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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In a highly unlikely turn of events, Griffin slept better that night than she had in a long time. She woke up Tuesday morning with an unexpected sense of calm.
Key word: unexpected.
She opened her eyes to daylight streaming in through the windows. She yawned and stretched her arms under the pillows, and her left hand pushed into something hard. It slid off the back of the mattress and clattered to the floor.
It took Griffin a second to remember the fifteen page journal entry she'd written before falling asleep last night. It took a while to chronicle the insane sequence of events leading up to her crawling into bed. She'd shoved her Moleskine under her pillow when she was done because she'd been too tired to get up and put it back in her usual hiding spot. Now it was under her bed, and she really didn't feel like getting it.
She was on her hands and knees, one arm reaching under her bed and her ass in the air, when there was a knock on the door. Had she known this was going to happen when she was picking out pajamas last night, she probably would've thought to wear something other than flowery pink boy shorts and a t-shirt two sizes too small for her.
"Griff—? Oh! I'm so sorry, honey!" her mom said. "Howard, hang on a second. Griffin's changing."
"One sec!" Griffin called out, making a last-ditch grab for her journal. She miraculously got it without dislocating her shoulder; then she wrenched herself out from halfway under her bed and hurried to find something to change into.
For stupid reasons, the architect who designed the Connolly's beach house decided it was a good idea to put a walk-in closet inside her bathroom. Still, it did provide the perfect hiding spot for her journal. The closet itself was hidden well enough on the far side of her shower, but it also had built-in shelves and drawers and shoe racks. Griffin opened the bottom drawer in the shelving unit behind the door and pushed her journal underneath an impressive collection of worn-out sports bras.
She grabbed a bathrobe from the floor and threw it around herself.
"Okay, I'm good," she called back to her parents, feeling suddenly uneasy. She looked around her room for the best place to sit.
Her mom cracked open the door and poked her head in again. "Hi, honey. Can we talk?"
Griffin waved them in and decided to get back into bed for this. Her parents never came into her room. She knew what this was about before they were even through the doorframe. All the calm she'd woken up with was gone.
Howard and Melissa filed in with equally neutral expressions. Griffin wondered if they'd rehearsed. They stood side by side in somewhat matching golf outfits, all clashing pastels and clasped hands.
"Sleep well?" her mom asked.
Griffin nodded. And kept waiting.
"We thought about the conversation we had last night," her dad said firmly. He was never one to dawdle, but there was a softness around the edges of it that made Griffin hold her breath.
