Boys of Summer (40 page)

What if the other half was washed back into the sea?

What if the other half was scooped up by some stupid tourist kid and is now a thousand miles away.

What if I'm too late?

“What are you guys doing?”

I jump to my feet and spin around at the sound of her voice. I try to hide the massive pile of shells behind me.

“Julie,” I say, my voice squeaking as I clasp my fist around her shell. I notice she's wearing another cotton polo shirt and shorts that are just a tad too big.

“I was . . . ,” I start, unsure of what to say. This is
not
how I imagined my grand gesture playing out. I was supposed to find the shell. I was supposed to ask if I could walk her home after her shift. I was supposed to present it to her in some wildly romantic moment under the stars.

Grayson and Ian share a look and then stand up, brushing sand from their knees. “You got this,” Grayson whispers to me. They give me pats on the back and start walking toward the beach club.

Julie watches them go and then takes a step toward me, her expression still demanding an answer to her original question.

“Don't you have to be at the kids' camp?” I ask, trying to stall for time.

“Jasper and Jake said you were out here. They told me you put them up to that little tie-dye stunt.”

Traitors.

“What else did they tell you?” I ask, glancing quickly over my shoulder at the shells.

She crosses her arms, looking suspicious. “Nothing. Why? What else should they have told me?”

“Nothing!” I say hastily.

I can tell from her closed-off body language and hesitant stare that she's still not thrilled with me for ditching her on that lawn three weeks ago. And then for avoiding her ever since.

And I don't blame her. That was what this big plan was for. It was an apology. It was something to show her that I care about her. And that I was stupid for not seeing it sooner.

Now I guess I'll just have to rely on words. But I've never been a poet like Ian or a slick sweet talker like Grayson. Rhetoric has never been my strong suit.

“So, then, what are you doing out here?” she demands.

With my body still blocking the pile of shells, I take a deep breath and say, “Julie, I'm sorry. I've been a total asshole all summer. You are great. Better than great. The twins adore you. They think you're funny and sweet and pretty. Even my dad adores you.”

“Is that what this is about?” she asks icily. It's the coldest I've ever heard her voice. “Is that why you had Jasper stage a tie-dye water gun fight with the other kids? So you could tell me how much
they
like me?”

“No,” I say firmly. “That's not what this is about.”

I rake my teeth over my bottom lip. I'm already messing this up. How many times have I stood by while Harper said good-bye? How many times have I stayed quiet, pretending it didn't bother me? How many times did I let the opportunity to speak my mind pass me by?

“
I
like you,” I finally spit out. “Okay? A lot.
I
think you're funny and sweet and pretty. I also think you're adorable. And sexy as hell. Especially in that uniform, and most people don't look good in those uniforms. Trust me, I worked here through puberty. I know.”

She stifles a giggle, hiding her mouth with her hand.

“I adore you too,” I go on. “Maybe even more than the twins do. I just got caught up in so much other bullshit that I didn't see it. But now I see it. Like an idiot, I see it right as the summer is ending and you're probably getting ready to leave. But it doesn't matter, because I still see it. And so I wanted to do something for you. I wanted to do this grand-gesture thing. You know, like people do in movies. But it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to.”

With a sigh I step aside, revealing the pile of shells in the sand. Julie lets out a quiet gasp.

“The tie-dye thing was a diversion. So Jake could steal this.” I open my palm to reveal her original shell. “I was trying to find the other half for you. I was trying to find your perfect match.”

Julie looks from the shells to me. Her eyes are misty with unformed tears. She takes a step toward me and removes the shell from my palm. I feel my heart sink when I realize what it means. She's leaving. And she's taking her half with her.

I let out a loud, surrendering breath and close my eyes. I wait. Wait for yet another girl to walk away from me.

But the longer I wait, the more I wonder why she's
still standing there. Why I can still feel her presence like a refreshing breeze. When I open my eyes again, I see that she's not, in fact, standing next to me. She's crouched down in the sand, rifling through the pile of shells. It only takes her a moment before she finds the one she's looking for. She plucks it from the heap and stands up, facing me. She hands me the newfound shell and holds out her own.

Then slowly we push them together. The ends click into place.

I glance down at our hands, not touching, but each holding our own separate piece, together forming one single shell.

“Smith College is not too far from here, you know?” she says quietly.

I glance up to meet her eye. “Really?”

“Just a train and a ferry ride away.”

A smile blooms on my face as I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her into me. “Oh, really?”

“What is Winlock Harbor like in the winter?”

I lean close, our breaths colliding. “It's cold.”

“I'd like to see it,” she whispers.

“I'd like that too.”

Then I press my lips to hers and we join together all over again.

IAN

M
y mom is already seated when I arrive at the Winlock Café. It was my dad's favorite restaurant on the island, and meeting here for breakfast twice a week has become our new tradition.

She's taken the liberty of ordering for both of us. Scrambled eggs with cheese for her, and chocolate chip waffles with whipped cream for me. It's what we always used to order when we'd come here as a family. The only thing that's missing now is my dad's meat-lovers skillet. I make a mental note to order that next time.

Conversation between us is still challenging. There are topics we stick to that feel safe. And topics we avoid that still feel like land mines. We talk a lot about the past, about my father. What he loved, what made him crazy, what made him laugh. But we never talk about the future. I guess we're still taking that one day at a time.

After we pay the bill and leave, my mom suggests we go to the bookstore. “I want to buy some books on home decoration. I think it's time we redecorate the bungalow, don't you?”

This takes me by surprise. I didn't think she'd ever want to redecorate that place. I always assumed the memory of all of it was too precious for her to change.

“What do Nana and Papa say?” I ask.

“Oh, they're fine with it,” she assures me. “They agree that it's time.”

She must see the concern etched into my face, because she puts an arm around me and squeezes. “Don't worry. We'll keep some stuff the same. I just think if we're going to be here for a while, we should spruce it up a bit.”

I nod uncertainly. “Okay.”

We walk like that down Ocean Avenue, her arm around me, like we used to do when I was little. The small downtown has mostly cleared out, as the majority of summer visitors have already packed up and left. I'm kind of excited to see Winlock Harbor in the fall.

I pull open the door to Barnacle Books and gesture for my mom to enter. She smiles warmly at me as she passes. I'm just about to follow her inside when I hear a loud catcall from somewhere behind me. “Hey, lover boy! Where you been hiding out?”

I stop in the doorway, my whole body tensing when I recognize the voice. I know when I turn around, he's going to be there. I'm going to see his face.

And I'm right.

It's the douche who attacked Whitney at the beginning of the summer. The one she nailed in the balls. Somehow we were able to avoid him for the past two and a half months. Maybe he hasn't even been on the island. Who knows? But he's here now. And the sight of him, plus the memory of busting through that window and seeing him on top of Whitney, makes my blood boil.

“Go ahead,” I tell my mother, and I step back onto the sidewalk, letting the door swing shut behind me.

“She's a little old for you, isn't she?” the guy says, striding up to me and giving my mother a once-over through the
window of the shop. He's wearing swim trunks, flip-flops, and no shirt. For some reason the sight of his ripped, tanned abs makes me even angrier. His breath smells like alcohol, even though it's barely eleven o'clock in the morning.

“But I hear she
really
lets loose after she's had a couple.” He winks at me, and I don't even give my mind the chance to react. For the first time in my entire life, I let my body react first.

I cock my fist back and rocket launch it into his face.

My hand feels like it's on fire. I shake it out, and tiny droplets of blood—
his
blood—fall onto the pavement. I think I might have broken a few bones in my fingers, but it doesn't matter. The rush I feel at finally socking that asshole is enough to distract me from the pain. It's enough to make me
welcome
the pain.

I've never thrown a punch before. Unless you count the wall in our apartment. Maybe it was beginner's luck, or maybe my dad really did impart some kind of wisdom in the art of combat over all those years, but it was a good punch. The guy is down on the ground, holding his busted nose with his hands while blood spurts through his fingers.

“What the—” he mutters.

“That was for Whitney,” I say spitefully. Then, as I stride purposefully into the bookstore, I whisper under my breath, “And my dad.”

The next afternoon Mike and I stand on the pier as Grayson's ferry slowly pulls out of the marina. The summer is officially over, but the end has never felt more real than right now. As we watch our friend sail away.

Grayson, Mike, and I met twelve summers ago, when we were six years old. I was building a sand castle on the beach, and Mike came up and asked if he could help.
We worked for hours on that thing. It had everything—pillars, turrets, a moat, even a little drawbridge. Then Grayson, who apparently had been watching us for thirty minutes, came running through like a wrecking ball, and smashed the whole thing.

I cried for more than an hour. Grayson's mother forced him to apologize, and Mike, being true to form, was the first to forgive. But I, also true to form, held on to that anger for nearly a week before I would let Mike bring Grayson to the beach to hang out with us.

Grayson claimed he'd just been playing football and had been running to make a catch when he'd accidentally tripped over our masterful construction. And the football tucked under his arm at the time certainly lent credibility to his story. It wasn't until a few years later that he admitted he'd wrecked the castle on purpose. Because he'd been jealous of it.

And that was the start of us.

Now, as I watch Grayson's ferry steadily move out to sea, I can't help but feel like this might be the end of us. At least, the end of us as we used to be. With Grayson starting community college in the fall, Mike taking over his father's roofing company, and my mom and me moving into my grandparents' house indefinitely, things are not going to be the same.

Sure, we'll all keep in touch. Maybe we'll even continue to spend our summers here, but it will always be different. That's the only thing that I can say for certain.

“And then there were two,” Mike says beside me. For a moment I'd almost forgotten he was there.

I let out a sad laugh. “And then there were two.”

“Hey, I'm thinking about going to catch some waves. Do you want to come? I have an extra board you can borrow.”