Page 51 of The Summers of Us

“Pinky promise.”

“Wait, you haven’t seen myquincedress!” Haven pulled a white trash bag from the far corner of her closet. She ripped the bag down the middle. The dress popped out like a pastel yellow firework across the night sky. She held it up so the tulle swished to the floor. The strapless dress glimmered in the sun setting through the window.

“It’s beautiful.” I touched a few silver rhinestones. “Looks like your invitations.”

Haven’squinceañerawas last month, on her and Holden’s fifteenth birthday. I got the yellow glittered invitation during spring break and begged my mom to go as soon as I got back from the mailbox. I cooked her favorite meal that night and pleaded with my hands knitted above overcooked spaghetti. I presented a slideshow the next morning that detailed why I needed to support Haven’s new womanhood. I just needed a ride to Piper Island for the weekend. I wouldn’t even miss school, but Mom said no each time I asked.

She insisted I’d miss too much studying for finals. She had no time to drive all that way more than twice in one year. She said I could drive down all I wanted once I got my license, but that I wouldn’t want to when I was the one behind the wheel.

“Just wait until you’re older. You’ll understand then,” she always said.

I kept wondering when wasold enoughto placate adults. Did Haven feel old enough ever since herquinceañera? Did it unlock some mysteries of the world? Maybe that was why she and I didn’t see eye to eye on Chance. She was a woman now, and I was a measly child, even though I was technically older than her.Just wait until you’re older. You’ll understand then.

Because of that, I missed my best friend’squinceañeraand filled my absence with a lame hand-sequined card and a twenty-dollar bill. I threw in one for Holden as well, even though the invitation didn’t mention him. I earned the money from babysitting our neighbor, so Mom at least kept quiet about that.

“You didn’t miss much, besidestioKenny. I didn’t have much time for friends. I had to talk to all my family that came from Mexico. Like,allof them, some I didn’t even see from our visit last summer. My mouth hurt from smiling so much.” She flashed me a perfect pageant smile that I’d never seen grace her face.

“I didn’t know you had that many teeth.”

“Right? My braces were good for something after all. Hey, we can have our ownquinceright here. I’ll put on my dress and you can wear my tiara!”

Haven reached for a dainty tiara hanging from a corner of her vanity mirror. “I’m supposed to wear this, but this is ourquince, so I say thedamacan wear it today.” She nestled the teeth behind my ears with a perfect softness for such a delicate treasure. “Quinn Kessler, princess of the evening!”

I smiled and curtsied for Haven and myself in the mirror. The tiara looked out of place on my chlorinated hair, like a pearl inside a barnacled oyster. A sapphire lost on a littered beach.

Haven stepped into the dress, pulled it over her tee shirt, and bunched her hair in front of her chest so I could zip it up. The dress fit snugly around her torso and flared out at the waist. She bowed in appreciation at the mirror.

Haven played a song I didn’t recognize from her phone. She showed me the basic steps to thebaile sorpresa. As adama, I would have helped orchestrate the dance, if my mom would have let me go. The dance was simple, probably because Holden planned it and couldn’t have been bothered to give more than a new tackle box worth of effort. Haven told me on the beach earlier that Saray had to offer him a new one so he’d agree to spend his fifteenth birthday celebrating his sister.

It took me a second to catch on to the dance. I missed a few moves and Haven helped me laugh it off. We mirrored each other under the ceiling fan. The song ended and I finished with a bow, holding the tiara so it wouldn’t fall off.

“I would have paired you with Everett for the real dance.” Haven grabbed my wrist. “Quinn, you would havediedat how hot he looked in his tux.”

I suddenly felt a different kind of hot, like the sun was setting only on me. Like I was trapped in floodlights on an empty stage. “Why would we be paired up?”

Haven’s gaze was pointed, a full house crowd watching me mess up abaile sorpresain a blue Hammerhead’s shirt. “Why wouldn’t you? Everett likes you. You like him. It’s simple mathematics. Well, I guess it’schemistry.” She looked proud of herself for that one.

I couldn’t believe she could manage a joke after such a scary suggestion. But some people were made for relationships. Some people liked attention, even if they knew one day it could get stripped from them all at once.

Some people were Haven.

I gulped and wiped my palms on my shirt. “Because he might hurt me,” I whispered into thin air, wishing I could vanish into it. It was the same mantra my mom would repeat if she were in my shoes. It must have been her shoes I was melting in right now.

“Why do you think every guy is going to hurt you? You’ve always been like this. First Everett, then Chance, now Everett again.” Haven rolled her eyes. Her words cut me more than I ever thought they could. Or would.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what my dad did.” The words escaped with a brokenness I hadn’t felt since it happened. I raised my voice to take back some control. “You know what I’ve been through, but you don’t know what itfeltlike.”

“This is all because your dad left?” Haven’s voice competed with mine. “Not every man leaves.”

“He never loved my mom and he never loved me!” My own words cut deeper than Haven’s, like I was betraying myself by speaking such a brutal truth into reality for the first time. I sucked in through my teeth, trying not to lose my last bit of cool.

Some people didn’t know what it was like to be me. Some people fixed their families with ice cream. Some people dated because it wassofun. Some people had parents who still loved each other. And them.

Some people were Haven.

“You don’t understand,” I said.

“I don’t need to. It’s time to grow up and get over it.” Her voice was like flames, spitting onto my already sunburnt face. “You have to stop using your divorced parents as an excuse to be a coward.”

---