Because of the Sun

What I remember is the shell-pink nail polish. Even as I looked at it, her pinky finger dangling with that frosty color, I wondered, Why this? Why am I noticing this?

It's strange how your mind can split into so many different bits and pieces, slivers of it sending a thousand different messages. Scream. Run. Or Careful, careful, don't startle the bear. Other parts recall a television show about worst-case scenarios that tell you Don't make eye contact, play dead, even as your lungs send a distress signal and your brain reminds you to Breathe.

Now a part insists She's dead. Look at the blood. Another insists She can't be. Another laughs at the absurdity and assures you Don't worry, none of this is real.

And then there's the part that registers shell-pink nail polish. Delicate and pretty and coating her nails perfectly, making them look like seashells. You can hardly take your eyes off it, even as another part takes in

her dangling pinky,

the look on her face,

how her body is sprawled out,

the pink of the pool water,

and the bear . . .

She asked me if I wanted to sit out near the pool with her and I didn't. I told her it was too hot, and besides it was the last two weeks of school and I had end-of-year exams to study for. But she didn't even let me finish before she started shaking her head and talking over me. God, Dani. Have some fucking fun for once, would you? she said as she splashed some vodka into her lemonade.

But I did have exams. And it was too hot. It was always too hot. And even if it wasn't officially summer yet, it was always summer in Florida, the sun was always blinding, and we, me and her, we were always like this. I couldn't think of a worse way to spend the afternoon than with my mother, telling me all the ways I was stunted or terrible or not like her.

I looked at her from the corner of my eye, taking in another of her barely there bikinis and too-tan skin.

"You're going to get skin cancer," I told her because I

JENNY TORRES SANCHEZ is a full-time writer and former English teacher. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, but has lived on the border of two worlds her whole life. She lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and their children. Because of the Sun is her third novel.

"Sanchez expertly conjures the eerie sense of being a stranger in one's own life." -Michael L. Printz Honor Winner JENNY HUBBARD

"[An] emotional, beautiful novel about loss and forgiveness, love and hate." -LAUREN GIBALDI, author of Autofocus

"The author's dreamlike language is at once beautiful and brutal. This lyrical coming-of-age story effectively explores the complicated nature of love and grief." -Kirkus Reviews

"Explores tragic loss and the human ability to overcome it." -SLJ

"A beautiful and moving tale that accurately captures the complications and dysfunctions of different families and examines how to slowly rise above the past and create a future." -Booklist

"Strange and stunning. You've never read anything like this." -JESSICA MARTINEZ, author of Kiss Kill Vanish