnie had expected. “Then why did you put those things in my bag?” she blurted out.

Blaze squinted up at her. “I was mad at you. Because it was obvious he liked you.”

Ronnie bit back a response that would have put an immediate end to the conversation, giving Blaze the opportunity to go on. Blaze focused on the surfers again. “I see you’ve been spending a lot of time with Will this summer.”

“He said the two of you used to be friends.”

“Yeah, we were,” she said. “A long time ago. He’s nice. You’re lucky.” She wiped her hands on her pants. “My mom’s going to marry her boyfriend. After she told me, we got in this really big fight and she kicked me out of the house. She changed the locks and everything.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ronnie said, and she was.

“I’ll survive.”

Her comment made Ronnie think about the similarities in their lives—divorce, anger, and rebellion, a parent’s remarriage—yet despite those things, they were no longer the same at all. Blaze had changed since the beginning of the summer. Gone was the zest for life Ronnie had noticed when they first met, and Blaze seemed older, too, as if she’d aged years instead of weeks. But not in a good way. There were bags under her eyes, and her skin was sallow. She’d lost weight, too. A lot of weight. In a strange way, it was as if Ronnie were seeing the person she might have become, and she didn’t like what she saw.

“What you did to me was wrong,” Ronnie said. “But you can still make it right.”

Blaze shook her head slowly. “Marcus won’t let me. He said he wouldn’t talk to me again.”

Listening to her robotic tone made Ronnie want to shake her. Blaze seemed to sense what Ronnie was thinking, and she sighed before going on.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. My mom called all the relatives and told them not to take me in. She told them that it’s hard for her, but what I need is ‘tough love’ right now. But I don’t have any money to eat, and unless I want to sleep on the beach every night for the rest of my life, I have to do what Marcus tells me. When he’s mad at me, he won’t even let me shower at his place. And he won’t give me any money from the shows we do, so I can’t eat, either. He treats me like a dog sometimes, and I hate it. But who else do I have?”

“Have you tried talking to your mom?”

“What’s the point? She thinks I’m a lost cause, and she hates me.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you.”

“You don’t know her like I do.”

Ronnie flashed back on the time she had visited Blaze’s house and seen the money tucked into the envelope. It didn’t sound like the same mother, but Ronnie didn’t want to say that. In the silence, Blaze pushed herself up and stood. Her clothes were dirty and rumpled, as though she’d been wearing them for a week straight. Which was probably true.