Page 110 of Until Next Summer

“Tell you what,” Jessie says. “You can have the Belle costume, and I’ll find something else.”

“Hard pass,” I say. “But I have a better idea.”

Jessie looks at me, her head tilted in anticipation.

“Think Dot can cover for you during dinner?” I ask.

“Maybe?” Jessie says, her voice wavering.

“Because you are driving the two of us into town to shop for party dresses. Make those boys drool and realize what they’re missing.”

Jessie laughs. “I hate to break it to you, but our shopping options are Walmart and Walmart.”

“I’m up for the challenge if you are,” I say, standing. I extend a hand to help her up, and after a long moment, she takes it.

“You’re crazy,” she says. “But I’m in.”

twenty-eight

Jessie

I’m sitting on my bed, finishing my every-other-Thursday check-in call with my dad, which interrupted my morning cry-fest. Ever since the horrible dinner with Jack and Mary, I’ve been crying multiple times a day, tears spilling out of my eyes almost without warning. Luckily, my dad prefers regular calls, not FaceTime like my mom.

“Any luck on the job front?” my dad asks. Typical.

“I have an interview on Monday for a position at a summer camp in West Virginia.”

It’s a seasonal position, a supervisor for the female counselors, but the director said after the first summer he’d try to keep me on year-round. It’s not Camp Chickawah, but at least I’ll be doing what I love.

Still, the thought of working anywhere but here is what started me crying earlier.

“That’s great!” My dad sounds excited; he must beveryworried about me. “Have you thought any more about coming to stay with us for a while?”

“Um, I’m not sure—”

“—because we can put a futon in my office,” he goes on. “It’ll be fine—you won’t be in the way.”

“That’s…very kind of you, Dad,” I say, treading lightly.

While I appreciate his offer, I’m less than thrilled about squeezing myself into his family’s space, like I did throughout my childhood.

The only place that has ever felt like mine is disappearing.

“Keep me posted,” he says, and we say goodbye.

—

I head out into the morning sunlight and start down the path to the lake. But, almost against my will, I find myself veering onto the path that leads to the boys’ cabins. To Luke’s cabin.

This is what happens when your sexual awakening is Gerard Butler in the 2004Phantom of the Operafilm—you end up falling for the moody, artistic recluse who spends all his time in a dark hovel, hiding from the world. But if I’m going to visit Luke, I need to come up with some excuse. Maybe I’ll ask him to join the backpacking group—we’re leaving on the traditional overnighter today, one of my favorite events of the summer. Anything but the inexplicable fact that Imisshim. My brain keeps replaying the memory of him holding me as I cried; his lips pressing against my jaw; his low voice sayingI want you.

Why can’t my brain replay the pure aggravation I felt when he pulled away? That would be smarter.Thatwould keep me from doing what I am right now: walking up the stairs to his cabin and knocking.

The door swings open. I peer into the dark interior and see him sitting on the mattress on the floor, Scout curled next to him. His head is bowed, his shoulders slumped forward.

“Luke?”

He raises his head; he looks stricken. “She’s gone.”

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