Page 4 of The Last Thing You Said

I miss my sister. We fought a lot and gave each other grief. Most days she irritated the hell out of me, but every day without her sucks.

3 · Lucy

After lunch, Emily and I climb up to the tree house. Seven rickety two-by-fours nailed to the trunk of a box elder tree in the backyard lead to a platform with mismatched plywood walls and an upside-down V for a roof. Her dad, John, and his brother, Tom—Trixie’s dad—built the tree house when they were kids and there haven’t been many improvements to it since.

My foot slips on the loose step halfway up, but I take a deep breath and continue the climb. This is nothing. I’ve done this a thousand times. If I can climb the Fire Tower, I can do this. I tighten my grip on the wood.

Emily’s already dealt out a game of Go Fish by the time I pull myself up onto the platform. I sit across from her. From here, I can see down the hill to the resort, can see Ben as he walks up from the lake. My heart does its usual nosedive. Crash and burn.

Ben was the first boy I ever loved. The only boy I’ve ever loved.

My first kiss.

I always thought that Trixie would be around for that, Trixie who had watched me fall more in love with her brother every day. But she wasn’t.

There are Trixies I don’t tell Emily, like the one about the day she died.

The four of us—me, Trixie, Ben, and my brother, Clayton—are lying on the float. The sun is strong. I’m sleepy and hazy and in love with the boy lying next to me, so close our hands almost touch.

“It’s hot,” Trixie says. I feel her sit up next to me. “Let’s swim out to the island.”

“No,” Ben says. “I’m sleeping. Go away.”

“You’re not sleeping,” Trixie says. “I know you’re not. Now Clayton—he’s sleeping. Listen to that snore.”

I don’t open my eyes. The insides of my eyelids are red, red, red from the sun. I wish Ben and I were here alone. I would stay all day.

Trixie doesn’t ask me to swim to the island. She knows how much I hate the weeds that snake out of nowhere to tangle around your ankles. It was hard enough for me to swim out to the raft.

“Should we go home?” she asks.

Now I sit up. I angle to face her and pull my knees up, put my arms around them.

“No,” I whisper. “I’m not ready to go home.”

She winks at me, then nudges Clay’s ankle with her foot. “Clayton? Race you to the island?”

My brother pops up. “What? What did I miss? You want to race me, ya little punk?” He reties the drawstring on his trunks and jumps into the water, a cannonball, splashing water across the swim float. The cool spray feels refreshing on my hot skin.

“It’s a good day to have a good day.” She leans in close to me and whispers, “BRB, Lucy. Promise me.”

“The best day,” I say. “I promise.”

Trixie dives into the lake. Ben and I are quiet. I can hear both our breaths, our heartbeats, even over the noise of the lake, the splashing, the laughter.

Ben sits up.

He reaches out and tugs at my ponytail.

Then he runs his hand down the side of my arm. I gasp; shivers overtake me in the hot, hot sun.

“Lulu,” he says. “Look at me.”

But I don’t. I can’t.

I hold my breath as Ben strokes his index finger against my arm again. “Lulu, I’ve been wondering if—”

He is cut off by the sound of Clayton shouting from the lake.