Page 79 of The Summers of Us

A star cut through the night sky, leaving a trail of moon dust in its wake. My eyes drew to it like a camera flash in the distance.

I leaned onto my elbows, feverishly tapped Everett’s arm. “Did you see that? Did you? A shooting star! Quick, make a wish!”

He chuckled. “I already did.”

I lay back down, breathing in and out in clandestine ritual. I almost uttered the same wish I once tossed to the aquarium fountain, but how many cheek eyelash, birthday candle, and dandelion puff wishes had I wasted on something that couldn’t change?

Wishing for the past to change was a waste of a wish, so I shut my eyes and whispered something else into the void, something I’d been thinking about a lot lately.

I wish for a rollercoaster.

When I opened them, a still sky rested above. The stars were probably silently deliberating whether my wish should be granted. A celestial jury, astronomical wish granters. Did stars understand metaphors or was I going to wake up tomorrow morning with a wooden track off the motel balcony? Would I ride it if the opportunity presented itself? DidIunderstand metaphors?

Did I even need shooting stars? Maybe it was all up to me.

“What’d you wish for?” Everett asked.

I giggled. “You know I can’t tell you.”

“Fine, then I won’t tell you what I wished for.”

“I already know you wished you could beat me at pinball.”

“Maybe.” Everett laughed.

Age 17, July 18

Tonight wanted something more for me.

I was restless in bed, my night with Everett at Carolina Beach pinging in my head. “It didn’t feel like this,” was the bedtime story that wouldn’t quite lull me there. Everett was single, and time was ticking for me to do something about it. It had already been a few weeks but I hadn’t mustered the courage to make my move yet.

The last time I thought he was single and I was ready, he actuallywasn’tsingle. He’d moved on to Kelsie, but this summer, I didn’t have to let us keep missing each other.

The night was in control. It made me slip out of bed, throw a bikini on, and set off into the night. I hoped I didn’t wake Blair or Hadley up when I left, picking my bike off a palm tree and setting off into the night. The air was cold on my bike, but it still felt like freedom.

The feeling fully hit me when I turned onto Main Street, with only a few porch lights and deer awake with me during the witching hour.

I was really doing it.

My therapist would be so proud. I’d tell her about it in our call tomorrow. We’d been talking every other week since last November. Last session, I updated her on Everett—that he was single at the same time I was—and she reminded me of something we’d been working on during the school year: How to happen to your own life before it happened to you. Back home, I’d only gotten as far as captaining the tennis team, but armed with new information about Everett, I could do more. One day, I would ride a real rollercoaster, and then I could probably conquer the world, maybe even escape from the quicksand my dad left me in.

Tonight, it started with Everett. It was time to take a step. If you did that in quicksand, you’d drown in it, but there was no rule about beach sand. Beach sand was just microscopic shells. Shells never drowned anyone.

I texted him before I biked over, but I didn’t expect a reply so quickly. There was still no response when I set my bike against his mailbox. Everett’s room was off the first-floor balcony, which I knew from the few times we’d come over for beach days, so I had no choice if I wanted to happen to my own life tonight.

I took control back from the night and found myself before his window.Trespassing, if Everett didn’t notice before the neighbors did. I considered throwing something at the window like in the movies, an oyster shard or something, but I wasn’t going to mess with someone else’s glass. My therapist would understand.

Instead, I knocked on his window. I didn’t breathe in the silence after, like silence meant I wouldn’t be caught. I listened for stirring inside, then knocked again. “Everett! It’s Quinn!” I scream-whispered so he’d actually brave the noise behind his window.

He drew the curtains back, looked briefly like he thought he was still dreaming, then unlatched his window and swung it open. “What’s up?” he croaked.

“Do you want to go swimming?”

Waves thrashed the shorelinewith a sound like beach thunder ripping down the horizon—layered and prolonged and echoing like a pinball bouncing off thick storm clouds.

The sound was menacing, but I’d made up my mind.

If I’d known years ago that it would one day be Everett with reservations about night swimming, I wouldn’t have believed it. There was a lot I wouldn’t believe, but somehow this was more shocking than the very idea that Everett and I were walking in our bathing suits down a dark patch of beach. Alone. Together.

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