Welcome to Corbet's Inlet, North Carolina, where the teenagers act like adults and the adults act like teenagers. It's Griffin Connolly's favorite place in the world. And while she may not be good at making decisions when it comes to her own life, s...
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Thanksgiving used to be Charlie's favorite holiday.
He used to not be able to get enough of the food and the football and the relatives coming into town. Both his parents are from big families, and even though he's spent the majority of his life as an only child, Charlie's never felt like he missed out on anything with all his aunts and uncles and cousins around.
But now?
Now, Thanksgiving is stressful. Charlie's mom and stepdad have a pretty particular way of doing things...and it always includes coming up with new and creative ways to justify not inviting Charlie's dad.
"You know he's busy with work," Charlie's mom said last year.
"And we don't want want to make your father fly in all the way from New York just for a few days. You'll see him over Christmas, Chuck," Charlie's stepdad, Brent, added.
This year, it's, "He's probably spending time with that woman he's seeing."
Which is the biggest load of bullshit, ever.
Bullshit, because Charlie knows for a fact his dad isn't seeing anyone seriously enough to spend Thanksgiving with them. And bullshit, because of the bitterness in his mom's voice every time she says it. As far as Charlie's concerned, his mother isn't allotted any bitterness toward his dad. Not after everything that's happened.
And to top everything off, Charlie's now spending his Thanksgiving Break reading a painfully straightforward narrative about the summer he fell in love with Griffin Connolly.
By the time he and Evan got to Charlie's mom's house yesterday, Evan was only taking breaks from reading to remind Charlie that he should be reading it, too. Charlie made it clear he had zero interest in doing that, all the way up until Evan came barging into his room that morning complaining about how Griffin's senior project group left out the ending.
"The story just stops," Evan says in despair, waving his too-bright cell phone screen in Charlie's face.
Charlie burrows deeper into the covers, pretending his cousin isn't here, but Evan is relentless.
"I can't believe the story just stops there. Like, what the fuck, man?"
After a few more minutes of Evan being intentionally vague, curiosity finally gets the better of Charlie (because let's be honest, anything to do with Griffin always gets the best of Charlie eventually, and Evan knows it). Charlie sits up, rubs his eyes, and doesn't try to hide how annoyed he is when he asks where the story stops.
"Your birthday party," Evan huffs out, like he'd been holding his breath for Charlie to take the bait.
So that's how Charlie ends up sitting at the kitchen table later that afternoon — the same kitchen table where he and his parents used to eat dinner together — reliving every painful detail about his summer with Griffin through an iPhone screen.
He's only about thirteen chapters in, and it's weird as hell to read all this from Griff's point of view, but one thing that surprised him is how honestly she's portrayed herself so far. Amused by it, even. She hasn't held back at all in the scenes when she was being...well, when she was being Griffin.
Charlie likes that she played up her bratty side, and that she wasn't afraid to admit she could be difficult sometimes. It makes him nostalgic for an entirely different side of their relationship. He misses picking fights with her — misses knowing exactly which buttons to push and the vicious kickback he got when he pushed too many at once...
Which, all things considered, is about as ironic as it gets.
Charlie just misses her. And reading Corbet's hurts even more when he thinks about how they haven't spoken since the day he turned nineteen.
Anyway.
If Charlie was surprised by how accurate Griffin's character is in her story, then he's flat out shocked by Griffin downplaying how obnoxious he'd been about the Wake Forest thing. He remembers being way more relentless when he wanted answers from her, and way less patient when she didn't want to talk about it...
He catches himself speed reading through a smaller part of the story to see if she's written anything about when he finally told her secret —
A baseball glove slaps down onto the kitchen table. Charlie's eyes flick up from his phone.
"Can we go throw now, Charlie?" Max asks, grinning as he packs a dirty baseball into his own mitt. He lost his two front teeth a week ago, and he's sweating along the hairline of his buzzcut from playing catch with Charlie's old pitch-back net all afternoon. "It's almost three o'clock! You promised, remember?"
Charlie checks the time on his phone. 2:58 p.m.
He forces a smile and picks up his glove. "You got it, bud. Front yard or back?"
"Back!" Max yells, bolting for the backdoor.
Charlie doesn't want to stop reading now, but he did make a promise to Max.
He follows his eight-year-old stepbrother out into yard and wonders for the millionth time that day if Griffin's written anything about his family in Corbet's.
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