So I decided to update whenever. Because this story is the kind of story that if you slow down on it, you'd be lost. 

Don't know if that makes me cool or a loser but it hahahaha

SUMMER FOURTEEN, TAEYEON and I took out the small motorboat alone. It was just after breakfast. Bess made Tiffany play tennis with YoonYul and Sooyoung. Minho had started running that year and was doing loops around the perimeter path. Taeyeon found me in the Clairmont kitchen and asked, did I want to take the boat out?

          "Not really." I wanted to go back to bed with a book.

          "Please?" Taeyeon almost never said please.

          "Take it out yourself."

          "I can't borrow it," she said. "I don't feel right."

          "Of course you can borrow it."

          "Not without one of you."

          She was being ridiculous. "Where do you want to go?" I asked.

          "I just want to get off-island. Sometimes I can't stand it here."

          I couldn't imagine, then, what it was she couldn't stand, but I said all right. We motored out to sea in wind jackets and bathing suits. After a bit, Taeyeon cut the engine. We sat eating pistachios and breathing salt air. The sunlight shone on the water.

          "Let's go in," I said.  

          Taeyeon jumped and I followed, but the water was so much colder than off the beach, it snatched our breath. The sun went behind a cloud. We laughed panicky laughs and shouted that it was the stupidest idea to get in the water. What had we been thinking? There were sharks off the coast, everybody knew that.

          Don't talk about sharks, God! We scrambled and pushed each other, struggling to be the first one up the ladder at the back of the boat.

          After a minute, Taeyeon leaned back and let me go first. "Not because you're a girl, or you seem weak, but because I'm a good person.," she told me. 

          "Thanks." I stuck out my tongue.

          "But when the sharks bite my legs off, promise to write a speech about how awesome I was."

          "Done," I said. "Kim Taeyeon made a delicious meal."

          It seemed hysterically funny to be so cold. We didn't have towels. We huddled together under a fleece blanket we found under the seats, our bare shoulders touching each other. Cold feet, on top of one another.

          "This is only so we don't get hypothermia," said Taeyeon. "Don't think I'm attracted to you or that I find you pretty or anything."

          "I know you don't."

          "You're hogging the blanket."

          "Sorry."

          A pause.

          Taeyeon said, "I'm a girl. And I do find you pretty, Sica. I didn't mean that the way it came out. In fact, when did you get so pretty? It's both distracting and irritating."

           "I look the same as always."

           "You changed over the school year. It's putting me off my game."

           "You have a game?"

           She nodded solemnly.

          "That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. What is your game?"

          "Nothing penetrates my armor. Haven't you noticed?"

          That made me laugh. "No"

          "Damn. I thought it was working."

          We changed the subject. Talked about bringing the littles to Edgartown to see a movie in the afternoon, about sharks and wether they really ate people, about Plants Versus Zombies.

          Then we drove back to the island.

          Not long after that, Taeyeon started lending me her books and finding me at the tiny beach in the early evenings. She'd search me out when I was lying on the Windemere lawn with the goldens.

          We started walking together on the path that circles the island, Taeyeon in front and me behind. We'd talk about books or invent imaginary worlds. A world only we could understand. Sometimes we'd end up walking several times around the edge before we get hungry or bored. Beach roses lined the path, deep pink. Tiffany would like them. Their smell was faint and sweet.

          Without me noticing, I fell in love with a girl. A girl of contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee.

          One day, I looked at Taeyeon, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and she seemed, well, like she was mine. Like she was my particular person.

          I got in the hammock next to her, silently. I took the pen out of her hand---she always read with a pen---and wrote Taeyeon on the back of her left, and Jessica on the back of her right.    

          She took the pen from me. Wrote Taeyeon on the back of my left, and Sooyeon on the back of my right. She loved that name. 

          I am not talking about fate. I don't believe in destiny or soul mates or the supernatural. I just mean we understood each other. All the way. Not much words needed.

          But we were only fourteen. I had never kissed a boy, and she's not one. Though I might be kissing a few boys next year, maybe. And we wouldn't label it love.