Page 15 of The Summers of Us

He cannonballs into the pool. It splashes on my knees. I shiver. That’s how water used to feel; it used to kiss the skin I wanted to crawl out of, making me want to stay instead and be kissed by the water forever. I don’t let water kiss me anymore, but I sit by the side of the pool. I listen to my best friends swimming, laughing, and revenge-splashing each other. I throw the cheese puffs Mason brought over into Holden’s mouth. We miss almost every one. Everett fishes them out with a grimace.

Haven swims to the edge where she left her slushy. She swallows a sip, light reflecting on her face from the water. “You having fun?”

“Of course.” I smile.

I’m notlying, but it’s just harder these days to be part of the world happening around me. There is a bit of truth to my words, though; doing something dumb and teenage like this is exactly what I need.

Haven scoops her hair into a bun. Her curly baby hairs pirouette onto her forehead—fitting, since she’s the only person I know who dances through life with the careless whimsy of wispy hair. She searches for rainbows in storm clouds, calls warts “frog kisses,” and can’t go a day without eating a cherry popsicle. She sees the world in yellow.

“I’m glad.” She gives me her cheese-puffiest smile and kisses the air with a loud smooch.

I pretend to catch it, popping it in my mouth like a big fat cherry. That always makes Haven laugh.

She swims back to play chicken. They let me be the judge and I fudge the results in Everett’s favor. I don’t think they notice. Holden’s a cheater anyway. I finish the cheese puffs and muster a beat of courage. I slip out of my sandals, plant myself at the edge of the pool, and cross my legs just before the edge of the water.

Everett swims up. He crosses his arms on the concrete and leans his face on them. He smiles at me as if to ponder the vastness of the universe. I wonder a similar thing when I look into his eyes:Just how far does infinity go?

“I see you’re making your way in,” he says definitively.

“My way ends right here.” My cheeks warm. The edges around my chest are malleable putty, and he could do whatever he wants with it just by existing.

“Let’s go somewhere drier, then.”

I nod. I’m trying to be better at trust.

He hoists himself from the pool. Water slides off his body and darkens the concrete in water droplet shapes. He dries off and wrestles his shirt back on.

His head pops out of his shirt collar. “Race you to the slides!”

Before I have a moment to process, he takes off running. By the time I untwist myself from the edge of the pool, he’s already started up the stairs. I follow, the stairs creaking all the way to the top.

“You win.” I hunch over, panting, my hands on my knees.

He smirks. “It wasn’t a race.”

I shove his shoulder. “Damn you.”

Everett sits down on the wooden platform. I join him next to the dark, gaping mouth of one of the slides. It’s eerily quiet up here with the water off. We lean back on the wooden railing. Down at the pool, we can see Holden and Mason playing Marco Polo. Jorge steals a sip of Haven’s slushy and she tickles it out of his hands.

Before us stretches the navy-blue panorama of the Atlantic Ocean and Piper Island. Beach house windows, streetlights, and neon restaurant signs pepper the horizon. The pier itself has a beating heart, awake now with late night fishermen. Infinitesimal lives spill from tail lights, stoplights, and golden upstairs windows.

What would it be like to jump inside and live a different life?

The moonlight paints a white line from the horizon to the sand, breaking with the roaring waves in its path. Gray clouds muck up the constellations like a bruised banana, but I still find the Dippers, then Scorpio and Sagittarius. I find the unnamed cluster that resembles a pool of fish, then have to look away from the sky.

From here, the horizon looks like it did last summer on the Ferris wheel. Moonlight has always reminded me of Everett. Ferris wheel creaks, string lights, arcadepings, sparkling vignettes of the Boardwalk at night. It makes me want to do something stupid.

Something brave. Something like last summer.

I weave my fingers between Everett’s and hold on tight.

He squeezes back.

My heart thrums in tune with the waves, from my thumb into his hand. Shame joins the symphony of emotions. I’m an idiot—too broken to fall in love, but pieced together just enough to send mixed signals. Regret takes center stage, but I don’t want to let him go, so I brace against the mental image of my heart melting down the slide and into the pool.

We’re more than two people hanging out on a closed water slide under the stars.

We’re more than two people who ride Ferris wheels and sing karaoke.