The Other Side of Tomorrow

Even though I’ve never been into water sports, and don’t spend much time in the ocean, I’ve always appreciated living right on the beach. It’s like waking up to a special miracle right outside your door every day. It’s not something everyone gets to enjoy on a daily basis, so I’m determined to soak it up.

“Thanks for coming today, guys,” I say, licking icing off my fork.

Meredith bumps her shoulder against mine. “You know there’s no place I’d rather be, even if you did want to go bowling of all things,” she teases with a laugh.

“Yeah, it’s your birthday,” Spencer agrees. “There’s nowhere else we’d be.”

“And I don’t have a choice, I’m your sister,” Harlow jokes, and I glare at her, both of us dissolving into laughter.

“I’m glad I have you guys in my life, truly, all of you.”

There are a lot of people in the world who will get to know you to try to bring you down or undermine you, but I’m lucky to have friends, and a sister, who are the rare kind of friend. The one that’s there no matter what, who you can be at your happiest or your angriest with, who doesn’t care how ugly you can be because they know your heart is made of gold.

Spencer might be new to my friend group, but he rounds it out perfectly.

And while I technically don’t have many friends, you only need a few good people in your life. The number of friends you have doesn’t equate to how loved you are. In fact, the more friends you have, the less they know the real you and you with them.

“Aww, look at you getting all sappy.” Meredith wraps her arms around me and, before I know it, Harlow and Spencer are getting in on the group hug action.

I smile beneath their embrace and, for the first time in years, I can say I’m truly happy.

It’s probably dumb, but I honestly thought turning eighteen would make me feel different, more grown up and ready to take on the world.

But instead, three days later, I feel like the same old Willa.

I guess that’s a good thing—at least I haven’t fallen off the deep end and started balancing checkbooks and talking about taxes and the stock market.

“Are you seriously going to sit there and read the whole day?” Meredith asks, applying more sunscreen to her body.

We’ve come to the beach by the pier. I want to sneak off and go see Julio, to tell him about my transplant, but Harlow and Meredith haven’t left my side and I know if I tell them where I’m going they’ll want to follow. Sometimes, I want to do things by myself.

When I first got diagnosed with kidney disease everyone around me treated me like a delicate, breakable flower and a lot of that overprotectiveness hasn’t left them.

They don’t understand I just want my freedom to be a normal person.

“Yeah, probably,” I answer her.

“Ugh,” she groans. “You can be so boring. Do you not see how many hot guys are here today? How can you be surrounded by this man meat and care more about your book?”

“For your information, there’s man meat in my book and he’s my future book husband.”

“But he’s not real,” she reasons.

“To you,” I mutter under my breath.

Non-readers don’t get how real characters become to us bookworms. They have no idea what they’re missing out on.

She huffs. “You’re weird, but I love you.”

I crack a smile. “Love you too, Merebitch.”

She grins at the nickname.

I peek over the top of my sunglasses at this so-called man meat. The beach is covered in scantily-clad women and men in board shorts. Out in the water there’s the usual grouping of surfers.

/> My eyes are drawn to them, like usual, and envy runs through my veins.

Envy at their ease in the water, and how fearless they are when they catch a wave. I’d be afraid I’d crack my skull on the surfboard when I inevitably had an accident.