Page 48 of The Summers of Us

“There you go.” Everett swooned me to unknown territories.

I was floating.

Their hands suddenly disappeared from beneath me. I managed a quick gasp that followed me into the muffled underwater world. Managed a pinch for breath before I was submerged. I kicked off the squishy ocean floor. “Oh my God!”

Haven’s hands were over her mouth, probably to hide her laughter. “For the record, that’s not what we thought would happen!”

“Sorry, you looked relaxed.” Remorse danced on Everett’s tongue.

Wiping the salt from my eyes, I sharpened my gaze at them while water made trails down my skin. I couldn’t find any anger. I laughed and splashed them as payback. Haven offered me an amused smile. It was nice to see real emotion on her face. Everett shrugged with real regret.

He was cute when he was genuine.

I was stupid when I was dripping in ocean water.

Haven and I finished a serious gameof mermaids and made our way back to our chairs. The sand stuck to my wet body like sprinkles to ice cream. I threw myself on my towel between Holden and Everett.

“God, you scared me,” Everett mumbled with a gasp, still half-asleep. He was on his stomach, tanning his back. He turned to face me, sun rays leaking into his eyes. A soft smile grazed his face.

I smiled back. I didn’t know if it meant anything, what he might take from it, or if he saw me at all in the blinding sun. Maybe he just saw the lingering deep purple and orange sun spots that hadn’t yet fizzled out.

When he closed his eyes again, I stole studious glances at him. He had changed a lot since last summer. He looked more like a man than a boy now. His back rose and fell with steady breaths, the sun casting shadows on the ridges from his biceps to back to legs. Did he need more sunscreen? His black hair was trimmed on the sides, but the hair on top of his head was wild and free. I wanted to run my fingers through it, shake some of the sand dried into it, watch him react to my touch. I wanted to trace my warm fingers down his jaw, end up at his lips. I bet they tasted like salt.

What was this, one of Blair’s shirtless men books? I planted my hand into the sand and focused on literally anything but the steady thrumming of my heart against the sand. The sun seeped into my pores and thawed the chill from my time in the water. I tuned in to the ocean until it sounded like a nonstop hum, cicadas, TV static, wind when you drove with the windows down.

I opened a book Blair bought me from the bookstore. Words were better on wet and sandy pages. There likely weren’t shirtless men in this one, though. Blair had set it on my bed for my arrival this summer, a note scribbled on the title page:

This summer, keep doing that living you do. Maybe fall in love while you’re at it? Love, Blair.

Okay, maybe there were shirtless men. I didn’t know, but she’d be proud nonetheless. I was lying on a beach surrounded by people I loved and the music and art of everything around us. A boy slept next to me with a permanent smile on his face.

I’d knew I’d be stupid not to throw myself head-first into the real world, make the pages of the book my reality. But it wasn’tstupidto me—it wascareful,cautious,smart.

While reading about meet-cutes and summer days and a breathtaking deep blue horizon over an ocean, I dozed off inside my own breathtaking ocean horizon.

During my own summer day.

Next to my own potential meet-cute.

We were barefoot in the pier shop,waiting for our order to be called. After my nap on the sand, I woke up with my salty face stuck to a book page and my stomach growling for lunch. Everett insisted on coming to help me carry everything, so we were wrapped up in the smell of greasy food and fish bait and musty air that sent goosebumps rampant beneath our bathing suits.

We killed time weaving through the aisles. I picked through baskets of dusty seashells. The zodiac cowries reminded me of Hadley. The knobbed whelks taunted me for having never found one. The fraudulent bleach-white murexes didn’t even wash up this north of the Atlantic. I silently critiqued the designs on the pier tee shirts. If I were a tourist, I’d buy the pastel orange hoodie, but Iwasn’ta tourist.

Everett held up a blue shirt with a photorealistic shark mouth open on the entire front. “Ihaveto have this.”

We were looking through the pier postcards when I asked Everett what his favorite memory of the pier was.

Everett pointed to a postcard of a stark orange sunrise, the pier a nest of black lines before it. “When we first moved here, back when Mom and Dad still acted like tourists, we came here at least once a week. They’d let me pick out candy while we watched the sunrise. I felt like I’d never seen the sun until I saw it rise off this pier.”

“What’d you pick out?”

“Almond Joys. Mounds before I realized it was dark chocolate. I just picked the almonds off for Mom. Or threw them to the seagulls.”

“Did you ever get swarmed?” I remembered a day at the beach when a seagull landed on Haven’s head after she got too generous with her peanut butter crackers. I hoped that wouldn’t happen with our lunch.

“Nope. I think seagulls are scared of me.”

“Or maybe they just don’t like almonds?”

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