Free Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend by Katie Finn Page A

burgers for lunch. We’d
    just been in the water, so I was laying on my towel, letting the
    sun dry me off, and everything felt peaceful and good.
    “Saltwater taffy?” I opened one eye and saw Hallie offering
    the box to me. She’d discovered saltwater taffy recently at the candy
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    store downtown and had become obsessed with it. She was pretty
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    generous with it, and as a result, I’d quickly maxed out on the stuff.
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    “No thanks,” I said, and Hallie shrugged and unwrapped a
    pink one, popping it into her mouth. “But I should remember to
    get some and bring it back to my mom.” My mother loved it, and
    whenever we went on beach vacations, she came back with boxes
    of it. “Of course, my dad will probably do it himself when the sum-
    mer’s over.”
    I noticed that Hallie had suddenly gone very still. I pushed
    myself up on my elbows. “What?” I asked. I reached over and took
    a piece anyway, a green one. That was the thing about saltwater
    taffy— you thought you didn’t want any, but after you’d been star-
    ing at it long enough, you found you couldn’t help yourself.
    “I just . . .” Hallie started. She shook her head and then went
    on, more slowly. “What do you mean, your dad’s going to bring
    candy to your mom?”
    “Just what I said,” I mumbled, struggling to talk around the
    taffy. “When the summer’s over and he comes home.”
    Hallie smiled quickly, like she thought I was joking about some-
    thing. When she realized I wasn’t, her smiled disappeared. “But,”
    she said, confused, “why would your dad bring your mom candy?
    They’re getting divorced.”
    I felt a roaring sound in my ears, like the ocean had suddenly
    invaded my head. “No they’re not,” I said, wondering what Hallie
    was talking about, and why she thought she knew anything about
    this. “It’s just a temporary situation, for the summer.”
    “No,” Hallie said, with an assurance that turned my stomach
    a little. “My mom told me.”
    “And why would your mom know anything about this?” I asked,
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    baffl ed as to why Karen had suddenly entered this conversation.
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    “Because she’s dating your dad,” Hallie said, as though it should
    have been obvious, like it was a fact that everyone knew.
    I just looked at her for a long moment, then pushed myself to
    my feet. “I have to go,” I said, pulling on my sundress and step-
    ping into my fl ip- fl ops, picking my towel up from the sand. I didn’t
    believe her— of course I didn’t believe her. But I also didn’t know
    why Hallie would lie. And even though I tried not to, I couldn’t
    help thinking back to just how much Karen had been around
    this summer. But it didn’t mean anything. My dad was just being
    friendly. And Karen must have misunderstood.
    “Wait,” Hallie said, scrambling to her feet. Her face was pale,
    even under her sunburn, and she looked stricken. “Gem. I’m re-
    ally sorry— I thought you knew. I thought your dad would have
    told you . . .”
    “I have to go,” I said, not wanting to see her expression any
    longer, since it was so very sure of something that couldn’t pos-
    sibly be true. I hustled to my bike, dumped my towel in the bas-
    ket, and biked as fast as I could toward the Hamptons Writing
    Workshop.
    I’d only been there a few times, but I knew where my dad’s
    offi ce was. The offi ce, I realized with a twist in my stomach, that
    he shared with Karen. I decided I didn’t care if he had a class. I’d
    just wait until he was fi nished, and then I’d be able to see fi rsthand—
    when he would, of course, immediately deny it— that there was
    nothing to Hallie’s story.
    The receptionist must have been at lunch, because the front
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    desk was empty, and I was able to just walk