Inside the pool house, the guys had already set up the volleyball net. Everyone in the water was dividing up into teams on either side of the pool.
Evan, Asher, Elyse, and Cambrielle were on one team. Hunter, Carter, Addison, and Ava—who had just slipped into that side of the pool—were on the other.
“You going to join us, Scarlett?” Carter called from the center of the pool with the volleyball in his hands. “You can be on our team.”
But when I noticed Addison turn her back to Hunter and lift her hair off her neck like she was asking him to help her remove her necklace, I waved a hand and said, “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll sit this one out, so the teams aren’t uneven.”
“Okay,” Carter called. “Nash said he was planning to come a little late, so maybe when he gets here you can join in.”
“Sure,” I said.
Then before I was forced to watch Hunter bend down closer to Addison as he unhooked her necklace clasp, I headed to where Mack was sitting on one of the lounge chairs, looking like he was in about as good of a mood as I was today.
“Didn’t feel like playing volleyball, either?” I asked as I sat in the lounge chair next to him.
“No.” He propped one arm up behind his head as he watched everyone start the game. “Just having another one of those days again.”
“Missing your mom?” I guessed.
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a second, and I just waited, knowing from experience that it sometimes took him a little time to open up about his feelings. He scratched at a spot on his blue swim shorts, and then after sighing, he said, “It’s like, I’ll be just fine and happy and things are going well, and then out of nowhere I’ll see something that reminds me of her, or I’ll think of a funny joke that she would love… And then I remember she’s not here and…I don’t know… I just miss her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said lamely, wishing I knew how to make things better. But what could I say? I didn’t know what it was like to lose a parent.
Even if I did sometimes think about what I’d do if I lost one of them, I saw things differently from my friend. Mack wasn’t religious, and I didn’t know if he had any real beliefs about what happened after this life.
I wanted to tell him that he could be with his mom again someday. That if he was baptized into the church and had one of the priests bless him, he could live with his mom again.
But every time I thought about telling him about the great plan of the gospel, I remembered what had happened when I’d tried talking to his mom about it before she died.
How I’d told her that there was a way to see Mack and her husband again in the next life if she would just follow the plan the Lord had laid out for us—people going through trials always seemed more open to the Good Word.
But Mack’s mom had just patted my hand and told me gently that she didn’t see why any loving god would let differing beliefs about something as unknowable as what happens after this life to separate us from our families in the first place.
I hadn’t really known how to respond to her after that, since in my experience, it wasn’t unknowable at all. It had been revealed to the High Priest Samuel Williams back in 1838 in a vision.
But she hadn’t been interested when I’d tried to tell her. She’d only said she was glad that my church brought me happiness, but she was happy with her own spiritual path.
I’d felt sad that she still couldn’t see what I could. But after having other similar experiences with the people at my school, I stopped trying to push the gospel onto my friends and acquaintances. I’d learned from my own experience of trying to get my own inactive mother to join me for church, that I couldn’t force them to listen if they didn’t want to.
The volleyball game ended, and Mack went to join Cambrielle in the hot tub. When I noticed Hunter heading for the hot tub too, I stood to join them. But when Addison followed him, I realized the hot tub actually looked a little overcrowded and sat back down.
Did Hunter like Addison?I wondered as she sat on the edge, with just her legs hanging in the water next to him. Did he like how she looked in her two-piece suit? It was more modest than the bikini Ava wore, but it definitely revealed a lot more skin than my one-piece bathing suit did.
In our church, a lot of the youth encouraged each other to dress in the guidelines the High Priest had given us for dress and appearance, saying that “Modest is Hottest.”
I’d always liked the phrase, since modesty was important to me. It always made me feel good to think that other guys in the youth program would find it an attractive trait when so many other non-members around us dressed so differently.
While I’d never actually heard Hunter use the phrase himself, I’d hoped that he would appreciate how much effort I put into finding clothes that fit the church’s standards.
But who knows, maybe he actually preferred the way Addison dressed.
Maybe not going to church for half a year had made him care less about those kinds of things.
I pulled out my phone and opened it to the email account I’d set up forDear Eliza. Maybe reading about other people’s problems would help distract me from my own. But as I tried to read the most recent email, my mind refused to focus on the paragraph thatHe’s My Best Friend’s Exhad written about her forbidden crush. The chatter and laughter from the hot tub were too distracting.
After reading the same two lines several times, I set my phone on my beach towel and headed back to the main house for a glass of water.
Hunter looked up in my direction as I walked past the hot tub and mouthed, “Are you okay?”
