MillieI did not plan to start the summer by dangling out of a second-story window. But on this breezy night, all that separates me from plunging to my death and living to see my eighteenth birthday is the grip my older sister, Lucy, has on my wrists from inside my bedroom. Frankie, the youngest, suggested this was the best way to sneak out of our house. Maybe for her.
“It’s easy!” Frankie calls from fifteen feet below. “Swing your foot over to the ladder thingy and hold on.”
“It’s called a trellis,” Lucy says above me.
“Whatever.” Frankie blows a raspberry, clearly not caring a bit about our safety.
“She’s insane,” I say through gritted teeth as Lucy readjusts her clutch on my wrists, inching her fingers down to get a better hold. “Don’t you dare let go.” I kick my feet back and forth, hitting nothing but wind.
I make the mistake of glancing down and suck in a big breath of air.
Crap. The ground is very, very far away. “I can’t do this.”
“Why did we let Frankie go down first again?” Lucy says, her breath heavy above me.
“Because I was the only one who volunteered.” Frankie laughs and plops down on the grass.
I shake my head. “Unbelievable.”
Lucy knits her brow together in determination. “I won’t let you fall, Millie. Just get it over with.”
“Easy for you to say.” I grunt and fix my gaze on the trellis beside me. “You’re not the one who’s half‑in, half-out.” I swing my leg with as much strength as I can muster, and with a rush of relief and a small miracle, my foot latches on to a section of wood. “I got it!”
“I’m gonna let go,” Lucy says.
“Wait! Let me get my grip.” I release one of her hands and grab a slat of wood, then redistribute all my weight and scamper down to the earth, wisteria and ivy crunching underfoot as I leap off onto the grass and roll over to Frankie.
“Oh my god,” I say, pressing my cheek to the cool ground. “Never again.”
Frankie leans back on her elbows, and we both look up to see Lucy crawling on the roof on her hands and knees, securing herself to the same pathway I took with what looks like no effort at all.
“Why is that so easy for you?” I ask.
Lucy looks back over her shoulder at me, and her lips spread into a smile.
“Wait a second. She’s done this before.” Frankie smacks the backside of her hand against my shoulder.
“Gotta get to Ethan somehow,” Lucy says as she hops off the framework, landing on the grass on one dainty foot.
Of course. Lucy sneaks out to see him without us. I tuck a stray curl behind my ear. “Mom and Dad don’t even care.” I glance up to our parents’ bedroom window and see their light still on, the silhouette of Mom reading in bed dark against the linen curtains. “It’s practically sanctioned.”
“Zip it!” Lucy says. “Don’t ruin it for Frankie.”
“Are you serious? They really know?” Frankie asks, turning to me.
“But that doesn’t make it any less fun,” I say. “I promise.”
Lucy skips ahead toward the hedge that separates our home from the Silvers’ property next door and waves her arm for us to follow. I grab Frankie’s hand and pull her with me as we take off after Lucy through the grass. The stars are bright, illuminating us against the dark sky. When we get to the archway, I pause and close my eyes, inhaling.
Summer nights always smell the same: of sea salt and burnt driftwood, cut grass and lingering barbecue. Of beginnings. When I blink my eyes open, I see the moon glinting off the Long Island Sound, right over the boardwalk that leads to the beach. The bonfire we made only hours before is gone, but a tiny plume of smoke drifts into the air. We’d left a few blankets out there, rocks stationed at the corners to keep them secured, and I wonder who forgot to clean up. Alex, maybe. Probably Frankie. Goose pimples rise on my arms, and I shiver even though it’s warm out, the breeze only a gentle suggestion.
Everything about this moment is perfect. I wish I could bottle up this feeling—the humming in my stomach, the fluttering in my heart. Every little indicator that reminds me
this is what’s important in life. My sisters, the beach, and the boys who live next door.
“Millie, let’s go,” Lucy whispers, and I follow my sisters through the archway that connects us to our next-door neighbors, a label that’s never felt quite right.
Friends doesn’t feel intimate enough. And yet the Silvers aren’t
family either.
There is no word in the English language to describe the connection between our two households—whose last names are conveniently(and ridiculously) the Golds and the Silvers—whose members spend every Friday Shabbat dinner together, have open invitations to each other’s snack pantries and sports equipment and first aid kits. Whose lives mirror one another’s in peculiar and almost cosmic ways.
The Silvers are as much a part of my life as the cicadas that sound right after Memorial Day or my membership to the Pelican Island Tennis and Beach Club.
Lucy leads us to the pool house at the far end of their property, past the newly lined pickleball court, the crystal-clear infinity pool, and the tiny putting green Gil installed last spring when he and my dad decided their short games needed work.
“So, Mom and Dad
let us come over here this late?” Frankie says. “We’ve been sneaking out after Shabbat every year for . . . ever.”
“They think it’s cute,” Lucy says. Her voluminous hair falls down her back as she stands up straight, facing the side of the pool house. “Besides, it’s not like they have anything to worry about. When was the last time something bad happened here?”
Copyright © 2026 by Jessica Goodman. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
