Everything happened on the same day. It was the day before the hurricane was supposed to hit their town. On the coast of Florida, they got hurricanes nearly every year. The weathermen were saying that this one would be huge. A Cat 4 at least. The day was sunny but blustery. The palm tree fronds were blown flat like umbrella tops caught by the wind.
Mikasa was taking the long route to the bus pick-up. She walked behind the bleachers. As she stopped to pick hitchhiker burs from her leggings, she heard a shout. Mikasa looked up.
Underneath the bleachers, a boy had a girl by the arm, spun away from him.
"You said you'd fucking do it! You said you'd do it!" the boy was saying.
"I changed my mind! I don't want to, please, I don't wanna!"
Hey, Mikasa tried to say but her throat was dry and nothing came out. She swallowed. She tried again.
"Hey!"
The boy turned and ran and he was gone before Mikasa's shout had echoed to the palmettos at the end of the field.
Mikasa walked over to the girl. She was furiously shoving spilled books back into her backpack. She had pastel pink highlights in her blond hair.
"Are you okay?"
The girl nodded and wiped her eyes. She looked at Mikasa with something like revelry.
Mikasa helped her gather her books. She recognized the girl from the photography crew for the yearbooks. Louise was her name. She was a freshman.
"You ride Bus 104, right?"
"Yeah, 1-0— 104," Louise whispered.
"Me too," Mikasa said. "I'll walk you there."
Louise's face blanked as more tears trickled down her cheeks. Mikasa waited, not knowing what to do. She thought she should hug her like a mother or a teacher would. She didn't. Then the crying was done and the closeness of the situation became farther away. They walked to the bus loop. Cicadas droned on in the fields behind them indifferently.
Mikasa sat beside her on the ride home. When the bus sputtered to Louise's stop, Mikasa had her promise that she would call the police as soon as she got home.
The bus pulled away. Mikasa laid her forehead to the smudged window glass and watched with a guarding gaze as Louise shrank into the neighborhood sidewalk and heat mirages.
That was how Mikasa made her second female friend from her time in high school.
Later that same day, Eren called Mikasa and told her to meet him at the beach. She asked him if Reiner would be there. He said no. She asked him if Armin would be there. He said no. Her heart beat fast in her chest. It sounded like a date. It wasn't, she knew, but it sounded like one.
Mikasa threw on her black cardigan and checked her appearance in her full-length mirror. Her heart faltered a little, like a tiny cell death. The feeling went away and Mikasa skipped downstairs and told her dad where she was going and who she was going to be with. He made a noise of disapproval at the who, but let her go regardless. Her mom might not have, had she been home.
The wind was even stronger now, with the storm so close. The neighbors had already put up their hurricane shutters. The palms were really thrashing now.
Mikasa rode her beach cruiser to the park. She leaned it against a tree and went down the boardwalk to the ocean. She saw Eren's car, a 1999 Dodge Durango. He'd gotten his driver's license before her.
Eren was standing at the edge of the surf, wearing his black wetsuit.
He had become tall. The years had piled on him like sheaves of paper, compressing him into a long, thin figure. He and Mikasa had been squeezed from the shapes of children to the molds of man and woman, nearly. They weren't done yet.
"Hi, Eren."
He turned. His hair had gotten long. It hung lank at his jawline.
"Yo," he said. "See the size of these waves? Gotta be some ten-footers out there."
Mikasa appraised the ocean. It was broiling, the waves wild and white-capped, perfect crests crashing the shore, one after the other.
"Mm," she said.
He squinted at her. Underneath his eyes, indigo sleep-bruises had formed.
"You haven't surfed with me in years, have you?"
Mikasa shook her head.
"Do you want to?"
"I didn't bring a bathing suit…"
"Oh, right. Shit! I should've told you." Eren rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, I've got a spare wetsuit in my car. You could use that, if you want."
Mikasa climbed into the back of his car, where his surfboards were shoved over the seats to the front. She trusted that his illegal window tint made her invisible from the outside. The inside smelled of Eren's Axe deodorant and pizza grease. Mikasa changed. She came back to Eren. Her face was hot. The wetsuit had been Eren's in eighth grade, so it fit her snugly.
Eren was still thoughtful. Mikasa realized that she'd caught him in the doldrums. He was in the eye of a storm.
He saw her. He looked away. "You ready, wahine?"
They went against the waves and out to sea. Eren retaught Mikasa how to surf, how to balance, where to put her arms and legs, when to stand up. The waves came and then they were gone. Eren managed to catch one of the tallest in the last hour and they sailed through the barrel, water all around them. Mikasa let her hand skate alongside the surfboard, mirrored in the rippling divisions. The end of the wave was closing into a hole they couldn't fit through. It crashed on top of them and they wiped out.
Mikasa was dragged to the beach. The tide sucked away beneath her hands. She coughed and gasped for breath.
Eren had retrieved his board.
"There goes your aesthetic," he said, pointing to the charcoal runs of eyeliner on her face.
Mikasa looked at him. "Ruination is part of the aesthetic," she said.
Eren laughed. "What the hell does that even mean?"
Color had faded from the ocean and sky. The temperature had dropped. Mikasa and Eren dried themselves in Eren's car as precursory rains drummed the roof and sleeted down the windows.
Eren lay on his back and stared up into his sunroof. Mikasa's oversized tee clung to her chest. She kept pulling at the collar.
"Been a minute since we've hung out," Eren said.
"Way more than a minute."
Eren shifted and laced his fingers behind his head. "Mikasa," he sighed. "I'm so screwed."
Mikasa turned her head to him.
He lifted his neck. "I fucked up. I really, really fucked up."
"What is it?"
"They told me today. I'm gonna be held back. I won't graduate for another two years."
Mikasa looked down at her toes. This little piggy went to the market…
"I've been here all day since school got out. I haven't even told my mom. They probably told her already."
Eren's eyes were dark and wet as the weather outside.
"I wanted to tell someone. That's why I called you, I guess. You're good at listening to people."
The wind wailed. Thunder boomed low. Mikasa heard less of it than she would have, insulated by the warm compact space of the car.
Eren's face blanked as he started to cry. Mikasa listened to the world. She heard him cry as he turned away and put his forearm to his eyes. The crying shut off almost as soon as it had begun. Mikasa thought she should hug him like a girlfriend or a better friend would. She didn't.
"You should tell your mom," Mikasa said quietly.
Eren cleared his throat and acted the way boys do when they get hurt, brushing a sloppy coat of indifference over the matter. He drove her home. As the headlights lit her driveway, Mikasa remembered something.
"What?" Eren said.
"My bike," Mikasa said. "I left my bike in the park."
The hurricane lasted all night. A felled power line knocked the town's lights out. Mikasa sat on her windowsill that night and vacantly watched the total darkness.
By morning the storm had departed. They were lucky, said the local news. They hadn't been hit as hard as some of the other counties. Mikasa didn't feel so lucky as she walked a mile to the bus-stop without her bike. Leaves and fronds were strewn in yards. Green flotsam covered the sidewalks. The school was half-flooded from the excess rain. Their shoes were soggy as they ate lunch.
Halfway into the lunch period, one of the school resource officers marched into the cafeteria. He singled out Louise, who sat alone on a bench, and took her away. Everyone turned in their seats to see her go, pastel pink hair highlights and all.
"Looks like someone's in trouble," Armin commented around a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
"Tell me about it," Eren said bleakly.