Thirty-Three
“Where are you, Herrington? I could really use a friend right now.”
Ruthie scanned the interior of her beloved museum, but apparently she really was grown up now. No half-fish boy was dripping seawater onto the floor. She was all alone except for an orca skeleton and some ghostly recordings of Lost Harbor old-timers.
“You wanted to be alone,” she reminded herself. That was why she’d told Ralphie to go back and help clean up the city hall meeting room. That was why she’d turned her phone off and refused to talk to anyone. Not even her parents or Alastair. She needed to check in with herself. Ground herself.
Face it, this entire homecoming had been a disaster. She’d wanted to prove that she wasn’t the shy Ruthie of before. She’d deluded herself that she was a “new person” wh
