“But, but, but that’s impossible! I’ll miss the Ocean Swim!” I counted to ten in my head and still couldn’t contain the small sob that erupted. 

“You’re lucky you’re not out the whole summer, Calliope Camille,” Doc said, using my full name in that annoying way grownups had. He was none too gentle putting the last stitch in my head. It hurt more than getting the stupid cut.

I tried to stay silent through the stitches. My mom was in the room, freaking out enough without me showing her that I was in any pain.

“Or worse! God, Cami, anything could have happened! Maybe you’re not ready for the Surf Carnival this year,” Mom said. I worked hard not to roll my eyes at her. She was the only person on Pinhold who seemed to hate to swim.

“Mom, I told you, it didn’t even hurt when it happened. It’s a tiny cut. Billy checked me out and made sure I was okay.” I looked at Doc. “Isn’t he here? He’ll tell you! I was fine. With everything else going on, it was really no big deal.”

“Yes, I heard you called the dolphins. I also heard that a bunch of them beached themselves,” said Doc.

My mom’s eyes widened. We hadn’t talked about last night. She’d come in to check in the morning, found blood on my pillow and dragged me to see Doc.

“Cami, tiny cuts don’t require stitches. And any head injury is serious. Especially at a party, where there’s usually a very specific and not so smart reason why things don’t hurt when they happen,” Doc said in that authoritative voice I’d heard my entire life. I clamped my eyes down tight in an effort to quell the eye roll that was desperate to escape. I couldn’t do that to Doc, who was at least as instrumental as my parents in engineering my existence. 

“I wasn’t drinking when it happened—really! It was during the swim. I was up on the rocks with the dolphin, and I didn’t even realize anything had happened,” I insisted.

“All the same, if you swim or even get your hair wet this week, these stitches will dissolve too soon,” Doc said. “And I’ll have to shave your head to put in the other kind.”

“No showers?” This time, I did actually squeal. My crazy mess of amber waves required constant conditioning to keep knot-free. In a week, I’d be halfway to dreadlocks!

“Shower cap. Dry shampoo,” said a welcomed voice by the door. “Hi, Cami, Lydia, Doc.”

“Billy!” my mom said, smiling. “Is this what they teach in medical school these days?”

“No, ma’am. I did a practical in the ER. Saw a lot of injuries like…” he trailed off, caught, tangling us both in the net.

“Exactly!” said my mom, shooting an angry glare my way. “I wish someone would have explained that to my daughter at the party. If Thomas were here, instead of on some rickety research boat in the middle of the Pacific, this would have been handled properly last night.”

Thoughts of my father had her flipping from fussing to fretting. It amazed me that she and my dad had ever come together. He was an avid swimmer and waterman - not competitively anymore, but he still worked in The Guard when he wasn’t teaching archaeology at a college on the mainland. I cursed the research trip he was on now, even though I knew that this particular opportunity was the reward for ten years of research and grant proposals. It still sucked to have him gone.

“I was there, ma’am. Checked her over and cleaned her up myself,” Billy said. “She acted fine and her head wasn’t bleeding at the time.”

My mom paused, trust in Billy competing with the anxiety she’d had our whole lives. All mothers worry, but mine would wrap us up in bubble wrap if it were possible. Every tiny scratch required a visit to the doctor; colds meant full check-ups, and anything more serious than that included testing our blood. But she had a soft spot for Billy, like all the grownups on the Island did, because he’d acted like a surrogate big brother to us all.

He taught us to surf and swim, ride and run. For ten years, we were only allowed out of the house if Billy came too. Luckily, he patiently led us around until college took him off-Island. It took Mom months to let us go anywhere after that.

“Billy, I trust you, but isn’t there a protocol with The Guard for head injuries? Why wasn’t it followed?” she asked.

“It was, ma’am. Cami got up, walked, and talked right away. We checked her vitals for signs of concussion and none were there. The only visible injuries were scrapes on her shoulders, which she could have gotten just like with any big wave crashing her onto the shore. I understand the cut must have been deep, but there was no indication of the injury at the time. I wrote up a report of the incident,” Billy said, offering it to her.

Mom grabbed the folder from his hand and opened it with a huff.

“I know it’s scary, Lydia, but if Billy says she was okay, she was. Member of The Guard or not, you would have never hired him to work at the hospital if he wasn’t a fantastic doctor,” said Doc. ”But no swimming for you for at least a week,” he said sternly, putting a finger at me.

I worked hard to keep from crying because swimming was as important as breathing to me. Even more importantly, the first Surf Carnival event was tomorrow. And I wasn’t going to get to participate. “So no Ocean Swim,” I said. “Ca-can I at least stay on Beach Patrol?”

Doc and my mother exchanged a look. Since she’d gone from his most obsessive patient to his hospital manager, they’d developed a good working relationship and a shorthand. She’d taken over Island General when it got too big for him to handle alone. She would go by whatever he said, but he would get her approval first.

She gave an almost imperceptible nod and Doc nodded. “You can stay on Beach Patrol. I’ll call Stony.”

I sighed, relaxing for the first time since arriving at Doc’s office. Whatever they wanted me to do, I would do it—as long as I didn’t have to give up actually getting paid to sit on the beach and watch the water with my friends. I’d waited for this summer for sixteen years, and I was not giving up the red bikini, the whistle, or that tall white beach chair.

“Work. Home. No two-way communication devices. ‘Til the Ocean Swim,” my Mom said. “The only reason you’re not grounded longer is because Doc and Billy came to your defense.”

The twitching muscle above his right eye indicated to anyone that Mica was annoyed. But because of our twin link, I felt and heard and saw so much more—even though he didn’t say a word. It had always been this way between us. My very first memories are images seen through his eyes. This was true for all the sets of twins our age. We didn’t link outside of our own sibling, but we’d learned early on that each pair could communicate that way. And to keep it quiet. Our parents had known about it when we were small, but testing had been inconclusive and no different than twins elsewhere in the world. Now that we were older, we all knew it wasn’t normal for everyone, but it was normal for us. So in an unspoken pact, we never spoke of it, not even amongst ourselves.

The emotion behind the images was impossible to disguise. Over the years—especially lately—we’d learned to control what we shared a bit better. When calm, we could limit it to words; silent telepathic text messages that conveyed just the right amount of information. The unfiltered images that transmitted every layer of joy, pain and confusion were just too raw. They shared too much information, had too much ability to influence, like on First Night. We’d even learned, just recently, to keep certain thoughts to ourselves.

Mica’s anger in the moment meant he wasn’t filtering, and I could feel his thoughts as clearly as my own. 

First, he considered asking why he was grounded too, since he didn’t technically do anything. Then he decided to accept the sentence because he felt guilty about not realizing how hurt I’d actually been. I silently thanked him for not fighting Mom.

No two-way communication devices, I said. Too bad she can’t take away our brains.

Mica laughed out loud.

“Mica, your sister almost DROWNED. This is no laughing matter. You didn’t take her to the hospital or even wake me up when you got home!”

 Poor Mom didn’t have any idea why we were really laughing. She’d never cottoned on to our special communication skills, and we never felt the need to tell her about them. For a short while when we were very young she’d suspected and there had been tests. We’d intentionally wrecked the results and she had never questioned it.

“Mom, he wanted to call an ambulance,” I said, rising to my brother’s defense. “I’m the one who said no. Go ahead and ground me for having an ACCIDENT. But don’t punish Mica, too!”

Thank you, but no, Mica said silently. To our Mom he just nodded, accepting the punishment.

Though the sentence had been handed down, the lecture wasn’t over.

“Be safe. Don’t do anything stupid. Take care of each other. House rules. Sound familiar?” Mom glared at us. Her anger always came out in this shaky, teary tone that typically transformed my annoyance to shame. “Can you honestly tell me that what happened last night didn’t involve you each breaking at least one of them?”

Rhetorical question? One that needed an answer? I chose silence, considering that it was my last statement that had started her shrieking. Mica chose silence, too, but then he was her favorite for a reason. He knew instinctively when to push and when to back down, whereas I could never get that right at all.

“I’ve been to those parties; I know what goes on. If your cut barely hurt, then I’m going to guess that alcohol had everything to do with your mutually-impaired judgment.” 

Mica and I looked at each other, silently brainstorming an appropriate response.

“Now, since you’re both not working today, you can share responsibility for dinner,” she said. “Maybe some family time will remind you both of what’s important.”

With that, she held her hand out for our iPhones and stormed from the room.

I sat on the dock with my father’s fishing rod, wishing he was here to help me catch dinner like he usually would on a summer night. I didn’t have the patience to sit still for this alone, but I liked the time he and I spent waiting on fish together. So far, I’d pulled two salmon, nothing to sneeze at, but not enough for a family meal. I hoped a fresh-caught dinner might score some points with my mom, but on my own I never had as much luck as I did with Dad.

My father always put my mother’s histrionics in perspective, trusting me at a very young age with information about what they had gone through before Mica and I came to be. The Island had been broke; most people my parents’ age were moving away and everyone who stayed had similar issues getting and staying pregnant. So The Guard decided to sell off-shore drilling rights in the back bay, and as they’d hoped Pinhold experienced a bit of a boom. Suddenly there were tourists and jobs, and things began to look up again. Then one of the platforms exploded, causing the black oil to flood the bay, and we spent the next twenty years trying to undo the environmental and legislative damage.

That’s how the Surf Carnival came to be. It was an ancient ritual practiced as kind of a coming-of-age on Pinhold. While the oil rig was up, some of the Mainer workers began to participate, and interest grew as more people became aware of the challenging swimming and surfing opportunities the contest offered.

“Top five,” Mica said out loud. He’d snuck up behind me on the deck, and sat down next to me. He’d clearly been blocking his thoughts since I hadn’t sensed him at all. It was almost time for the sun to set—a special time of day for everyone on Pinhold, Mica especially. Our dock was one of the best places to watch a sunset on the Island. The glow here lasted for a full two hours in the summer while the light sank slowly over to the other side of the world.

Mica grabbed Dad’s rod and handed me the lure to thread a worm. Though he was inching past six-feet, he always had me thread his worms when no one else was around. I hung one over his head, hoping he would scream.

“For the hundredth time, I am not afraid. I just don’t want to kill them for no reason,” he argued, using the same words every time the topic came up.

“It’s Darwinian—survival of the fittest,” I argued.

“I don’t need the fatal services of a lower life form to secure food,” he insisted. “But I can’t use nets this close to shore when the tide is low, and I don’t want Mom to find me out too far in the water. She might consider it a jail break.”

I’m sorry, I said silently, counting on the telepathic communication to convey my regrets more sincerely than spoken words.

“You’re the only one I’m not mad at,” he said. Images of Mom, Blake, and himself flickered from his brain to mine.

Oh no—Blake. I’d been deliberately trying not to think about the kiss around Mica, not knowing how to explain it. Blake was his best friend. It was possible that by kissing him, I’d stepped in someplace I didn’t quite belong.

“I’m mad at myself. I can’t believe Blake got to you first! I was too focused on my swim when I should have been more aware of you. I deserve to be grounded just for that.” He turned to me, genuinely upset. “I’m sorry.”

“Mica, just because we shared a womb, doesn’t mean we have to share every single experience, all the time,” I said, relieved that so far, the kiss had escaped mention.

“But you got hurt! I’ve been thinking about it all day and I can’t figure it out. For the first time ever, I didn’t feel your pain. Remember when I broke my arm?”

I nodded, picturing little Mica on a huge surf board. He’d wiped out in our first competition as Nippers, the kiddie competition in the Surf Carnival. His very first wave had kicked him off the board, head-first into the shallow break. I’d been on a walk with my Dad a half-mile down the beach when I forced him to turn around to get Mica. Of course, our thoughts were linked but the pain came through differently.

“I really didn’t know my head was that bad. I barely felt it. The scrapes on my arms hurt more,” I said, which wasn’t true exactly. The pain had been intense until the dolphin had….zapped me or something. I surely couldn’t explain when I didn’t understand it myself.

“Maybe it was all the extra endorphins from the swim? I stayed underwater longer than I ever have before, so maybe that, too?”

“Yeah, you beat the pants off of me. I tried to keep up with the dolphins, but they were chasing you.”

Dolphins, because of their playfulness and intelligence, were the symbol for our island. According to Island lore, they were our other halves, guarding in the water as we did on the land. Their health was a sign that we were doing our job. Whenever they had issues, trouble came our way too. In many old stories, breachings occurred before the pin began to tilt. Dolphins are a sentinel species. What happens to them will happen to us. And what happens to us will happen to the rest of the world. 

“It’s just a myth. Dolphins come on the beach to chase food all the time. Did you see how many came to first night? It’s gonna be a good season.”

I nodded, appreciating his optimism. “Except for me. I need to miss the Ocean Swim,” I grumbled. “I’ll have to place in every other event to get invited to join The Guard.”

Mica snorted.

“Really? Cami, there’s been someone in The Guard in our family the past twenty generations; they’ve been waiting on us for sixteen years. You’d have to pull a Kaleb and set fire to the lighthouse or something.”

“Ha, ha,” I said, cringing when Kaleb’s name came up. Before Kaleb started getting in trouble, he and I had been best friends, just like Mica and Blake. Kaleb had been my fellow explorer and observer while our brothers pursued all the sea sports Pinhold offered. He’d had Blake to take on the role of family athlete, but that didn’t work for me. While my grandparents were proud of Mica, I was the girl, and therefore responsible for my grandmother’s legacy. So, I began to train, too. Kaleb supported me at first. His sarcasm helped me swallow down the bitter pill of expectation and responsibility I hadn’t wanted. But the ocean and the exercise quickly won me over. I fell in love with riding waves and moving through water like I was born to.

And Kaleb had never forgiven me.

We’d been growing apart even before he’d left, but I never understood what made him so angry that night that made him target the lighthouse.

“Can we not?” I asked Mica, shaking the thoughts from my head. We had an unspoken agreement to not talk about Kaleb because the conversations never ended well. I got upset; Mica got mad. Blake couldn’t deal at all.

“Get over it already,” he joked, knowing immediately that the intended humor did not at all hit home. Instead of filling with laughter, my eyes welled up with tears.

“How would you feel if Blake just moved off-Island and didn’t come back?”

“You can’t compare them, but it’s been forever, Cami And Blake is never leaving.”

At least we could agree on that. Blake’s commitment to following in Stoney’s footsteps was something we often talked about. Blake couldn’t wait to take on more responsibility here.

“Fine. Whatever about me, but have you noticed how just uttering Kaleb's name makes the vein above Blake’s right eyebrow visibly pulse?” I asked. It was amazing how the same letters rearranged in a different way brought such a dramatic reaction. Blake and Kaleb’s names were anagrams, just like Mica’s and mine.

“Satan’s in the spelling. Otherwise he’s just Santa,” Mica joked. A sudden tug on his line shifted his focus back to the water. “Caught something,” he said, dropping the subject quickly when his line gave a big tug.

Sometimes it pays to have the same friends since the womb. Alysha and Shayla knew exactly what time Mom would go back to work after dinner. Less than fifteen minutes after she’d left, they pulled their canoe up to our dock. Alysha jumped up, squealing and flapping so much that she missed the weathered wooden boards completely and landed in the water with a huge splash.

When she surfaced with pollywogs covering her usually perfect blond hair, Shayla and I laughed so hard we shook every boat on the dock. So Alysha yanked her sister into the water, too. Luckily, there were plenty of extra towels and shorts and tees in the boathouse, and they were able to dry off and change.

Changed and with snacks at hand, Alysha jumped right in with the questions. I was impressed she even lasted that long.

“It’s was so romantic, Cami! He kissed you and woke you up. Like Snow White! Or Sleeping Beauty,” Alysha sighed.

She and Shayla were identical twins with completely different interests, but they still managed to be best friends, unlike Blake and Kaleb. Alysha chased glitter and drama, while Shayla had no time for anything that didn’t make her stronger or smarter. The Princess and The Warrior. When they were together, Shayla indulged the whimsy and Alysha tamped down the bubbles. That’s when I loved them best of all.

“I was awake!!” I protested. “Where were you guys, anyway?” 

“We were turning the dolphins back into the water after you called them onto the beach,” Alysha said, raising her eyebrows.

“She didn’t call them onto the beach. She called them to the bay. She led them onto the beach,” said Shayla. She was a stickler for facts and details, while her twin had a