Page 90 of The Summers of Us

I can do this. I sit up and let my bad ankle get used to bearing weight again. My phone dances between my hands. I debate texting Everett to talk me out of it, but he wouldn’t.

I can do this.

I limp to the hallway, stop at the door that I’ve gone the summer pretending is just a part of the wall. I put my cheek against what is very much a door and feel the cold wood soothe my sunburn. I feel something else, too—my heart thumping a soft knock against the wood, like it’s okay to go in now.

I open the door and step inside a snapshot of last August 11.

My bath towel rests on the floor, the strawberry shampoo smell long-since faded from it. Her unmade comforter falls off the bed the way she insisted was just how she liked it. Blair and I both knew it was just her way to get out of making her bed. Her bathing suit drawer hangs open, five bathing suit choices scattered on her floor. I picture her trying on each one but landing on her usual pink gingham.

On her dresser lives a photo of us from a picnic eight summers ago.

A year’s worth of dust coats the frame. I wipe our faces with my thumb. The humid evening comes back to me. It was so hot even after the sun went down. I remember how many times Hadley said “bumblebee,” a word I taught her when one landed on the bouquet of weeds we picked for the windowsill. To us, those weeds were the prettiest things ever plucked from the ground. Worthy of a vase and that special sunlight the sun reserves for a windowsill. When you’re a little girl, everything is beautiful and you don’t know a weed from a flower.

Hadley’s freckled face smiles back at me. Her baby teeth take up her whole smile. Her eyes are sealed shut from the golden hour rays. I smile with my teeth, too, despite the heat and bright sun. Blair tried countless times to get the perfect shot, but nothing beats the candid imperfection of this one.

Hadley fell in love with the stars that night.

Now, she is the stars.

I look at the glow-in-the-dark stars strewn on her ceiling. At the bathing suits on the floor. Her books stacked beside her bed, the original constellation book and a couple newer ones too. On her bedside table, next to the sand dollar I planted for her to find, her blue heart necklace sleeps.

Haven’s gift to Hadley once she was old enough to wear it. I’d kept it safe in my dresser until Blair finally let us give it to her. Haven came over with an empty chain and presented it to her. Hadley said it reminded her of a sky full of rainbows. She wore it every day, just like I wore mine. She never wore it to bed, just like I didn’t.

I’ve never taken mine off to swim, so why didn’t Hadley wear hers to the beach that day? Why did Hadley even go to the beach that day?

I pick up the glassy pendant, stroke its smooth surface and picture Hadley’s hands clipping it on in the mirror every morning. Why did Hadley jump the waves that day? My knuckles bleed white around the cold blue sky. My nails dig into my palm. Why did Hadley die that day?

My knees buckle. Her strawberry bed catches me.

And I cry.

Age 17, August 10

I stepped out of the bathroom,my clothes clinging to me from the steamy shower fog. A towel twisted my hair onto the top of my head. My wet feet recovered the sand lost to the hardwoods.

Hadley’s bedroom glowed pink from the hallway. I found her in bed, wrapped in a quilt and paging through a book.

I leaned against the doorframe. “Goodnight, Hadley.”

“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” she whined, but her sleepy voice disagreed with her words. “Please don’t make me?”

I smiled and held my pinky to the ceiling. “Pinky promise.”

“Can you tuck me in?”

Before I left for mini golf with Everett, I needed to paint my nails, blow dry my hair, and tap on sparkly eyeshadow. Ever since we kissed on the Ferris wheel a few nights ago, things were different. The rest of the ride was something like floating, then we landed back on the ground and floated once more. It was a wonder how light the world felt after. We wore the possibilities like tattoos, memories scorned on warm skin.

How high could we float one day?

I was likely to find out tonight, but Hadley wouldn’t always be so little and in need of my company.

“Of course.” I left my towel in a lump on the floor, squeezed next to her on the twin bed. It was cold on top of the blankets, and my hair made the strawberry pink pillows smell like strawberries.

“How was your day?” I curled up to face her, sharing the space with her dolphin stuffed animal from the aquarium.

“Good. I played at Sophie’s. We jumped on the trampoline. I like having a friend with a trampoline. We’re going to the beach tomorrow.”

I remembered my own excitement about the Rivera-Sanchezes’ trampoline. I pictured Hadley and Sophie jumping on it like Haven and I did before the trampoline became just another place to tan. I was glad Hadley had a friend like Haven. Friendship like that was the glue of adolescence.

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