Dual flames

Just like every other summer, we were at the same rented beach house in Laguna Beach that our families had returned to every summer since before I could walk. The Hedgers and the Williams, two couples who had been inseparable since high school-had turned this tradition into something sacred. No matter where life took them, every June they both packed up their kids and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway until the air smelled like salt and sunscreen and possibility.

That year, the house felt different. Or maybe I was the one who was different.

I remember standing on the weathered deck, barefoot, clutching a melting popsicle, watching Daniel jog up from the surf with his board tucked under one arm. Water streamed off his tanned shoulders, catching the late-afternoon light like liquid gold. His dark hair was longer than the year before, curling at the ends, and when he laughed at something his dad shouted from the shoreline, the sound carried over the crash of waves and lodged itself somewhere deep in my chest.

I didn't know the word for it then. Crush. Infatuation. The beginning of a decade-long ache. All I knew was that my heart did something strange-skipped, stumbled, then raced to catch up-and I suddenly felt too big for my own skin.

"Lisa, you're dripping," Mom said, nudging me with her elbow as she passed with a tray of lemonade. "Either eat that thing or throw it away before it stains the wood."

I blinked, looked down, and realized the cherry popsicle had melted down my wrist and onto my fingers. I licked it quickly, embarrassed, but my eyes drifted back to the beach. Daniel was toweling off now, shaking water from his hair like a dog. Simon, his younger brother by three years, which made him exactly one year older than me was trying to wrestle the towel away from him, laughing when Daniel held it just out of reach.

Simon spotted me on the deck and waved wildly, like he was flagging down a rescue helicopter. "Lis! Come down! The water's perfect!"

I waved back, but my gaze slid past him to Daniel, who had finally surrendered the towel and was now stretching, arms overhead, board shorts riding low on his hips. He glanced up at the house then, and for one terrifying second, our eyes met.

He smiled. Not the big, open grin he gave Simon or his parents. Something smaller, like he'd caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I ducked inside before anyone could notice.

That night, we all ate dinner on the back patio-grilled salmon, corn on the cob, Mrs Williams's famous potato salad. The adults drank wine and told the same stories they told every year about how my dad and Mr. Williams had once gotten suspended for filling the principal's office with beach balls and how Mom and Mrs. Williams had skipped prom to drive to Mexico in a borrowed convertible. They