Chapter 7

The tent smelled like sunscreen and salt and the particular mustiness of canvas left too long in the sun. Malia lay on her stomach on a nest of towels, a paperback propped against her water bottle, reading the same paragraph for the fifth time. She wasn’t retaining anything. The words blurred together, became meaningless shapes, became an excuse to stay horizontal and half-asleep while the world carried on outside.

She could hear them—her people, loud and alive and endless. Momo shrieking about something, probably sand in her bikini. Josh declaring his undying hatred for all physical activity. Morgan’s deep laugh, the one that meant she’d won whatever argument was happening. Freya’s voice, higher and younger, cutting through the noise with the confidence of someone who had never learned to doubt herself.

And Kylie.

Kylie, who had been with them for three months now, who had earned her place not with money or swagger but with consistency—showing up, showing out, showing them that she was serious about Malia, about this, about becoming someone worth keeping.

Malia smiled into her book, eyes drifting closed. Kylie was currently arguing with MK about volleyball rules, her voice carrying that particular rasp that Malia had learned to associate with happiness. Not anger. Not the explosive, terrifying anger from the dinner, the one that had sent Malia to the bathroom floor, that had cost them a week of silence and a month of rebuilding.

Couples therapy, Malia thought, the words still strange in her head. *Every Tuesday at 4 PM. Dr. Ora’s office on Wilshire. The beige couch that smells like lavender. Kylie holding my hand so tight it hurts, like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.

They’d started the week after the confrontation with Alex. Kylie had found the therapist, made the appointment, shown up early with coffee for both of them and a notebook she’d never actually opened. The first session had been terrible—Kylie defensive, Malia silent, Dr. Ora patient and unflinching. The second had been worse. The third, something cracked open. By the fifth, Kylie had cried in front of a stranger for the first time in her life, and Malia had held her, and they’d left holding hands, exhausted but connected in a way they hadn’t been since the lobby.

And Kylie had started anger management. Not because Malia asked—Malia would never have asked, too afraid of being controlling, of being too much—but because Kylie had looked at herself in the mirror one morning and said, “I don’t want to be him. I don’t want to be my father.”

She went twice a week now. Tuesday mornings before couples therapy, Thursday evenings. She came home—their home, Kylie had practically moved into Malia’s apartment, her skateboard propped by the door, her mullet products taking over the bathroom counter—with exercises and breathing techniques and sometimes bruised knuckles from punching a bag instead of walls.

It was working. Slowly, imperfectly, but working. The Kylie outside the tent right now, arguing about volleyball, was different from the Kylie who’d shouted her father into silence. Still intense. Still loud. Still Kylie—the swagger, the crooked grin, the way she looked at Malia like she was the only thing worth seeing.

But softer now. Slower to ignite. Quicker to apologize, to check in, to ask “Is this okay? Are you okay? Tell me what you need.”

Malia loved her more for it. Not despite the work, but because of it. Because Kylie was trying, really trying, and that effort was more romantic than any grand gesture, any black card, any stuffed animal from a claw machine.

“Malia!” Dara’s voice, maternal and commanding, cut through the tent fabric. “Food’s ready! Get your cute butt out here!”

Malia groaned, buried her face in her towel. “I’m reading!”

“You’re sleeping! I can hear you snoring from here!”

“I don’t snore!”

“Kylie says you do!”

Malia’s eyes snapped open. Traitor. She could picture Kylie’s grin, the one she wore when she was teasing, when she was happy, when she was safe.

“She’s lying!” Malia called back, but she was already sitting up, already reaching for her cover-up, already surrendering to the inevitable pull of her people.

She emerged from the tent blinking in the late afternoon sun. The beach stretched before them, Pacific blue and endless, the Santa Monica pier visible in the distance like a promise. Their group had claimed a prime spot near the lifeguard tower—towels and coolers and a portable speaker playing something Josh had curated, all mellow beats and summer vibes.

Dara presided over a small grill, tongs in hand, flipping burgers with the precision of someone who took outdoor cooking very seriously. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a “Kiss the Cook” apron that was definitely ironic, her curves wrapped in a floral swimsuit that made her look like a 1950s pin-up.

“Sit,” Dara commanded, pointing to a folding chair with her tongs. “Kylie, feed your girlfriend. She’s wasting away in that tent.”

“I’m not wasting away,” Malia protested, but she let Kylie guide her to the chair, let Kylie settle behind her, let Kylie’s arms come around her waist and pull her back against a warm, sunscreen-slick chest.

“You’re wasting away,” Kylie murmured against her ear, lips brushing the shell of it. “I can feel your ribs.”

“You can feel my ribs because you’re grabbing me too tight.”

“Never too tight.” But Kylie loosened her grip, just slightly, always checking, always careful. “Burger or hot dog?”

“Burger.”

“Cheese?”

“Obviously.”

“Pickles?”

“Kylie, I—” Malia twisted to look at her, found those whiskey-colored eyes crinkled with amusement, that crooked grin in full effect. “Are you going to feed me every bite?”

“Yes.” Kylie said it like it was obvious, like it was the most natural thing in the world. She reached for the plate Dara handed over, assembled a burger with practiced efficiency—lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickles, exactly the way Malia liked it—and broke it in half. “Open up.”

“Kylie, I have hands—”

“Open. Up.”

Malia opened her mouth. Kylie fed her the first bite, watching her chew with an intensity that should have been embarrassing but was somehow just loved. Her thumb came up, caught a smear of ketchup on Malia’s lower lip, and she sucked it clean without looking away.

“You’re disgusting,” Malia mumbled around the burger.

“I’m romantic,” Kylie corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“There’s really not.”

“Just eat, baby.”

Malia ate. Kylie fed her bite after bite, occasionally taking one for herself, their mouths meeting in the middle over shared food, salt and smoke and summer. Around them, the group moved through their rituals—Momo and Josh arguing about music, Morgan and Freya setting up a volleyball net, MK hovering near Ivory with the desperate hope of someone who still hadn’t confessed three years of feelings.

It was normal. It was theirs. And Malia, who had spent so long hiding in dark rooms, who had learned to fear loud voices and angry faces, found herself relaxing into Kylie’s chest, letting the sun warm her face, letting the laughter wash over her like the tide.

“Good?” Kylie asked, offering the last bite.

“Good,” Malia confirmed, and turned her head to kiss Kylie’s jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “You’re good.”

“Only for you.”

“Liar. You’re good for everyone now. I’ve seen your anger management worksheets. You’re basically a saint.”

Kylie laughed, loud and unguarded, the sound carrying across the beach. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Your reputation is ‘soft girlfriend who feeds her girl burgers.'”

“Fuck.” Kylie pressed her face into Malia’s neck, groaning. “That’s worse than ‘angry lesbian with daddy issues.'”

“Infinitely worse,” Malia agreed, grinning.

They sat like that until Dara shooed them toward the water, until Momo declared that “sitting is for losers and old people,” until Morgan physically dragged Kylie away from Malia with the complaint that “you two are grossing me out and I need a volleyball partner.”

The ocean was cold, shockingly so, and Malia shrieked when the first wave hit her thighs, splashing Kylie, who laughed and splashed back, and then they were chasing each other through the surf like children, like people who had never known fear, like lovers in a movie.

“Volleyball!” Morgan called, and they gathered around the net, teams forming with the chaotic energy of people who took competition seriously but not seriously enough.

Kylie and Malia were on opposite teams—Malia with Morgan, Josh, and Freya; Kylie with Momo, Dara, and a reluctant MK. Ivory had declared herself referee, sitting cross-legged in the sand with a whistle she’d produced from somewhere, blowing it with unnecessary enthusiasm.

“Rules!” Ivory announced. “No spiking if you’re over six feet—”

“That’s not a real rule,” Morgan protested.

“It is now! No arguing with the ref! And—” Ivory paused, eyes narrowing at Kylie, “—no using your ‘intense face’ to intimidate opponents. That’s a yellow card offense.”

“I don’t have an intense face,” Kylie said, making exactly that face.

“Yellow card!” Ivory blew the whistle. “See? You’re doing it right now!”

The game was ridiculous. Josh served underhand with the enthusiasm of someone who had never played sports and never intended to start. Momo dove for balls that were clearly out of reach, landing face-first in the sand and declaring herself “method acting as a beach umbrella.” Dara kept stopping to check if everyone had applied enough sunscreen, earning multiple yellow cards from Ivory for “delay of game.”

And Kylie—

Kylie was good. Athletic and focused, her anger management clearly not extending to friendly competition. She spiked a ball past Josh with such force that he yelped and ducked, then immediately looked at Malia with wide, checking eyes.

“Sorry,” she called. “Too intense?”

“Just intense enough,” Malia called back, and Kylie’s grin could have powered the pier.

Malia, for her part, was terrible at volleyball. She knew this, accepted it, had made peace with her lack of hand-eye coordination in middle school. But she tried, jumping for balls she missed, setting passes that went wild, laughing when she face-planted in the sand next to Momo.

“You’re beautiful!” Kylie shouted from across the net, after Malia had tripped over her own feet and landed in a graceful sprawl.

“I’m embarrassing!” Malia shouted back, sand in her hair.

“Beautifully embarrassing!”

“That’s not a compliment!”

“It’s the best compliment I have!”

They played until the sun began to dip toward the horizon, painting the sky in watercolor pinks and oranges. The game dissolved gradually, people drifting toward towels and coolers, toward Dara’s second round of burgers, toward the speaker’s shift into slower, evening music.

Malia found herself in the surf again, alone for a moment, letting the waves lap at her ankles. The water was warmer now, or she was used to it, and the rhythm of the tide matched something in her chest—steady, inevitable, alive.

“Hey.” Kylie appeared beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. She’d put on a white tank top over her swimsuit, the fabric clinging to her still-wet skin. “You disappeared.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

Malia was quiet for a moment, watching the horizon blur into sky. “About us. Three months ago, I couldn’t leave my room. Now I’m playing volleyball and eating burgers and—” she laughed, surprised by her own happiness, “—and I’m okay. We’re okay.”

“We’re better than okay,” Kylie said, and her voice was soft, stripped of its usual swagger. She took Malia’s hand, their fingers intertwining in the space between them. “We’re learning. We’re growing. We’re—” she paused, searching, “—we’re building something. Something that lasts.”

“Something that lasts,” Malia repeated, and tasted the truth of it. “Kylie?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For the therapy. For the anger management. For—” she gestured vaguely at the beach, at the group, at the life they’d constructed together, “—for all of this. For not giving up when I couldn’t answer my phone. For becoming someone I wasn’t scared of.”

Kylie turned to face her, and the sunset caught in her eyes, turning them gold and warm and endless. “Thank you,” she said, rough and sincere. “For seeing me. The real me, not the idea. For giving me another chance when I didn’t deserve it. For—” she laughed, wet and wondering, “—for loving me enough to shout at my dad. That was pretty hot, by the way.”

“Kylie!”

“What? It was! My girlfriend, the lobby crusher, the CEO shouter, the—”

Malia kissed her. Cut off the words with her mouth, with her hands in Kylie’s wet mullet, with her body pressed close enough to feel Kylie’s heartbeat against her own. The salt tasted like tears and the future, and Kylie made that sound—that low, wanting sound—and pulled her closer, deeper, home.

When they broke apart, the sky had shifted to violet, the first stars pricking through. Their group was watching from the towels, Momo making exaggerated gagging noises, Josh fanning himself, Dara smiling like a proud mother.

“Gross!” Momo shouted. “Get a tent!”

“We have a tent!” Kylie shouted back, grinning. “We’re using it later!”

“KYLIE!”

Malia buried her face in Kylie’s shoulder, laughing, embarrassed and delighted and here, finally here, in this moment, in this life, in this love that she had fought for and feared and chosen anyway.

They walked back to the group hand in hand, sand in their hair and salt on their lips and the future stretching before them like the ocean—vast and uncertain and theirs for the taking.

Later, in the tent, with the sounds of the beach fading to whispers and the fairy lights Malia had strung along the canvas casting soft shadows, Kylie read her the letters. All seventeen of them, written in her messy scrawl during the week of silence, during the therapy, during the slow rebuilding of trust.

Terrible letters. Beautiful letters. Theirs.

And Malia, wrapped in Kylie’s arms, wearing Kylie’s hoodie against the evening chill, fell asleep to the rhythm of her heartbeat, safe and seen and enough.