Page 82 of The Starfish Sisters

“So many missed chances,” he says.

“Not this one.”

He brings my hand up and takes my index finger into his mouth. I’ve never thought I would like this, but heat rushes through me. His eyes are molten dark and I can feel the wet give of his inner lip. I bend in and kiss him, and this time we take each other with a kind of starved brutality, leaving bruises and banging teeth, joining in a kind of frenzy. I collapse on his chest, his hands on my bare back and think,How will I ever survive this?

Chapter Nineteen

Phoebe

“Nana,” Jasmine says as I’m getting supper ready. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course.” I slide a cookie sheet of soy “fish” sticks and Tater Tots into the oven. It’s a horrible meal, but I have to admit I like it, too. I sit down across from her. “What’s up, darling girl?”

“I don’t want to move to England.” She pulls out her notebook. “I made a list of my reasons. I want to read them to you.”

She’s so young and so old in the same body. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail that puffs out like the head of a dandelion, and her big gray eyes are serious. There is no face on this planet that I love better. Tears prick the back of my eyes, and I have to blink to keep them where they belong. “Of course. I’m glad to listen.”

“Number one—I don’t want to be so far away from my nana.” She looks at me, raises her second finger. “Two, I like living by the ocean, not in the city. Three, my mom can fly back and forth a lot easier than you can. Four, it’s healthier for kids to live in nature. Five, I can have pets here and my mom won’t have to deal with them.” She moves to her left hand. “Six, London has a lot of crime. Seven, England has a monarch and I don’t agree with that. Eight, they won’t like my American accent and might make fun of me, and that would really hurt my feelings. Nine—well, that’s all.” She closes the notebook. “Iam still working on it.” As if she’s the CEO of a small corporation, she folds her hands on top of the notebook. “But you and my mom need to listen to me. I’m not just being a kid. This affects my life, too, and I should have a say.”

I nod, folding my own hands over hers, and let my gut settle. Of course she’s right about a lot, but she’s also wrong, and she doesn’t know the good things. Also, it’s nonnegotiable, no matter what she thinks or how persuasive her arguments are. I remember wanting so desperately to live with Beryl instead of my parents, and it would have broken my father’s heart. And it would break Stephanie right in two. “That is a great list. I’m proud of you for being so logical.”

She yanks her hands from beneath mine. “But you’re still not going to listen, are you?”

“Jasmine, you know I love you and I want you to be happy. But this is not my decision. It’s your mother’s. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“I know you love her and want to be with her.”

She blinks away tears. “I do love her. Imissher.” She steadies herself. “But I still don’t want to go.”

“It’s going to be okay, Jazzie. I promise.”

Her face says she doesn’t believe me. I reach for the checkerboard on the side of the table. “Let’s play while we wait for dinner. We can talk more about this, okay?”

“Fine.”

We set up the board and she takes red, as always. “Last night, I read that once London was bombed for nine months in a row, every single night.”

“Ah.”

“Is that true?”

I pause. It’s not exactly correct, but the facts will not help. “The Blitz,” I say. “It was a long time ago, during World War II.” I move my piece.

She frowns at the move, takes a minute to evaluate her choices. “What’s World War II?”

How to sum up such a conflagration in a sentence or two without being too reductive or simplistic? “It was a terrible war. A very bad leader came to power in Germany in the 1930s, and he tried to take over Europe, but he was defeated.”

“And he bombed London?”

“Yes. And many other places. Your move.”

She jumps my piece and takes it, and I take hers, leaving her to study the board a second. “But how was there anything left after all those bombs? That’s like a whole school year!”

“It was. But the English refused to give up. Maybe you can explore some of it when you’re there.”

“I don’t want to go to a place that gets bombed!”