Frankie Hart will die when she turns eighteen.
The deadline looms over her, the days fading fast like water slipping through outstretched fingers. Her parents feel it too.
Despite their acceptance of (and, indeed, enthusiasm for) the inevitable event, they award her an immense amount of autonomy in compensation for the otherwise abundance of life she would be afforded if only she hadn’t been born a Hart witch. What does it matter if her stockings are torn, or she misses curfew by an hour if she will only experience eighteen years of life? Who cares if she has ice cream for breakfast, or she spends all of her allowance at the arcade when she has only roughly six thousand five hundred seventy four days to do so?
She has thus far spent her twelve years of life partaking in a certain extent of indulgence that most of her peers, particularly her friend, Beau Astor, look at with unbridled jealousy.
Beau, of course, doesn’t know the reason her parents are so ready to forgive her indiscretions, regardless of their size and consequence. He envies her easy smile, her dirty fingernails, and her non-existent curfew.
One would think that Beau could be just as free, just as easy-going, if only for the fact that life feels so immensely big at that age, so full of promise and exhilaration.
There are few concerns to burden his slim shoulders, his heart full with the sheer magic of simply being alive. He is at the start of his journey, and the end is so far in the future, it fails to be an inevitability. He should feel as equally unmoored as Frankie. Death is a myth. An ancient language he will never learn. It isn’t real—much like the social ladder his father likes to tell him about.
But that ladder, as well as his eventual demise, and along with things like time and taxes, are entirely adult fabrications.
Beau’s father seems unaware of this truth that Beau sees so clearly. Indeed, Mr. Astor insists on the ladder’s existence almost daily and most certainly weekly.
And while Beau finds it easy enough to fake indifference, the words still manage to find their way into his thoughts, his father’s voice echoing in his head when he least expects it or, quite frankly, wants it. They rest on those slim shoulders of his, almost like physical things—an ugly, itchy sweater he’d rather not wear. So, Beau is far from untroubled, despite his age of almost thirteen and three-quarters years old. He is not as prone to laughter as Frankie and much more likely to give into fits of sullenness that he feels are entirely justified in the face of Frankie’s freedom and his own lack of such.
However, this doesn’t impede their friendship. In actuality, there are times when it even seems to help it grow, moments when Frankie’s smile can wipe the frown off Beau’s face, or when Beau’s seriousness helps Frankie concentrate long enough to advance to the next level on that one particular arcade game, the one she’s been playing for a week straight, every day after school.
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On the first day of the Little Spark Summer Fair, Beau’s father prattles on about something or other (the words “responsibility” and “one of these days” are in attendance), while Beau stares at the tall man who he will one day, probably, resemble. For now, however, Beau gets his looks from his mother. He is tall for his age and slim with a well-cut jaw and a long nose. His curly hair is light brown but has already begun to turn darker, toward the mahogany-black that adorns his father’s head. When his father finishes his lecture, Beau says, “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
His father nods and disappears into his study, the door of which is more familiar to Beau than his father’s visage. Beau is late to meet Frankie at the boardwalk, but he takes his time making his way out of the house and to the garage, ensuring his helmet is strapped on tight before mounting his bike.
But the Summer Fair calls to him, and he pedals fast, sending a silent wish to the wind for assistance. His legs are jelly when he arrives at the Little Spark Boardwalk. He locks his bike up to the metal palm tree that marks the entrance and pockets the key in the neon bag slung around his hips.
The air smells of fried batter, ocean, and coconut-scented sunscreen. The brined wind coats his face even before he walks up the steps to the main thoroughfare. The fair is bustling with people, but Beau slips between the crowds easily, invisible by virtue of his age.
He spots Frankie waiting by the arcade, her glasses reflecting the blue sky briefly before she turns toward him, as if she can sense his gaze. She’s always doing things like that, giving him little looks and tiny, knowing smiles as if she can see the future, as if she knows what he’s about to say or even what he’s thinking.
He hopes she can’t actually hear what he’s thinking. He would be mortified if she knew how often he thought about her.
Her mouth spreads into a smile, her lips tinged blue from the candy she has stuffed into her cheek, and she throws her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. Her voice is muffled by the candy, but he understands her fine as they begin to strategically plan out their route through the fair.
He forgets his father’s lecture entirely. He forgets himself. He forgets the fair, to be honest. Years later, he will only be able to recall Frankie.
Her laugh. Her shoulder as she bumps him after he makes a particularly good joke. Her sharp elbow jutting into his side when he begins to look sullen. Her lips, still blue—only from cotton candy now—pressing against his own when he offers her the goldfish he wins.
Soon, the talk from his father will come back to him. The words will remind him not to do foolish things with foolish girls. The words will draw lines around his days, shaping what has hitherto been blissfully amorphous.
He will find himself under increasing scrutiny from his family, his teachers, his girlfriend, and his football coach. Expectations will be placed on him time and time again, that ugly sweater becoming his daily uniform.
Beau will wear these well. He will walk, straight-backed through life, navigating the maze of expectations with ease until his death, whenever that may be. But for now, he is unaware of what’s to come. He is giddy with life. With Frankie. With the Summer Fair, and the boardwalk, and the ocean beyond. He blushes and licks his lips, tasting her sugar-spun kiss, knowing, despite his age, that he would rather die than live without Frankie Hart.