Page 87 of Just One More Thing

EMORY

I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, having a one-sided conversation with Florida and the alien.

Sleep is finally starting to win when light flashes across the wall. Then it comes again.

I sit up.

Could he…

Six short flashes.

Morse code.

Hi.

He absolutely is.

I bounce up on my knees to look out the window. The light is coming from Jake’s, cutting across the water like it used to when we were kids who believed bedtime was optional and summer was forever.

I rifle through the nightstand for my old flashlight. It’s still here. It still rattles. It still acts possessed every time you turn it on. I shake it until the beam shines steady, then point it toward Jake’s.

On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

Pause.

On. Off. On. Off.

He responds with longer flashes.

I start digging through my mental Morse code storage, filed somewhere between recipes and every song lyric from the early 2000s, and come up with nothing exceptDirt Road Anthemstuck in my head now.

I grab my phone.

I’m out of practice what was that one?

Come over.

A laugh escapes before I can catch it. I slap a hand over my mouth and glance toward Granny’s room.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just text me?

Yes. But not nearly as romantic.

Awww on my way

I slip off his jersey and pull on his hoodie instead. It’s my attempt at romance.

It’s also so I don’t have to put a bra on.

I pull on some comfy shorts and grab my bkr because hydration and emotional support is still essential after midnight, then tiptoe downstairs like I’m thirteen again and not thirty, successfully navigating every creaky floorboard except?—

“Stay out all night,” Granny calls from behind her closed door.

That one.

I was significantly better at this at thirteen.

I ease through the back door, brushing my fingers over the old dent on my way out. The Point is quiet, but I still race acrossfrom shadow to shadow the way we did when we snuck out as kids.