“I don’t want an explanation from you, Julianne.” Chloe’s voice had a note of finality to it that terrified Jules.

“Chloe, really, just hear me out.” She didn’t want to plead with her sister, but she needed Chloe to understand her—to forgive her—the way Dad had.

“No, Jules. I don’t need to. I really don’t.” Chloe’s tone left little room for discussion and it stopped Jules dead in her tracks. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Julianne was stunned. After all the silence and the slamming doors and the icy glares, now Chloe was holding out the proverbial olive branch? As much as Julianne had wanted this, hoped for it, daydreamed about it over the last week, she honestly hadn’t expected it to happen.

She knew she was staring at her sister as though Chloe had grown an extra head, but she could not find a single word to say in response.

Chloe continued resolutely. “I’m really sorry for all of the horrible things I said. Well, except the things about the Moores’ house. I totally meant all of those.

And it felt really good to say them, too.” A grin flickered across Chloe’s lips, and she and Julianne both let out a 208

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nervous laugh. “But about you and about Remi—I’m sorry. I had no right to say any of that, and it was wrong.

I was wrong.”

Julianne watched Chloe’s face as she spoke. Her chin was set in determination. Her eyes were nearly transpar-ent in their intensity, and as she spoke, it was as if Chloe relaxed into the truth of her words. Her shoulders dropped as the tension drained out of them.

“You didn’t betray us. I’m sorry for saying that. I’m sorry for thinking it. I don’t know where that came from and it was a whole lot of melodramatic guilt to throw at you. You were just trying to be true to yourself. And I’ve always loved that about you.” Chloe made her way down the kitchen counter until she was standing next to Jules and her father and let herself be swept into the family hug. “I am so sorry. I didn’t realize how irrational and cruel I was being,” Chloe continued, both Jules’s and Dad’s arms wrapped around her. “I guess the scientific black-or-white thing isn’t always the best way to approach emotional questions.”

Julianne practically burst with relief. “Well, if we’re being fair, I don’t think sneaking around the way I did was the best choice I’ve ever made. I guess I was just so afraid of what you would think that it never occurred to me to actually level with you.”

Chloe laughed. “Okay, this is getting a little too after-school special, even for me. I’m seriously going to start 209

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crying if we don’t ratchet down the heart-to-heart factor a little bit here.”

“Ooooh noooo,” Julianne warned. “I’m not done with you yet.” She pitched her voice up into a dramatic falsetto. “Oh, Chloe, how can you ever forgive me? You’re my best friend in the world—I would be lost without you. Chloe, just tell me what to do to make it up to you . . . anything.” Julianne widened her eyes earnestly, and batted her long eyelashes at her sister.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Cue the made-for-TV music.” Julianne sighed dramatically. “Fiiine. I guess you’ll never know the deeply heartfelt lessons I’ve learned from this whole growing process.” Chloe smiled. “You know, I think I’ve got some ideas.” The look on her face said she completely understood.

Dad pulled the girls in close, and they all stared out over the ocean. They just stood there, close to one another.

“I really am sorry about what happened with your painting,” Chloe said seriously. “I know how hard you worked on it. And how much it meant to you to do that for Mom.”

Julianne shrugged, but she felt a lump forming at the back of her throat. “I just wanted to keep a little tiny piece of her alive, I guess.”

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Dad spoke gently. “You know, girls, we don’t need a painting, or this house, or this beach to know what home feels like. Don’t you worry about Mom’s memory.

No matter where we are, she’ll be with us.” Julianne felt her mouth stretching into a grin, her eyes brimming with happy tears.

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Chapter Twenty-three

!

Julianne was running down the beach at full speed, the sand flying under her sneakers, the sun racing to keep up with her. Since the flooding had mauled her painting, she had been running on the beach each day to clear her head. She usually didn’t run much outside of cross-country season, and she was pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoyed it. Her iPod was strapped to her arm with an athletic strap, and despite being pulled back with a blue stretchy headband, a handful of loose curls stuck to her neck. She could feel the music propelling her down the beach. She ran through Kelly Clarkson, Fergie, Beyoncé, and Missy Elliott, but when Gwen Stefani snuck into the shuffle, she felt herself launching ahead double-time over the 212

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uneven ground. Julianne briefly thought of running along the waterline where the waves and shifting tides had made the sand wet and smooth and packed flat, but decided against it. If she was going to run on the beach, she was going for the biggest challenge she could handle.

Since her talk with Dad and Chloe, life in the Kahn household had been warm, fun, and relatively unevent-full once again—if somewhat bittersweet. Julianne and Chloe were closer than they’d ever been, but Julianne knew that their renewed bond was underscored by a sense of loss.

As she headed back down the beach for home, Julianne’s runner’s high was tainted by the realization that she’d have to run past the Moores’ place on her way home. The Moore property was expanding so rapidly that it would have been almost impossible to avoid it.

Julianne took a deep breath, promising herself yet again that running past the massive construction site in no way compromised the campaign of avoidance she’d launched against Remi over the past weeks.

After talking about it a lot with Dad and Chloe, Julianne had more or less acknowledged that Remi was an innocent bystander in his family’s expansion campaign, but she still couldn’t bring herself to talk to him.

Fair or not, he was still tangled up in the messy web of the summer’s hurt and loss, and Julianne wasn’t ready to untangle that part just yet. She had too much else to deal 213

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with. She shifted her eyes away from the looming construction and focused instead on the gleaming, turquoise water. The ocean looked like an exact replica of Julianne’s painting, giving her a familiar pang of pride and loss. As Julianne stretched her long legs into a comfortable gait, she ran with her head slightly turned. She just couldn’t keep her eyes off the water. It felt a little too much like a sitcom setup. At any moment, Julianne thought, I’ll probably get bonked on the forehead by a stray Frisbee, or I’ll collide with another runner who had his eyes on the water, too. She was still laughing at her own imagina-tion when the playlist shuffled to “SexyBack.” Julianne quickened her stride and let Justin steer her back toward home.

Arriving on the porch, her sound track still blaring in her ears, Julianne leaned down to stretch her calves before taking off her running shoes. Taking a little hop forward, she pulled her right heel behind her back and held it with her left hand. Every time she came back from a run, Julianne looked up at her bedroom balcony and promised herself that this wouldn’t be the last time she’d dash over the sand and return to the house she loved. She sighed and finished her stretch before kicking off her sneakers onto the porch and heading inside.

She padded into her bedroom in her white ankle socks with green and yellow pom-poms. When Julianne had first bought the socks, Chloe had laughed that 214

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they’d ruin her athletic cred. Julianne paused in front of her mirror, rolling her eyes at her red, sweaty face and her soggy curls. She turned to Chloe, who was sprawled out on Julianne’s bed reading Us Weekly.