On the Fence

Sixteen-year-old Charlotte "Charlie" is a tomboy raised by her single father, a police officer, and her three older brothers in coastal California. Her mother died in what Charlie has always believed was a car accident when she was six, and Charlie has almost no memories of her. She fills her days with sports, running, and roughhousing with her brothers: Jerom, the eldest, home from college on a soccer scholarship; Nathan, heading to college the following year; and Gage, the brother closest to her in age and temperament. Braden, the next-door neighbor and Gage's best friend, has been part of their lives for 12 years. Charlie sleeps best after exhausting herself on long runs because the habit suppresses her recurring nightmares about the night her mother died.

When Charlie is pulled over for speeding yet again, her father discovers the ticket and demands she pay for it herself, plus the additional insurance costs. She job-hunts with Gage in Old Town, a tourist shopping district near the coast, and lands a position at Linda's Bazaar, a clothing boutique run by Linda, an eccentric, barefoot woman who speaks about auras and spiritual signs. Linda requires Charlie to wear presentable clothing, so Charlie begins changing into fitted jeans and flowing tops at the store, hiding this wardrobe from her brothers. When Linda asks about her mother, Charlie impulsively lies and says her mom is alive, dreading the pity she receives whenever people learn her mother is dead.

Her nightmares intensify on nights she misses her evening run. The dreams always involve rain, her mother saying good-bye, and violent variations on the car accident. One night, she overhears Braden's father arriving home drunk and yelling at Braden's mother. Braden comes outside, and they talk through the fence separating their backyards. He reveals that his father's drinking and verbal abuse are a recurring pattern. This first fence chat establishes an intimate ritual: Speaking to each other's disembodied voices in the dark, Charlie feels free to say things she cannot say during the day. They begin a game of trading facts about each other, a contest that threads through their late-night conversations.

Linda proposes that Charlie model for weekly makeup classes taught by Amber, a fast-talking girl Charlie's age. Charlie resists but agrees when she learns she will earn a commission. Because she has told Linda her mother is alive, she forges a signature on a parental consent form rather than involve her father. When Charlie sees her reflection after the first daytime look, the image reminds her of her mother's wedding photo, and she scrubs the makeup off in a rush.

Charlie's awareness of Braden begins to shift. During a Nerf gun battle at the house, his hip brushes her side in a dark hallway and she feels an unfamiliar chill. The feeling returns during fence chats as their conversations grow more emotionally revealing. Braden shares a memory of Charlie's mother crying while visiting his own mother, and Charlie reacts with irrational anger, lashing out before storming inside. They reconcile days later, and Braden correctly guesses that if Charlie could have season tickets to any event, she would choose Jerom's college soccer games, proving he knows her better than she realized.

Charlie also enters an unfamiliar social world. After a makeup session, she goes out with Amber's friends and meets a guy named Evan, who asks for her number and mentions his father's season tickets to the Oakland A's. When Evan's friend falls sick before the game, Charlie invites Braden, framing the invitation as setting him up with Amber. At the stadium, Braden publicly reveals Charlie's deep baseball knowledge, embarrassing Evan. Charlie is furious but relieved when Evan stops patronizing her. Braden then invites Evan to a pickup football game, and Charlie, unwilling to play in front of Evan, sits on the sidelines for the first time. When she confronts Braden about tackling Evan too hard, he asks the other players to raise their hands if they would have asked Charlie out had her brothers not warned them away. Half a dozen guys raise their hands, humiliating Charlie.

She leaves with Evan, and back at her house he kisses her in the hot tub, her first kiss, before Gage cannonballs into the pool to interrupt. That night at the fence, Braden tells Charlie that Evan does not know the real her. Charlie fires back that maybe she is more like Amber than Braden thinks, and he replies coldly, stinging her deeply.

At basketball camp the following week, Charlie excels on the court but lies awake one night mentally cataloging everything about Braden. She realizes she is in love with him, a discovery that devastates her because she believes he cannot return her feelings.

She returns from camp to find Braden spending time with Amber and Gage, sharing inside jokes from the week she missed. Assuming Braden and Amber are a couple, Charlie fights back tears. She falls asleep on the couch and has the nightmare again, this time from inside the car, watching her mother sob as the vehicle spins. Braden, still sitting with her legs across his lap, holds her hand as she wakes. He reveals that when Charlie was 10, her father tried to tell her something important about her mother, and Charlie shut down so completely she climbed onto the roof. Braden urges her to ask her father but refuses to reveal the secret himself.

The truth arrives abruptly. Charlie's father discovers a bridal store advertisement featuring photos of Charlie in full makeup, taken during a session where she pretended to be another model named Chloe, who was supposed to bring a parental waiver. He storms into Linda's store, where Evan is also present, and when Linda mentions getting permission from Charlie's mother, he reveals that his wife is dead, exposing Charlie's lie. Charlie ends things with Evan, telling him she is in a difficult place. Her father then drives her to a beach parking lot and tells her the truth: Her mother had severe depression, repeatedly went on and off medication, and her death was not an accident. She died by suicide, leaving a note. Charlie was in the car because she had snuck in without her mother's knowledge. The recurring nightmares, Charlie realizes, are fragmented memories of the real event.

At her mother's grave, Jerom assures Charlie that the family is still strong and that grief is something she can only go through, not around. After sleeping for hours, emotionally drained, Charlie is coaxed outside by Braden, who brings a soccer ball and claims "completely selfish reasons" for wanting her company. During a playful, physically charged match, he pins her to the ground. After a moment of confusion in which they realize they have been referring to different secrets, his lips brush hers. They kiss, and he confesses he has liked her for a long time but held back out of fear of ruining their friendship. Charlie tells him she loves him, and he says the same. She learns that Amber and Gage got together while she was at camp; Braden was never interested in Amber.

Charlie gathers her family to announce the relationship. Her brothers react protectively, but her father silences them, noting he has trusted Braden with Charlie's safety many times. Charlie then initiates the first open conversation about their mother, pulling out a box of old photographs. Her brothers share memories over the pictures, and even her father joins in.

She returns to Linda's Bazaar and apologizes for lying about her mother. Linda forgives her and offers support. Charlie invites Linda and Skye, the girl who first directed Charlie to the shop, to the family's end-of-summer party, where both halves of her life come together. That night, Charlie wakes not from a nightmare but from Braden's text. She runs outside to the fence under a full moon, no longer running from her past but toward the people she loves.