Page 88 of One Last Summer
He placed his wish boat onto the water, giving it a small push with his finger as it bobbed out away from us.
One thing. One simple, impossible thing.
More time.
“I’ll wish real hard then,” I said quietly.
Mack took a step back until he was close behind me, sliding his arms around my waist. I didn’t move, taking one last minute to relish the feeling of his body pressed against mine.
Finally, I bent forward, dropping my wish boat into the water.
And then, I let it go.
37
EVERYTHING ABOUT MY apartment felt worse than I remembered. The walls were starker, the color of urine under the dim overhead light. The rooms seemed like they’d shrunk, the furniture drab and dingy. Nothing about this place would ever feel like home.
“Hi, Richard,” I said, greeting my sad, deceased plant on the windowsill.
It was a little after midnight, and I promptly got to work unpacking my duffel bag. Then I read over the final pitch document Lydia had forwarded for tomorrow’s meeting and washed the wineglasses she and I had left in the sink. When that didn’t provoke even as much as a yawn, I wandered into the bathroom and pulled out a clay face mask my mom had sent me as a Christmas gift last year, slathered it on, and crawled into bed for thirty minutes of Tetris on my phone.
I followed it with a sleep meditation, and two melatonin, and still, nothing.
I officially couldn’t sleep.
By the time the sun started to creep up around the skyscrapers outside my window, I was showered and dressed, and I still had four hours until I had to be at the Alewife office downtown. If I was in New Hampshire, I’d probably be diving into the lake right now. But I was back in Boston and had to improvise, so I did the next best thing I could think of: I got the largest cup of coffee sold at Starbucks, and I set off walking.
At the end of Charles Street, I crossed into the Public Garden, following a winding pathway past a giant blooming willow on the edge of the park. I said hello to the bronze duckling statues that lived along the cobblestone path and meandered toward the tiny pond in the center of the park.
I wondered what my friends were doing at Pine Lake at that very moment. Sam was probably awake, propped up in bed reading her werewolf romance. Nick and Trey—if they were speaking—were almost certainly asleep. Eloise and Linus were probably, well, not asleep.
Then I imagined Mack, lying in bed with one arm tucked underneath his head, reading a letter from one of his campers. Or maybe he was out on the boat, wind tossing his hair around, watching the dragonflies wake up with the morning light.
I missed him. It was an ache so complete that my body actually throbbed. I considered texting him for a moment, but there was nothing left to rehash, or say, even. Instead, I let my mind play tricks on me as I walked, fantasizing that I could still smell the sweet, dewy grass outside Sunrise, feel the chill of the lake water against my skin, hear the wail of the loons calling in the distance.
I stopped short in the middle of the path, cutting off a runner who cursed at me under his breath. I listened, my ears straining until I caught it again, clearer this time. That sound wasn’t just some wish in my head. Somewhere nearby was a loon, in the middle of Boston, no less, warbling like crazy.
I tossed my half-drunk coffee into the nearest garbage can and took off jogging down the winding strip of gray asphalt that led me closer to the water. The pond spread out before me like an oasis, and tucked just under the bridge that bisected its middle was a row of swan boats.
“Am I losing my mind?” I said out loud to a couple of pigeons who pecked at something underneath a bench nearby. But there it was again, the unmistakable high-pitched call of the same birds who had floated alongside me all week in Pine Lake.
I’d never once seen a loon outside of New Hampshire, much less in an actual city, but as I wandered off the path and down the grass, there it was, smack-dab in the middle of the greenish-black water.
I got as close as I could to the edge, close enough that I could see tiny guppies darting along the surface. My eyes trailed the loon as it moved toward the far end of the pond, and then scanned back toward the boats, where I noticed a woman crouched close by. She also seemed to be studying the bird intently, and I took off toward her, as if she might hold all the answers as to how a loon ended up in the middle of the Public Garden.
As her features came into clear view, I realized she was young—no more than seventeen—though the way her brow tensed over her cat-eyed glasses gave her the air of an ancient professor who’d had tenure longer than she’d been alive.
“Hey. Is that…” I pointed, unsure of what I was even asking.
“A loon, yeah,” she said as the small black bird disappeared under the water.
“How the hell did it end up in the middle of Boston?” I asked, squinting as I scanned the murky water, willing it to appear again.
“No idea. It just showed up last week.” She tucked a strand of short, black hair behind her ear as she looked up at me. “I interned all summer with the Audubon Society so I had to learn a lot about birds. I think it’s a female; the male loons are normally bigger.”
“Is that why you’re here? To take care of the bird?” I asked, and she laughed at this in the particular way only a teenager could, like it was the dumbest question in the world, but they didn’t judge you at all for asking it.
“No,” she explained, fiddling with the hem of her ruffled, floral dress. “I just did my internship for my community service credit for school. I go to Boston Latin.”
