Page 43 of One Last Summer
“Oh, right!” Nick said. “That one he did tell me about.”
“Clara and Mack, sitting in a tree,” Trey started to sing. “K-I-S-S-I—”
“Okay, and that was like, one hundred years ago!” I interrupted, voice rising slightly.
“So that’s why you were just such an asshole about his job? Because you kissed?” Eloise said, picking a chip out of Linus’s stack and giving it a crunch. “That seems like something someone does when they’re trying to convince themselves they want to be friends with someone who they definitely want to keep making out with.”
I opened my mouth to protest but was cut off by Linus.
“Yeah, I realize I only met you twenty-four hours ago, Clara, but I agree with Eloise,” he said matter-of-factly, reaching over to pat Eloise on the knee affectionately. “She’s almost always right about everything.”
“Mill-en, hey, come on, look at me take my shirt off and do a swim race with me.” Nick lowered his voice with a slight SoCal twang, puffing his chest up in what was the worst Mack impression I’d ever seen.
“Ew, Mack, no, I’m too busy doing very important smart things,” Eloise crooned, flipping the tail of her braid with her hand. “You work at a stupid little camp and I do important, fancy marketing things.”
“Branding,” I interjected, but no one was listening to me now. They were too focused on their impromptu theater production unfolding on the porch.
“Let’s make out,” Nick said, wagging his tongue back at her as Sam cackled from the swing in the corner.
“Jesus, guys,” I said, crunching up my lunch trash in between my hands, channeling my nervous energy into balling up the wrappers as small as I could get them. “I think you’re reading too much into things. We got into some dumb argument over Capture the Flag. So what.”
“Excuse you, that was an extremely passionate argument over how to play a game where you literally just run around and find a square piece of cloth.” Nick pushed his sunglasses up, revealing tired, bloodshot eyes.
“Oh, come on, it’s nostalgia!” I said.
“Sexual tension,” Linus agreed solemnly, before biting into a chip. “I could feel it the whole game.”
“It’s probably why you lost,” Trey added with a chuckle.
“Okay, that’s enough, thanks.” I hopped up off the floor, antsy, my skin suddenly feeling as tight and claustrophobic as a wetsuit. “I have a therapist I actually pay to talk to about this stuff.”
“Where are you going?” Sam asked, reaching her arms out toward me for a hug. I bonked her gently on the head with my crumpled-up paper bag and then smushed myself next to her on the swing, inhaling the cinnamon-y warmth of her skin as she wrapped an arm around me. Thank god at least one of my friends wasn’t giving me crap about kissing Mack.
“That wasn’t cool, what I said just now to Mack.” I sighed, giving her a quick squeeze back. “I’m going to run down to the boathouse and apologize.”
“With your mouth?” she asked, breaking into a grin.
“Oh my god, not you too!” I shrieked at Sam. “I’m leaving now.”
“Break a leg, honey,” Nick said with a chuckle.
I gave them all one final hearty eye roll before heading inside to toss my trash. It was hard to know exactly what I’d meant by “experience real joy” at fifteen, but now, as my friends’ voices drifted in through the screen windows, peals of laughter peppering their conversation, I knew.
It was the comfort of that laughter outside, the tenderness of old friendships, and the way they changed shape through the years but never truly lost their original form. It was the thrill of competition—not of winning, but of believing wholeheartedly that you could.
It was leaping headfirst without thinking of what came next.
19
“HELLO?” I CUPPED my hands against the screen door of the boathouse, peering inside. It was dark, but Mack’s old Jeep was parked nearby, so he was clearly around somewhere. I decided to wait, pacing the edge of the beach, walking that fine line where the water lapped against the sand.
The air was heavy underneath the afternoon sun, trees casting amorphous shadows on the water that shook any time a ripple passed through them. Dragonflies whizzed by, dipping down to kiss the lake before launching themselves back to the sky. I dug a knuckle into my jawbone, massaging it aggressively. Lately, I’d been grinding my teeth at night, which left me with a constant, dull ache that throbbed just below my ears during the day.
There was still no sight of Mack, and the humidity in the air was just oppressive enough that I’d been inching my body farther and farther into the water while I waited for him. I was now in all the way to my knees, bending every few seconds to dig around in the sand for rocks to skip as I planned my apology in my head.
I definitely owed him one. Because he wasn’t wrong, I had been trying to hurt his feelings. Not because I thought his job lacked meaning, or value, or worse—that he did. But because there was a part of me that was worried—very worried—that my life, my work, did, and in the moment, it had been easier to direct all that anxiety at him than admit it to myself.
“Fuck it,” I said out loud, and took a couple of hopping steps back out of the water, kicking off my shorts once I hit the shore, and adding my tank top to the pile before stepping back into the water in my underwear. I was beginning to wonder why I’d even bothered to pack a bathing suit.
