Page 27 of The Summers of Us

The clock ticks closer to nine-thirty. Do the constellations know what’s about to happen? Do they twinkle with bated breath for the dandelion puffs to erupt before them?

We listen to the ocean and the laughter from the sand until a whistle washes over the crowd. A glowing line smears the sky and bursts into a firework—bright, loud, and steady. A string of crackly ones stall, then the rest take shape. My eyes blur, half blinking every time a new set goes off. Booms and crackles and colors fill the sky and reflect the same picture on the band of ocean stretched before us. Neighboring beach shows erupt as small blips on the distant shoreline.

I can’t help but smile. Guilt doesn’t erupt beneath it.

Fireworks stain the world; I spy each flickering color. The dunes glow green. The pampas grass glows orange. My arms glow red. Everett’s smile glows blue. He’s already looking at me when I look at him, our stares lingering enough to turn every color.

“How many shows are happening in the world right now?” I ask.

He leans in so I can hear him over the blaring static. “Infinite.”

His breath feels like a firework across my neck. Beautiful and romantic, but not at all trying to be.

More quickly than a firework shoots to the sky and turns to smoke, the finale begins. The fireworks sing over each other, too many to make out one color from the next. Before long, everything stills. The conductor has waved his final baton. Smoke hangs heavy over the ocean like early morning fog.

Applause from the beach fills the void. The Bishops’ back deck and the neighboring ones roar in very drunken applause.

We head below the house, where the Bishops usually park their cars. String lights hang from the rafters and illuminate the patio furniture.

We play a few rounds of cornhole in the driveway with the adults until it gets late enough for everyone but us to leave. Everett’s parents head up to bed after Everett pinky promises them we won’t stay up too late.

When we hear the front door close above us, Everett goes into the shed next to their outdoor shower and emerges with beer. “You guys wanted a kickass July Fourth?”

So much for pinky promises.

I haven’t been drunksince one night two summers ago. I kept good on my word not to drink again, thought I learned from my mistakes, but the glow of the string lights and haze of the late night prevailed. I’m barely drunk, at least not like I know I can be. I count the beer can tabs in my pocket as a reminder. Three.

I snap another off the next can, shove it into my pocket with the rest.

We’re on our third attempted game of the evening. We started off with Clue, but Holden swore he solved the murder two rounds in and ruined the game. Next was Rummikub, which Haven won since she was the only one who got her tiles out after the first drawing. We were at a loss for what to do next until Holden got the idea to play Truth or Dare.

Mason goes first, daring Holden to ask the neighbors for something from their cooler. He marches across the street to the neighbors’ driveway where they’re having their own party. We can’t hear their exchange, but he returns victoriously with a soda can.

Jorge asks Everett to tell the truth about the most illegal thing he’s done. Besides sneaking into Pirate’s Bounty—and the beer in his hand right now—it was sneaking outside candy into the movie theatre, which earns a few exaggerated gasps from the rest of the group, but a secret nod of shared guilt from me.

Prompted by Holden, Haven tells of her scariest experience, the ghost that haunts herabuela’shouse in Mexico.

“Holden insists it isn’t real, butabuelasays it only hauntschicas,” Haven mutters. “It probably just hates you.”

“I think if it’s not haunting Holden, it must like him.” Mason swigs from his can. “Right?”

“Doesn’t everyone justloveHolden? Even the dead,” Jorge says.

“Hey, don’t be jealous that this is the only thing that likes you.” Holden nudges Haven with his elbow.

Everett dares me to do the Macarena. I jump up from the patio furniture, giggling that this is his dare. Haven helps me and we fumble through the steps. I sit back down and finish my fourth beer, my brain doing its own Macarena. I’m a loose cannon, high tide, pampas grass swaying in the wind. I’m only a few pegs of drunkenness beneath that night two years ago when I made out with a guy whose name I barely remembered. I could get there. I don’t know the conversion rate between beer and tequila, but the first sparks of fire burn within me.

This is a dangerous place to be. This is an incredible place to be. This is exactly the place to be.

I don’t know how many drinks Haven’s had, but I dare her to chug the rest of the can she’s holding. She leans her head back so hard that beer dribbles onto the airbrushedHavenshirt Jorge bought her so she’d finally have a souvenir with her name. She finishes with an exasperated exhale.

Haven dares Jorge to kiss her. So she’s exactly as drunk as I am right now. Jorge looks at her like she’s the only person under the house and kisses her in the same manner. When she comes up for air, she wipes fallen beer from her chest.

Holden fake gags, or maybe it’s real. I laugh at the absurdity of it all. Is it even that absurd?

Everett feels warm next to me, or maybe it’s me who’s warm. My face is a hot sidewalk mirage. Likely red. Definitely pink. No matter who’s to blame, it’s unbearable being skin-to-skin with him, sweating where our thighs touch. My heart beats, bathing in the warm beer.

Jorge seeks revenge and dares Mason to kiss Holden. Mason doesn’t make quite the show that Jorge did, but he grabs Holden by the cheeks and gives him a quick peck.

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