Page 56 of The Summers of Us

I wanted to accept his apology. I wanted to grab his shoulders and kiss him until we both agreed the fruit punch on our tongues was the sweetest taste in the world. I wanted to collapse with him off the swings and get tangled up in each other until we were itchy from sandy grass.

That’s what Iwanted, but when had that ever matched what Iknew?

IknewHaven was vacant in the arms of another boy.

Iknewmy mom had been vacant since I was nine.

IknewI couldn’t kiss him, lest I became more vacant myself.

The moon jellies’ potion was the strongest of all.

“I can’t kiss you,” I said, fiery, like he was Chance and I hated his guts. I didn’t know whose skin I’d just stepped into, but I hated them, too. My heart thumped in my chest, a sound I couldn’t escape even in the farthest, darkest depths of the backyard.

“I’m sorry.” He walked away.

His swing threw a temper tantrum in his wake. His silhouette disappeared inside the house and left me trapped inside my own blazing inferno.

I was still reeling from everything. I’d lost track of how long it had been, but I was on the front porch listening to the soft hum of music seeping from the cracked windows. The only reason I was still there was so Haven didn’t go home with Chance. When I saw her last, she was dancing on the sofa, so I knew she was too drunk for that.

My eyes lulled over to two clouds scraping across the sky. They reached out like two hands for one another. Before they touched, the wind disintegrated the smaller hand into a shape that could only be called a cloud.

A dumb, shapeless cloud.

I didn’t know where Everett was, but I was divided between two sides of me that battled like Orion and Scorpio in the night sky. One side of me wanted nothing to do with my feelings for Everett. The other side just wanted to kiss it all better.

One side was stronger than the other—the side I’d grown up learning to live with.

Live with it I did, even if it made me the most unbearable, unfair person to ever try to kiss in the moonlight. For that reason, I was going to have to be okay if Everett never wanted to try again.

I would have given up on me, too.

I leaned against the house and considered going back in—force myself around others to stop the crying coming on—but I deserved to feel this awful about what I’d done. I slapped mosquitoes off my ankles and scratched nail marks into them. I deserved to feel awful about that, too.

I was busy predicting the spots of two firefly flickers when the front door swung open.

Holden stammered out. Mason was chasing after him like something happened between them. Holden was on his way down the front steps when he saw me and changed course.

“Are you insane?” He was wasted, glossed-over eyes giving him away.

Mason stood behind him, conflicted, looking between the two of us.

“What do you mean?” I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant.

“Everett told me what happened. What’s wrong with you?” He looked at Mason, then back at me, his finger in my face. “You’re lucky enough to like someone who likes you back and you don’t even do anything about it.”

His words were a bullet to the chest. It hit a nerve and numbed me to my toes. I was in his line of fire. The floor beneath us pooled with the blood from my chest. I breathed in and out to calm myself. I’d never seen him like this, but I had to remind myself that he was drunk. He was just stressed about his sister’s relationship, and he was trying to be a good friend to Everett.

I swallowed the sadness thickening in my throat. “Holden, I know. Please, just stop.”

He shook his head. “Quit acting like a child.”

“Holden, stop!” Mason grabbed at Holden’s wrists, unable to win out over his strength.

Holden twisted his hands from Mason’s, getting back in my face. “Get over it!”

“Holden,please. Calm down. We need to get you home.” Mason managed to grab Holden’s waist and pull him away from me and this awful party. He looked at me, remorse swimming in his blue eyes. “He doesn’t mean it, Quinn. He’s really drunk. I’m so sorry.”

I couldn’t look at anything but Holden, studying his face for any indication that what Mason said was true. It was too late; he was already stumbling to Mason’s car.

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