Page 64 of Until Next Summer

Hey. I know we said this break was temporary, but I think it’s time we call things quits. Service out here is awful, but we can talk when I’m back home in a few weeks.

He doesn’t need to know I’ll actually be back in two days.

I hit send and the message pops up in a blue bubble, the word “Delivered” beneath it.

With that over and done with, I slip my phone back in my pocket and look down at my plate. I’m still not hungry, but if I don’t eat now, I’ll be starving later. I’m about to take a bite of the burger when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

I jump, the once familiar feeling taking me by surprise. I hesitate, considering what his response might be. We were together for two years; Aaron made it clear he was planning to propose. But he also wanted to take the summer off to sleep his way around Chicago.

I could imagine a world where he responds with a passionate plea for a second chance, unwilling to let the boss’s daughter go. But I can also picture a response fueled by logic, agreeing it’s best for us to part amicably. I take a deep breath and reach for my phone, hoping for the latter.

It’s not that. It’s better. Or worse?

I laugh, and rub my eyes, making sure I’m seeing this correctly.

His response: a thumbs-up.

Any glimmer of guilt I felt for ending a two-year relationship over text disappears. I switch my phone back to airplane mode and take a bite of my burger. It tastes like freedom.

—

After I finish eating, I rush down to the dock to help Zac and Zoey get the canoes and kayaks lined up for the parade. The work is hard; it’s physical, and I understand how Zac stays so buff while eating so much. As an added bonus, staying busy helps keep my mind off of everything with Jessie.

Mostly.

Cooper’s been busy, too, getting everything cleaned up both outside and in the kitchen. He doesn’t get down to the lake until the parade is about to start, so we don’t have time to talk before he climbs into the old wooden canoe we’re stationed in.

The two of us bob in the water, watching Jessie, who’s standing at the end of the dock. She looks so pulled together with her perfectly plaited braids and crisp uniform. No one would guess she’s had her heart broken twice today—once by the Valentines, and once by me.

“Good evening, Camp Chickawah!” she says into her megaphone.

It’s dusk, and the sky looks like a palette with spilled paint—pink and blue and orange and yellow.

“It is my honor, as your camp director and the grand marshal of this parade, to say…” She lowers the megaphone and looks out at the campers lined up in their canoes, their paddles resting on their laps.

I try to imagine what she’s seeing; if she sees the adults these campers are today, or the children they used to be. Or if she’s thinking about all those years when we were the ones sitting in canoes, full of hope and optimism, believing that this camp and our friendship would last forever.

Jessie clears her throat and continues, “Let freedom ring—and the parade begin!”

The campers hoot and holler, their voices echoing off the water. Jessie climbs into her canoe at the front of the line with Zac and Zoey. Someone hits play on an Americana playlist and Springsteen’s voice booms out from the wireless speaker.

One by one, the canoes push off, following the path along the shore before going past the swimming platform, almost to the other side of the lake. Cooper and I are in the last one, bringing up the rear and making sure no one strays off course as the sun goes down.

He’s doing most of the work, expertly moving the paddlefrom side to side, sluicing it through the water. Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” starts, and I close my eyes. There’s a gentle breeze, and I try to memorize this moment so I’ll always remember how good it felt to belong to this place, this tradition.

A loud boom shakes me out of my reverie, and I look up at the explosion of light and color filling the dark sky. Zac has been working all week to put together a “bonza” fireworks show, and one of the guys from Cooper’s staff is setting them off from the swimming platform.

I’ve seen plenty of fireworks before, of course, but there’s something mesmerizing about watching them on the lake. Everything happening in the sky is reflected in the water, as if the fireworks are moving in reverse, falling up, toward me. It’s like living in a mirrored world, more vivid and alive than the everyday one.

The fireworks come faster and faster: white spidery ones that pop like confetti, sparkles falling like rain; then reds and blues, pinks and greens. The dark sky is alive with color, and even though there’s a smile on my face, a salty tear slides down my cheek.

—

After the last firework goes off, gray clouds streak the night sky. They’re all that’s left, a ghost of the celebration, reluctant to let go. Not unlike me.

Cooper takes his time paddling back to shore. It’s just the two of us out on the water now, and I’m grateful he doesn’t try to fill the space with words. Between the still of the night and the gentle rocking of the old canoe, any residual tensionin my shoulders dissipates. I’m sure the captain of this rusty bucket ship has something to do with it, too.

“Hands and feet inside the vessel,” he says, mocking Zac’s safety lecture at the start of the canoe parade, Aussie accent and all.

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