“Nothing,” he says. “I promise you.”
I can’t tell if he meant to echo me. If the words should land and sting, or if it was unintentional. But whatever he meant, he goes. Backs away toward the door until he turns and makes it the rest of the way out, one hand in his pocket.
And I let him.
twenty-eight
Fifth Summer
I had three weeks to prepare for a trip my brain had previously been careening toward in anticipation, and yet, by the time Davi parked the car in front of the cottage, I still didn’t feel prepared.
Everett and I had agreed to wait until the end of the trip to tell everyone about us, but that felt like its own kind of torture. We’d spent every night on the phone since he’d been in San Francisco, and I swore even my nail beds missed him. Something had broken open in me when he’d left my apartment the weekend he came to visit me, and out had spilled years of repressed longing, tangling with the goopy mess that came with finally giving in to this. Suddenly I was someone I never thought I would be, dragging Everett by the hand back to my doorway every time he started to leave, face splitting in two every time it was his name I saw on my phone screen, almost falling asleep at the prep station at work because neither of us wanted to hang up the night before.
Laurel and Everett both had work to wrap up that day, so they were heading down in their separate cars that evening. Davi, Gabe, and I stopped at the grocery store on the way into town, and after unloading our things and stocking the fridge, Davi and I headed to the beach and left Gabe inside to call Mia.
“Think you’ll ever want to talk to someone like that?” Davi asked me as we spread our towels on the sand.
“Hmm?” I said, twisting the cap off my water bottle and taking a long drink, pretending like I hadn’t heard him.Yes, I wanted to say.Yes, there’s someone I want to talk to every day,all of a sudden, and I don’t know what to do with myself now that it’s happened. I’m the person you and I used to make fun of.
Davi dropped onto his towel and stretched his legs out in front of him. The sun glinted off the water in front of us. It had been a hot May, and it seemed like the earth had trapped some of that, holding on to it for our visit here. He glanced back at the house. “I’m just happy Gabe’s happy. Remember our first summer here?”
Every comment felt like some jab designed to get the truth out of me. I knew it wasn’taboutme, but the secret had clawed its way to the surface and almost scratched its way out, some monstrous thing I was now desperate to get off my chest.
“Yeah,” I said, sitting on my towel next to Davi. I pivoted my mind away from what I wasn’t saying, reminded myself that no one knew anything. “I’m still so mad at Zoey.”
Davi shot me a look then, one I couldn’t quite read.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, then, when I wouldn’t stop staring at him, “just that Gabe is really happy now. He wouldn’t have even met Mia if things hadn’t fallen apart with Zoey, you know?”
“I know,” I said. “But what she did is still messed up.”
“Sure.” Davi shrugged. “I’m not saying you have to be best friends with the girl again. But we all mess up. If Gabe has moved on from it, isn’t it time we do too?”
His words rolled through me, knocking against years’ worth of grudges I’d staunchly set up in my lifetime. The girlsophomore year of high school who had made up a rumor that I’d been internet stalking my homecoming date for months, because she wanted to go with him. The guy Laurel briefly dated junior year of college who forgot her birthday. The professor who told Davi he wasn’t cut out for law school. The big one, of course; my parents. But Zoey too. Her betrayal loomed larger to me than so many others, for some reason, and I’d assumed it did for all of us. The idea of the others moving on from it rattled against my foundations, unsteadied me.
But then, Gabe’s laugh trickled down to us as he stepped out onto the back deck. I twisted to look at him, at the way he smiled as he talked to Mia, and felt something gentle brush against my ribs. Gabe wasn’t worrying about Zoey anymore. He was happy. He was in love.
Unbidden, Everett’s face flashed into my head, jerking my gaze back toward the water. Something glimmered at the edges of my mind, an idea brought on by Davi’s words. Maybe, if everyone had moved on from Zoey, what Everett and I had done wasn’t such a betrayal. Maybe things would be okay.
It was a big maybe, though. I thought about what I would do if I learned one of them had been lying for so long, what kind of wall I’d erect between myself and all the hurt it caused. You didn’t treat people you loved like that. You didn’t put others before them. It was what I’d done since I’d met Everett. I’d kept some piece of him to myself, and I’d enjoyed it.
Davi picked up his book and opened it before setting it on his face, tucking his hands behind his head. “Wake me if a tidal wave comes,” he said, voice muffled.
“Sure,” I said, distracted.
By the time evening rolled around, I’d planted myself in the kitchen, the only place I could think to go where I wouldn’tconfess everything to Davi and Gabe or combust from waiting to see Everett.Three weeks, I reminded myself as I stabbed skewers through zucchini and mushrooms and peppers, perhaps a little too forcefully.It’s only been three weeks. I wasn’t some kid with a crush. My brain couldn’t possibly be rewired like this in such a short time. And yet, here I was, almost taking out my thumb when tires sounded in the driveway and I missed the slice of red pepper I was holding.
I set the kebab down on the tray of completed ones, wiping my palms on the tea towel hanging from the oven handle before trying to casually follow Gabe and Davi out the front door where Laurel was pulling in behind Everett, the two of them having driven down in tandem.
She was the first out of her car, the key barely out of the ignition before she hurled herself across the driveway at us, shoving herself into the middle of the circle so we could all hug her at once. “Everett!” she shouted over her shoulder when he hadn’t joined us in the split millisecond it had taken her to climb out of her car. “You’re missing something!”
I watched over her head as Everett swung out of the Bronco, the orange light of sunset slanting across his face as his eyes cut straight to mine, my breath immediately hitching when he smiled.
“Hurryup,” Laurel whined. Everett wrapped his arms around Davi’s and Gabe’s shoulders, never breaking my gaze. Not even the chant Laurel started, something likebeach week, beach week,could force my eyes away from his as we all huddled together in the driveway. His fingers found the back of my hand, my wrist, sending sparks shooting their way up my arm and straight to my brain.
Three weeks, I heard in my head, but only vaguely, as Everett’seyes sparkled in my direction. Maybe it was just three weeks. But a lot could happen in less time than that.
