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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-3917-0

  eISBN 978-1-68335-980-7

  Text copyright © 2020 Marisa Reichardt

  Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura

  Published in 2020 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  To my mom—

  For believing in me. Always.

  CHAPTER ONE

  4:15 P.M.

  I’m skipping practice.

  Skipping practice isn’t something people who want to play water polo in college should do, but sometimes you find out your mom is dating your coach and there is absolutely, positively no way you can show your face on the pool deck.

  My mom broke the news to me last night at dinner. It was casual. Like, “Pass the peas and, oh yeah, Coach Sanchez is my new boyfriend.”

  I gagged. Literally. On a combination of food and disgust.

  She ignored my disdain. “It’s a good thing, Ruby. I promise.” Her gaze floated to some faraway, blissful place. “We’re actually going on a little romantic getaway for Valentine’s Day next weekend.”

  Did she have to use the word romantic?

  And did she have to swoon over Valentine’s Day?

  Since when does my mom believe in hearts and flowers? I want her to be happy. I do. But does she have to find happiness in my world? With my coach?

  “That’s it,” I said. “I have to switch schools.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “This isn’t dramatic, Mom. This is serious. You’ve ruined my life. So thanks a lot.”

  I pushed my chair away from the table and stormed off to my room, where I mainlined Netflix for the rest of the night, too horrified to tell anyone what I’d learned. I wasn’t ready to tell my friends. Or my boyfriend. Maybe nobody would ever have to know.

  But then the thoughts crept in.

  What if they last forever?

  What if my mom becomes Mrs. Coach Sanchez?

  I wouldn’t be able to keep it secret.

  They’d have a sunset wedding on the beach, with me as the reluctant maid of honor. So different from the way my mom married my dad at city hall. And then Coach Sanchez would be in my living room on Sundays and on the couch on Christmas. In sweatpants with his whistle around his neck. A horrid visual. He belongs on the pool deck, not at my dinner table.

  I don’t dislike Coach Sanchez. I love him as my coach with his dorky jokes and his six-on-five plays and his surprise buñuelos after morning workouts. But in my house? With my mom? As my possible stepdad? No. My worlds were separate. Water polo was my happy place, home was my safe space. The two worlds colliding meant both were ruined.

  Later in the night, after she spilled her news, my mom knocked on my door. Three gentle taps. Short and sweet.

  “Ruby, can I come in?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ruby.”

  I heard the thump of her pressing her forehead to the wood door as she sighed. I could feel her there even though I couldn’t see her. And when I sensed she’d finally walked away, I cracked my door open. There she was, shuffling down the hall toward her bedroom, head bent. Defeated.

  Good.

  I wanted her to feel guilty. I wanted her to wallow in her selfishness and the way she had crossed the line. I hoped that’s what she was thinking about as she fell asleep.

  She was already gone for work when I left today, and I was glad I didn’t have to see her. We had a late-start so we didn’t have morning practice. But I saw Coach in the hallway as soon as I got to school because he also teaches chemistry. I couldn’t look him in the face. Did he know my mom had told me? How long had they been a thing? I tried to figure out what clues I had about them as I unloaded my books into my locker. I remembered the way they’d been talking, heads tilted toward each other, shoulders touching, when I came out of the locker room after my game last week. I was worried my mom had been doing something inappropriate, like asking Coach why he’d benched me for practically the whole fourth quarter. Because I need you to try smarter, not harder, he’d told me. I hadn’t imagined they were making plans for Valentine’s Day.

  Shudder.

  Because it was a late-start day, Thea, Iris, and Juliette had insisted we meet up with Mila for breakfast even though Mila and I were barely on speaking terms since our New Year’s Eve meltdown five weeks ago. When I’d gotten up the guts to tell the four of them about my mom and Coach, I was hoping for support, but Mila rolled her eyes because that’s what she does best. “Guess we all know who’ll be the star player now. Red-carpet rollout for you from the locker room to the water. Should I ready my camera? Go full-blown paparazzi on your ass?”

  Mila’s great at water polo. And sarcasm.

  “Try the opposite,” I said. “Coach will probably be extra tough on me now. Like he has to prove a point he’s not playing favorites.”

  Mila slowly stirred her yogurt. “I wouldn’t count on it. You’re basically his favorite already. Now maybe we know why.”

  Damn. She knew how to aim.

  Thea, Iris, and Juliette nodded their heads in agreement because that’s what people who aren’t me do with Mila. Smile. Nod. Repeat.

  There was no way I could go to afternoon practice after that. Not when I knew Mila would spend the whole day texting the rest of the team to tell them Coach was making out with my mom and treating me like royalty.

  So I skipped.

  And now I’m here.

  At the laundromat.

  For one reason and one reason only: it’s next door to the liquor store, and Mila taught me this is where you go when you need someone to buy you beer. There’s always a surfer or a burnout or a sailor from the navy base practically waiting to be asked. There’s a party tonight, and it seems like the perfect place to drown my sorrows or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when you find out your coach likes to stick his tongue in your mom’s mouth.

  Ew. No!

  I pound at my skull, trying to erase the visual. Beer will help. Even if I swore I’d never get beer this way after what happened the last time. But that was before I knew there would be a day like this. I’m taking a cue from Mila, and I don’t even care if it makes me a hypocrite.

  I dump an armful of beach towels into a washer and scope things out. There’s an older woman folding laundry in a cubby in the back corner. She works here, and customers pay her to do their laundry. There’s also a guy who doesn’t look much older than me, but right now he’s my only option. I push a bunch of quarters into the washer’s slot and listen to the swoosh of water filling the drum as I try to figure out exactly how I’m going to work up the nerve to ask this prep in a polo to take my money and buy me a twelve-pack. If Mila were here, she’d do her usual skirt-and-flirt routine. Me?
I’m six feet tall. This makes me great at playing the two-meter position in water polo but not so great at finding skirts that end past the crotch of my underwear. So I’m in jeans. And my team sweatshirt. With my feet shoved into flip-flops so well worn, the toe impressions are permanently carved into them. If asking people to buy you beer were covered on the SAT, I’d ace it. But it’s not. So I’m nervous.

  I watch the guy’s hands as they carefully smooth over the folds of T-shirts and khaki pants with the precision of an assembly line.

  One day I will meet someone with bigger hands than mine.

  I notice stray blue paint on his knuckles. A little more under his chin. He piles his folded shirts into a duffel bag similar to the one I have for water polo, only his bag is hand-dyed like an art project, his name spray-painted in black stenciled letters along the side.

  C. Smith.

  He could be anyone.

  C. Smith is so common that he is nameless. C. Smith is a face in the crowd. There are probably at least twenty C. Smiths in this town alone, two of them in my graduating class.

  He finishes folding and pulls out a journal from his unzipped duffel. I try not to roll my eyes. He’s probably one of those writer types who has to jot down everything he sees so he can shove it into a metaphor in some future story. His journal is black with the same letters stenciled in gold across the front. C. Smith. He opens up to a half-filled page and writes something inside. Then he closes the journal and tucks the ballpoint pen into an elastic band that wraps around the outside.

  I fish my phone out of my back pocket and snap a photo of my washing machine suds to send to Leo while I’m thinking up a plan.

  I watch the triple dots bounce as he types back to me.

  What is that???

  I don’t respond because C. Smith abandons his duffel bag to wander the lavender-scented fluffy air of the laundromat, his casual cool in conflict with his perfect khaki pants. The older woman folding laundry in the back corner looks up when he moves—a quick intake of who’s here and where they’re going. My gaze skims across the timer on C. Smith’s dryer, my stomach twisting with urgency when I realize I have only ten minutes left to summon up the courage to get what I came for.

  I watch as he balances between his heels and the balls of his feet, checking out the flyers on the bulletin board. Winter sun shimmers through the open door next to him, shooting sparks across the checkered floor streaked with sticky gray stains and shreds of mop strings pushed into the corners. He must not care about the phone number for the woman opening up her house to align people’s chakras on Saturday morning because he turns away to lean his back against a floor-to-ceiling window that frames the cracked asphalt and faded lines of the parking lot. He pushes his hand through his crew cut, and I notice that some of the strands in front are sun faded and nearly white.

  I tug on the strings of my sweatshirt hood to bury my face and hide my lurking.

  There’s something oddly satisfying about watching someone when they don’t know you’re looking. To be making plans they’ll be involved in but don’t even know yet.

  C. Smith crosses his arms over his chest. The sleeves of his shirt ride up to hug buff biceps, and I wonder if he started lifting weights recently or if, like me, he did weight-room workouts for four years of high school, jolting awake to an alarm clock for sports practice before the sun came up.

  Six minutes on his dryer. It’s now or never. I take the last sip of the bottled water I brought with me. It goes down too fast and I cough. C. Smith looks my way, acknowledging my presence with a lift of his chin.

  I push my stool back and stand up, nervously spinning my championship ring around my finger and back again. Now that I’m standing, I can see I tower over C. Smith. I estimate he barely hits five feet and five inches.

  So I slouch.

  I would love to be five foot five.

  I would love to not stand out.

  I would love to be a nameless face in the crowd.

  C. Smith has it good.

  Or maybe he doesn’t.

  Short boys might not have it any better than tall girls.

  “Excuse me.” I take a step closer to him.

  C. Smith lifts his eyes my way. “Yeah?”

  A dog barks in the distance. It’s a little yip at first, but then it gets frantic enough to make us both look out the window.

  “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

  Dogs up and down the block join the barking in a wild cacophony of noise.

  Like a warning.

  Exactly as I process this thought, the ground rumbles underneath my feet. An empty laundry cart teeters by on its rickety wheels. C. Smith steps away from the window and braces his hands on top of the thick mint-green Formica table a few feet from mine, his neat shirts stacked in his duffel bag inches from his fingers.

  We lock eyes.

  “Earthquake,” I say.

  “Yeah. It feels big.”

  I nod. He’s right. This one is bigger than normal. I grip the edge of my table, my fingertips flinching at the rotted bumps of dried gum underneath.

  My water bottle bounces to the ground as the alarms of parked cars bleat. An open dryer door bangs with so much force its glass window breaks. C. Smith has his back to the laundromat’s window. I’m facing it, looking out at the ground swelling in the parking lot.

  And then there’s a sound like a freight train.

  Screeching.

  Grinding.

  The ground rolls like waves in the ocean. My knuckles go white as I struggle to hang on to the edge of my table.

  A flash of movement catches my eye as the woman from the back corner darts out from her workspace, her hands flipping switches on a nearby panel. Washers and dryers stop midcycle. The fluorescent lights above us sputter then shut off as she runs out the door and into the parking lot.

  She should not run into the parking lot.

  I want to yell at her. Tell her to stop. Turn around. How can one person be so smart and so dumb at the same time?

  C. Smith tries to get my attention, yelling incoherent words and waving his arms.

  “Duck!” I shout, and dive under my own table in time to see the walls of the building cave in. The windows shatter. Fragments of glass slide across the floor like ice.

  I grew up in California and can count on my fingers the number of times an earthquake had actually felt strong enough to make me run for cover. There was one time in kindergarten when Ms. Curtis was reading a story out loud from her big yellow book, and the ABC rug felt like it was going to drop out from under us. She told us to get underneath our desks and put one hand over our heads while holding on to a desk leg with the other. Ms. Curtis scrunched up like a pill bug in the middle of the room, showing us what to do before she rolled up under her own desk. Amanda Friedlander cried and Scotty Cleary peed his pants. I stayed curled up in a ball until the ground stopped shaking.

  But then it was over. And just like that, the panic had passed. Nothing was broken. And Ms. Curtis went back to reading.

  When I was in second grade, the earth must’ve rattled hard enough to scare my mom because she pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night and dove underneath the dining room table, where I stayed safely tucked against her chest until the ground stilled.

  There was another time in middle school. And one more in tenth grade. When I was with Mila. Before everything.

  Four times.

  Four times in my seventeen years that I’ve ducked for cover because I actually thought my California town had the potential to split open.

  Now it’s actually happening.

  The air explodes with scraping metal. The doorway caves. Drywall dust thickens like smoke. Chunks of ceiling debris fall and scatter. The table above me cracks and dips in the middle, pinning me down. Locking me in. I push against it, trying to keep it from collapsing and crushing me, but this earthquake is stronger than I am. I clench my eyes shut, ball my fists. I remember what I can. Cover my head. Tuck in my
toes. Keep cuts to a minimum. The weight on my chest grows, stunting my breathing. I dare to squint my eyes open, but I can’t see through the smog of chaos. I can’t even pull enough breath into my lungs to scream.

  Today will be the end of me.

  The ground shakes. The walls fall.

  People don’t survive buildings collapsing on them. I’m going to die in a dirty laundromat, decorated all orange and green like a 1970s prom, and my mom won’t know where to look for my body because she doesn’t even know I’m here. I should be at the pool. With my team. With her boyfriend.

  I’d give anything to be there now.

  Instead of with C. Smith.

  Who has disappeared.

  Is he even alive? Did he duck when I warned him?

  He was so close to the window. He could’ve been shredded apart by shards of glass. I scream. I don’t know if it’s for him or for me. My voice isn’t loud enough. And my head isn’t clear enough to know.

  Heavy things drop. Shift. Move.

  Walls and windows blow out.

  The building rains down around me.

  A boom.

  A screech.

  A bump.

  A roll.

  And just as quickly as it had started moving, the earth takes a final gasp. Its waves slow like it is out of breath.

  Until finally, stillness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  4:40 P.M.

  I cough through the dust.

  Wiggle my body.

  Flick my toes.

  Roll my neck.

  I’ve ended up sort of on my right side, sort of on my back, with my forearms crisscrossed over my face. I’ve got one fist on top of my head and another one trying desperately to keep a grip on the leg of the table above me. There’s solid floor underneath me, but the walls of the building have buckled, surrounding me in rubble. Air strains in from a tiny slice in the debris, bringing a gift of light. The heat of my exhale presses back against my mouth. There’s no room for my breath to move. It’s trapped like me. I try to squirm. Scramble. Twist. But I barely budge.

  There’s nowhere to go.

  No way out.