This One's For You


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Also by Kate Sweeney
 
 Catch the Light
 
 
 
 
 
 VIKING
 An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
 
 
 
 First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2023
 Copyright © 2023 by Kate Sweeney
 Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
 Viking & colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com.
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
 ISBN 9780593350270 (hardcover)
 ISBN 9780593622124 (international edition)
 ISBN 9780593350287 (ebook)
 Cover art © 2023 by Nicole Rifkin
 Cover design by Theresa Evangelista
 Edited by Kelsey Murphy
 Design by Lucia Baez, adapted for ebook by Andrew Wheatley
 This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
 The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
 pid_prh_6.0_142441833_c0_r0
 
 
 
 For my boys
 
 
 PART 1
 
 
 1
 Caspian
 SOME MORNINGS, WHEN I’M STILL DRIFTING back and forth between asleep and awake, I think I can hear her voice. She’s singing, or maybe she’s laughing, and it’s the color of sunlight on the back of my eyelids. Orange-gold. Glowing.
 It’s not her real voice. The human brain doesn’t start making memories until the age of two, and she was gone long before that. She died in a time when there was nothing but a half-made, invisible foundation, when my subconscious was still being shaped by experiences that would never be remembered. She shaped me—in the impression of her voice and her touch, and then her absence. But I’ll never, ever know her.
 If I let them, things with Mom can become an obsession. I’m a detective and she is the case that will make my career. I’m a scientist, and she is the grand, elegant equation that will explain the universe. But the rest of the time, she truly doesn’t exist to me.
 
 • • •
 I run down the front steps and jump on my bicycle, the straps of my helmet dangling down around my ears. My American History final is in ten minutes; I just woke up and I haven’t even brushed my teeth.
 I begin pedaling furiously up the giant hill that leads away from the cul-de-sac. June gloom is in full force, so I’m not sweating as hard as I could be by the time I get to the top. Just enough that I feel a trickle at the edge of my forehead.
 I fly through the burned-out strip that is downtown El Sobrante, dodging a man who is riding his horse down the street. I pass Santa Shoe Repair, Nerd Crossing, Mountain Mike’s Pizza. I barrel into the school parking lot and lock up my bike next to a monstrous hydrangea bush, run down the hallway, and slide into my seat at 8:59 a.m.
 Hannah looks over at me and says, “You look . . . interesting. Everything okay?”
 She’s perfectly neat as always, and there is something deeply calming about her thick golden ponytail, her crisp white T-shirt, the tiny silver H at her throat. I reach up and tug the end of her hair.
 “I accidentally slept in.”
 She raises both hands. “Not my fault.”
 Then Mr. Henderson walks in, looking sad and rumpled, the human equivalent of a ketchup stain.
 “Good morning, seniors! For most of you this will be the last test you ever take at De Anza High. Good luck.”
 He passes around the test books and pencils and then the next two hours are a fog of essay questions about the Civil War and the industrial revolution. I try, but by the end of it I’m basically propping my eyes open with sticks.
 I hand in my test, brush my teeth in the bathroom, and then wait for Hannah and Jake out front. A pack of wild turkeys roams through the parking lot, shitting on cars. I sit on the gate of Hannah’s dad’s pickup truck, tucked between my bike and the surfboards, my hood cinched over my ears to muffle the chattering birds and the distant highway sounds.
 And then we are driving along the Richmond Parkway, my hand on Hannah’s knee, Jake whining about being crammed into the back seat of the extended cab. The fog is burning into a smoggy, hazy blue that can’t decide if it’s dirty or clean. A cormorant corkscrews into the water. Rust-colored fuel cylinders loom on the hillside, blending in to the orange rocks.
 We cruise over the Richmond Bridge, past the San Quentin State Prison. Hannah is singing along loudly to the Killers, which she thinks is cool/retro but everyone knows is garbage music. Her voice is slightly off-key, but somehow it’s charming.
 Hannah is calmly, classically beautiful, with delicate features and soft, pale skin. We’ve been together since junior year but I liked her for a lot longer than that.
 We’re heading up to Bolinas, where Hannah and Jake will surf and I’ll wait on the beach, and then we’ll meet up with a bunch of other kids from school and drink warm beer around a fire under the moonlight to celebrate the great accomplishment of finishing high school.
 My phone buzzes on the seat. It’s Dad.
 
 Congratulations dude.
 Thanks. Going up to Bo for the night. Probably gonna