Page 44 of The Summers of Us

Family comes and goes, but friends always stay.

July 4

I’m going to die.

Seconds from taking a breath of salt water. The ocean surrounds me. Waves bob overhead, the moonlight chopped by rippled water. I sense a thousand whales around me. Bigger than airplanes. Hidden in the blackness. Watching me die. My heart leaps for the surface. My eyes sting. I can’t break free. Shackled. An anchor. On my ankle. It digs further into my skin when I swim up. The air is right there. My fingers push through. Void of oxygen, light, and warmth, my lungs start to shrivel. I’ve run out of time.

There’s no other choice.

My lungs fill with ocean water.

I wake up panting,so rapidly I fear I might run out of air. My hand rests over my bobbing chest. Everything is okay. I’m in a bed. At Everett’s house. In Piper Island. Sober.

The room is dark, like the ocean that dream-Quinn died in. Slowly, the blackness fades into a muted blue like the room real-Quinn slept in. The moonlight wedges its way between drawn blinds. Not choppy. Not wave-distorted. The sheer curtains sway from the vent below. My feet disturb the comforter. My ankles are free. I am not drowning in the Atlantic Ocean. I am alive.

I am also wide awake.

I slip out of bed, smooth the covers like I was never there, and pad down the dark hallway. The kitchen clock glows a green 5:19am, an hour before Liezel will start her morning coffee. I need to be anywhere but here.

I open my phone and type a text since I can’t just go down the hall and crawl under his covers for comfort:Thanks for letting me stay. I can’t sleep so I’m going to the pier.

I’m barefoot in Everett’s kitchen, leaning against the sparkling kitchen counter, mentally willing Everett to read my text. He’s probably sleeping. It’s hard for teens to leave their sleep on summer mornings. I’d still be trapped too if it weren’t for my nightmare. I don’t know why yesterday brought on such a dream. I’ve been in Piper Island too long, and I’ve been thinking too much. My thoughts would kill me if they could wield weapons, especially since I forgot to take my antidepressants last night.

I close the front door slowly so the roaring hinges won’t wake anyone up. Despite my best efforts, it still hollers at me on the way out.

I bike to the pier under disappearing stars, streetlights guiding me down the empty roads. Goosebumps ignite down to my toes as I pedal the wind harder onto my skin. The strands that fell from my ponytail during the nightmare soar behind me.

As I pass each streetlight, they cast my shadow on the road ahead. The shadow of a girl afraid of everything, even in dreams, which used to be the only place safe from reality.

Main Street is dead this morning, save for locals walking their dogs or heading to work off the island and ambitious tourists swaying to the sand for sunrise. I coast over the white lines in the near-empty pier parking lot. I leave my bike on the rack and hobble up the sandy stairs into the pier shop, the only place open this early.

My phone chimes:Be there in ten.

The sound is a jolt to my system. I wasn’t prepared for Everett to be awake, and I certainly wasn’t prepared to face him so soon after what happened last night.

I kill time walking through the aisles of bright neon fishing lure, shrimp graying over ice, overpriced beach toys. I sift through a basket of cowries. Zodiac constellations are engraved onto the rounded exterior, glossed over to spend eternity there instead of the sky. I find a couple familiar ones. My stomach whines for a breakfast of greasy mozzarella sticks and a slushy from the new machine I’m sure Haven has already tried.

The bell above the door rings when I open it to leave and step into the near morning light. Early risers are already fishing, propped under the lamp poles spread evenly down the pier. Holden and his dad, Santiago, come out this early sometimes for the fish that only bite before the sun rises.

I find a bench a short walk down the pier. It sits above where even the highest of tides can’t reach.Here, the sand would catch me before the water had the chance to swallow me whole. I’d take that fate any day, even if it stuck to every bit of me, followed me to the cracks of Blair’s hardwoods, survived the shower, and tucked itself into my bed sheets.

Sitting on the pier,I text, then slip my phone into my pocket.

I close my eyes and listen to the push and pull of the waves. The sound of a TV tuned to the wrong station. Haven wrestling wavy hair from her face. Everett’s skin glistening. Holden winning at paddleball. Seagulls running from two people chasing them.

I listen to the sound of summer.

I do still love that sound. It’s a reminder that the world still works as it should. The moon still has a job. The oceanfront is still a great place to spend too-early summer mornings.

A flock of pelicans fly over the first strip of beach houses, growing bigger as it makes its way over the pier. A seagull down the pier haggles a fisherman who just reeled up a half-eaten shrimp. He waves his hands and yells to scare it away, but it doesn’t budge.

“Morning.”

Everett stands with his fists stretching his hoodie pockets. His black hair has clearly been defeated by his pillowcase, the sea breeze going for round two. It looks like all he did before leaving was throw his hoodie on. I’m surprised he managed to tie his Converses.

“Good morning,” I say. The sight of him nearly kills me, so I stare blankly at the ocean that killed me in dreamland earlier.

He sits on the ocean-most side of the bench. His Quinn-most knee touches mine. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

---