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If you asked me, Abigail was being way too dramatic. She always got gloomy on Sunday evenings before it was time to go home, but it usually wasn’t this bad. “What do you want me to do?” I asked her.
“Why did you kiss me if you’re not going to even try?” she cried, as she sat up and practically spat the words at me.
Her curls were wild around her face, so I reached to brush a lock of her hair behind her ear, but she roughly shoved my hand to the side. “Now you’re just being mean,” I said. “I’m going home. See you next year.”
I tossed her feet off my lap and got up, and I strode back toward the campsite where I knew my parents were. We finished packing up, and suddenly Abigail showed up on her bike. She threw the bike to the ground and ran over to me.
“I’m sorry I was mean,” she said, and her cheeks were still wet. Her grandmother walked up behind her, shaking her head.
“Hello, Mrs. Marshall,” I said.
“Y’all heading out?” she asked my mom.
“We have some things we need to do at home before the work week starts,” Ma said. “But thank you for letting Ethan hang out with Abigail so much this summer.”
Mrs. Marshall laid her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “We love having Ethan around. I don’t have to play UNO with Abigail when he’s there.”
“She cheats,” I admitted.
“I know,” her grandmother replied.
“She cheats at Monopoly, too,” I added.
“I do not cheat at Monopoly!” Abigail cried. “You take that back, Ethan!” She came at me like a whirling dervish, her fist raised so she could punch my arm. Her grandmother grabbed her in time, though, and yanked her back.
“Just because you can’t win on your own doesn’t mean I cheated.” And then Abigail stuck her tongue out at me.
“You two have time for a short walk if you’d like to take one,” Ma said to us, and she shushed my dad when he started to complain. “You have one hour. No more.” She glared at me. “Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. But now I wasn’t sure if Abigail wanted to go walk with me. If her grandmother hadn’t grabbed her, she would have punched me. “You want to walk to the store?”
I had two dollars burning a hole in my pocket to spend at the tackle shop right down the road. Abigail and I walked down there all the time, and the owner, Shy, would give us each a piece of candy. Abigail always wanted the bubble gum that had the comics in them because she thought they were funny.
“I guess,” she grumbled and shrugged.
I tilted my head toward the road, and she fell into step beside me.
“Gran told me I was acting like a shrew,” she said quietly.
“What’s a shrew?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s bad.” She finally looked at me. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. I never could stay mad at Abigail. She didn’t have an off switch. She was either all the way on, or she was asleep. There was no in-between. She felt things deeper than most people did, and she wasn’t afraid to let you know.
“I have two dollars,” I told her.
Her b
row furrowed. “Where’d you get two dollars?”
I grabbed at a tall stalk of grass as we walked by a field and stuck the end of it in my mouth. “Left over from my birthday”
“Oh.” She walked a ways in silence. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Aren’t you coming back next year?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I guess we are. I stay with Gran every summer.”
