The first time Laura wrote it, she was eleven. She’d stolen a red marker from the teacher’s desk and pressed the words into the underside of her desk: lauraloveskatrina . It was a secret, so she hid it where only someone crawling on the floor for a lost eraser would find it. No one did.
Katrina reached out, took Laura’s hand, and turned it over. On Laura’s palm, still smudged from where she’d traced the carving, were the faint red remains of marker. From that first day. Or maybe from every day after.
“Hey.”
katrinaloveslauratool.
And later, when they drove to the beach for the first time together, Katrina borrowed Laura’s pen and wrote on her own palm: lauraloveskatrina
“Don’t be.” Katrina stopped in front of her. “I broke up with him because I kept thinking about someone else.” She glanced at the tree, then back at Laura. “Someone who’s been writing my name for seven years.”
She traced the letters with her fingertip. Then she turned to leave. The first time Laura wrote it, she was eleven
Katrina was the new girl that year. She moved to their small town from Florida, bringing with her the smell of saltwater and a laugh that sounded like wind chimes in a storm. Laura, quiet and studious with a galaxy of freckles across her nose, fell in love the way only an eleven-year-old can—completely, without vocabulary, and with absolute terror.