Page 83 of One Last Summer
“That’s what I always imagined you guys were doing when I wasn’t here,” I said. “I had literal FOMO about it.”
“We mostly just hung out on the beach and stared at our phones and got drunk,” she said. “Which is a lot of fun, I’m not gonna lie.”
“Well, I had FOMO about that too,” I clarified.
“My point is, like, why do we really want to come back here? Why did you finally come up, after all these years away?”
“To see you,” I said slowly, my breath calming in my chest. “And our friends.”
She nodded, pleased that I seemed to be getting it. “Why does this place, and all these games and traditions, even mean anything to us at all?”
“Because we do them with each other,” I said finally.
“When I say I want you to show up, that’s seriously all I want from you. To be with you. To be your friend,” she explained. “I’m not here with any other expectations than that. And maybe you don’t need to have any either.”
She looked down at her phone as I crammed my notebook back into my tote.
“I’ve got to help Nick with something down at the beach,” she said abruptly. “Meet us down there when you finish packing, okay?”
I tilted my head in question.
“Trust me,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it was on your list.”
35
WHEN MY BAGS were finally packed, I dragged them out to the porch, only to find Mack leaning against the railing, slouched, arms crossed. If this were an eighties movie, he’d be wearing a polo shirt and sweater vest, and synth music would swell as he pushed himself to stand, sauntering toward me in slow motion.
Instead, he golf-clapped as he watched me lug my crap out the door.
“Thanks for the help,” I huffed sarcastically.
“I just wanted to see if the city girl could make it on her own,” he said as he wrangled my bag out of my hands and brought it down the steps, dropping it onto the grass. “Well done.”
“You know you were raised in a metropolis of, like, eight million people?” I asked. “If anything, I should be calling you ‘city boy.’”
“Wow, did you Wikipedia Los Angeles, Millen?” Normally, he’d tease me like this with a smile, eyes watching me, eagerly waiting for my next move. Right now, he just seemed sad.
“No. I’m just naturally this smart.”
Mack nodded, grazing his teeth against his upper lip in thought.
“We’re all meeting up at the waterfront before you go,” he said finally. “I thought I could walk you down. And I wanted to give you this.”
He reached around to his back pocket and then held up my checklist, and the friendship bracelet, dropping both into my open palm.
“I didn’t mean to read it, you know,” he apologized. “But it was there on your bed, and I saw my name. I thought maybe it was a letter to me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh, what, like, ‘Dear Mack, stop snooping through my shit, Love, Clara’?” I asked.
He laughed at this.
“I wasn’t snooping. I was coming to give you a friendship bracelet, like a fucking lovesick kid.”
He said this like he was horrified with himself, his hands pressed against his forehead as he shook his head.
“You weren’t supposed to see it,” I explained, my heart sinking, the edges of the paper sharp in my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Why, because then I’d know you were sleeping with me just to check off a box?” he said with a wounded laugh. “Though I am flattered that you think of me as your lover.”
