Next Summer (10 page)

Kelsi knew Adam was going to kiss her. It was their third date and it was time, and what Kelsi found the most surprising was that she was actually looking forward to it. They’d just spent a night at the movies, so she was full of popcorn and good cheer from the cute romantic comedy they’d seen. In fact, she sort of wanted to get the kissing over with, because she had a feeling that the lingering questions she had about the chemistry between them would be solved that easily. And they’d stopped walking in the perfect spot, just out of reach of the nearest streetlight.

She was more than ready.

Adam stepped closer and smiled down at her. Kelsi smiled back. He leaned in and settled his mouth against hers, letting his eyes fall shut. Kelsi kept hers open for a moment, then closed them. His mouth was soft and firm all at once, and she liked the way he held on to her arm with one hand. He kissed
her once, then twice, then angled for a third. Kelsi kissed him back. As their tongues touched, she wanted to feel a surge of something exciting and powerful. She wanted to be knocked over, swept away. But really it just felt…nice.

When he pulled away, Kelsi didn’t know what to say so she smiled again, and tucked her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She felt herself blush and she looked away.

“Let me walk you home,” Adam said softly.

Once inside their cottage, Kelsi was relieved to see that her dad was nowhere in sight. Probably in one of the other cottages with the rest of the adults. Sighing slightly, she sank into the couch and tilted her head back to look at the ceiling.

So, kissing Adam had been nice. There was nothing wrong with
nice.
Nice was actually an underrated word. People used it so much that now, if you said something was
nice
, everyone assumed you meant it in a negative way, when maybe that was just the best descriptive adjective.

And really, it was the best word to describe the whole Adam situation. He was
nice.
Their dates were
nice.
It was nice that he walked her home, and nice that he was polite, and nice that he called when he said he would.
Nice
meant a lot, especially when Kelsi was used to boys who could never in a million years be called nice.

But the truth was, nobody wanted to be
nice.
No one wanted their kisses to be
nice
. Everyone wanted fire and passion. Which she didn’t feel with Adam. At all.

When she clicked into her inbox and saw the name TIM, she felt a rush of excitement shoot through her.

EXCELLENT DRIVING RECORD. PASSION FOR SNACKS. HOW CAN U RESIST?

Kelsi laughed out loud, and then covered her mouth with her hand. She looked around, as if she expected her family to be standing there, witnessing her oddly overexcited reaction to an inanimate object.

All because of one silly text message from one delusional frat boy.

“You are losing it,” she told herself, and put Tim out of her mind.

She listened to her voice mail, and heard Jamie’s spirited voice singsong a
hello
before her phone shut itself off.

Stupid battery.

Kelsi got up and wandered into her bedroom to find her charger. She heard the shower running in the adjoining bathroom, and Ella’s version of singing: tone-deaf and shrill, which was what Kelsi loved about it. She stopped to see if she could figure out what song Ella was mangling, but gave up after Ella sang “baby, baby” off tune several times.

Her thoughts immediately went back to Tim. Insane Tim. Insane, funny Tim. Insanely hot, funny Tim. The guys she’d known like Tim in high school—the ones at their brother Catholic school, and the ones she’d run into around town—were pretty much complete losers. Not at all funny, unless you thought
American Pie
was the pinnacle of wit.

Impatient, Kelsi looked over at Ella’s bed and saw that she’d left her cell phone lying there. Why wait for her own phone to charge when Ella’s was handy? That was always Ella’s rationale when Kelsi found her chatting away on
her
phone at home. Fair was fair.

Kelsi reached over and scooped up Ella’s little flip phone, opening it. Apparently, Ella had one new text message. Without thinking, Kelsi hit ENTER.

And then she realized what she was looking at.

Ella had a long list of incoming text messages. And every one of them was from Peter.

Kelsi felt herself go still. Her head felt fuzzy and somehow no longer connected to her body. She was suddenly focused on the phone in her hand as if nothing else in the world existed.

One after the other, the messages begged and pleaded and apologized. He wanted to meet up with her. He knew she was in town because he’d seen her. She had to at least talk to him about last summer. Didn’t she remember how good it was? And so on.

Kelsi heard a slight sound and realized that it was a whimper, and that it had come from her throat. Which was odd, because she was sure she was screaming.

And just like that, Kelsi knew something that she must have always known. Something she hadn’t wanted to know then and didn’t want to know now. She remembered it all with such perfect clarity: She’d been sitting there in the pouring rain, waiting for him. The rain had pounded down against the metal of the car, cocooning Kelsi inside the din. Then, finally, he’d appeared, walking through the rain as if he didn’t notice it, walking with that particular rolling gait of his that Kelsi had loved. And clinging to his hand was a girl, a girl with blonde hair flattened to her head and her own way of walking—a way of walking Kelsi had decided not to recognize, she now realized. A way of walking she couldn’t
let
herself recognize.

Kelsi felt sick to her stomach. Then when she looked up, Ella was standing in the doorway wrapped in a towel and smiling, and Kelsi hated her so much and so intensely that it made her eyes fill with tears.

“First, why don’t you tell me all about Peter,” Kelsi said through clenched teeth. “I think I got most of the story from the text messages, but I might be missing a few crucial pieces of information.” Her voice sounded terrible, Kelsi thought. Hoarse, like she’d been yelling.

Ella’s eyes went wide and then darker, and Kelsi’s heart broke completely then, because it was true.

“So fill me in,” Kelsi continued. It was like she couldn’t stop herself. “Maybe you can show me how it works. How you decide to hook up with your sister’s boyfriend.”

“You don’t understand,” Ella began, and she sounded different, too, like someone else. Someone younger, less sure of herself. Someone shaky and panicked.

“Then explain it to me,” Kelsi suggested, her voice beyond harsh this time. She was so angry and hurt that she thought her body might shut down completely. “Explain to me how my younger sister screwed my boyfriend fifteen minutes after we broke up.”

Ella flinched and then her eyes filled with tears. Kelsi felt queasy, because she hadn’t really thought about that part—what Ella had actually done with Peter. She’d just thrown that out there to hurt Ella. But now she knew.

“You had sex with him?” she asked, and hated herself for sounding so hurt. She wished she could sound strong. Righteously indignant. But Kelsi’s voice was doing just as it pleased.

“You’re pathetic,” Kelsi spat at her, but she had to whisper because she was afraid she was going to start sobbing. “You hated the fact that he chose me, didn’t you? You couldn’t stand it. You had to be the pretty one, the popular one, the one all the boys wanted. You couldn’t believe someone could like me instead of you.” Kelsi understood; she was supposed to be in the shadows while Ella stood in the spotlight. It had been that way their whole lives.

“It wasn’t like that!” Ella sobbed. Her face was twisted, and she looked almost ugly. Kelsi felt like she was seeing her sister for the first time. “I’m so sorry, Kelsi. I never meant to hurt you,” Ella added.

“So you were nice to me afterward, what? To make up for it?” Kelsi wiped angrily at her face, where the tears had started to stain. “It was all just part of this? What you did?”

“No!” Ella’s eyes searched the room wildly, and then came back to focus on Kelsi. “I just wished I could take it back!”

“You’re not my sister anymore.” Kelsi could hear the cold anger in her voice. It was making her shake. “You betrayed me. You lied to me. You’re a selfish, vapid little bitch. Stay the hell away from me.”

She took the phone and threw it, making Ella jump, although it went nowhere near her. Ella was clutching her
towel with one hand, and she gave a small whimper when the phone case broke open as it hit the wall and spilled to the floor.

“Kelsi…” she said, pleading. Kelsi hadn’t seen Ella cry in years, not since she was a very little girl. Like then, it made her whole body weaken in a flash of sympathy, and Kelsi hated the part of her that cared.

“I hope you and that asshole are very happy together,” Kelsi snarled at her. “You’re perfect for each other!”

She tore through the house and ran out the back door. She found herself in the backyard, alone in the dark.

She sank to her knees in the grass and looked up at the night sky, as if she might find some answers written in the constellations. There were so many stars, and they were all too bright. They crowded the sky and made everything blurry.

Beth sprawled across her bed, with her feet propped up against the headboard.

“So how’s Adam?” George was asking.

“Okay, I guess,” Beth said, trying to sound careless. Why shouldn’t she
feel
careless? Nothing had happened, or would
ever
happen with Adam. Yes, Beth liked the fact that a hot guy possibly liked
her
—she wasn’t the sort of girl hot guys noticed, usually—but it was all harmless, right?

“He’s actually out on a date with Kelsi as we speak,” Beth added, as if she had to prove something.

George let out an exaggerated sigh and countered with, “Great. So why are you being cagey and weird?”

“Way to turn that around on me, Mr. Too-Tired-to-Call-Last-Night,” Beth retorted, trying to steer the topic away from Adam.

She wondered how could she be in love with George and
so irritated by him at the same time. But how could she
not
be in love with George? She’d loved him for longer than she’d even known she loved him. They’d been friends for years before they ever hooked up. But the minute she was without him, Beth was finding herself all worked up about someone else. Someone who didn’t know her that well, a guy who didn’t have a history with her, still found her to be attractive and fun. And who made her feel…wonderful.

As opposed to this conversation, which was making her feel like shit.

“I’m not turning anything around, Miss Never-Answers-Her-Phone,” George shot back. “And last night was the first time in the entire history of the world that I didn’t call you fifty-seven times. You could try answering one call, just for fun.”

“What are you talking about?” Beth groaned, trying not to get worried.

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m saying you’d rather be talking with this Adam guy instead of me,” George said, continuing the same half joking, half fighting they seemed to have every time they talked. “Maybe this guy deliberately saves the good-looking girls so he can work the whole hero thing on them.”

“Oh my God, you’re driving me insane!” Beth cried, faking indignation.

“Just as long as I’m still making an impression,” George said swiftly. And as usual, Beth could tell that underneath the jokey tone, he was trying to make a point.

“Trust me, you make the
only
impression,” she assured him.

“I can’t believe you’re getting so crazy about some guy,” Beth told him.

Not that Adam was just
some guy,
Beth told herself crossly. It was all so much more complicated than that. She swallowed hard. Maybe she should break up with George, just for a little while, until she figured things out with Adam. Beth had never understood her friends back home who two-timed their boyfriends and ended up sobbing in the school bathroom. If you weren’t sure how you felt about someone anymore, you should break up. It was simple.

Except it didn’t feel simple. The thought of breaking up with George made her feel winded, as if she’d been knocked down.

Beth rolled over. Now it was the end of July and she felt the entire summer had been twisted inside out. She felt like crying, except that in reality she had nothing to cry about. Nothing bad was really happening, except for what was going on in her head, where nobody else could see it.

“I’m crazy about
you,
” George said. “I can’t say it enough.”

Despite herself, Beth laughed. “Say it one more time.”

“I’m crazy about you, Bethy. I’m counting down the seconds until I can see you again.”

“I can’t wait to see you, too,” she told him.

Because right in that moment, she meant it with all her heart.

“Ella” was all that Kelsi managed to say.

“What happened to her?” Beth asked. She grabbed her cousin, steering her toward the couch and steeling herself for the worst. “You have to tell me what’s going on!” she ordered.

“Ella,” Kelsi got out, between gulps for air, “slept with Peter.” Beth sucked in a breath, thinking she couldn’t have heard that right. “Last summer,” Kelsi said over another sob, “she slept with Peter.”

Kelsi dissolved into a fresh batch of tears. She hid her face behind her hands and cried.

Beth held on tightly and swore she wouldn’t let go until Kelsi wanted her to.

“This is definitely a Ben & Jerry’s situation,” Beth said a while later, digging two pints out of the freezer. Misery demanded double-fisting with New York Super Chunk and Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. Chunks were for times of crisis.

She handed Kelsi one of the pints and a big spoon, and climbed onto the bed with her own pint to sit cross-legged beside her cousin.

Kelsi had cried for two solid hours, and was now
swollen-eyed, but calm. She’d put on a pair of Beth’s black sweats with white piping down the legs and a hooded sweatshirt. Beth didn’t think she’d ever seen Kelsi so upset.

They both dug in to their respective pints, and were quiet for a moment of appreciation. When Kelsi gave a sad sigh, Beth knew the divine taste of the ice cream could only work so much magic.

“I don’t think I can look at her again,” Kelsi said sadly. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m going off to college.”

“There’s no way that this is a misunderstanding?” Beth was hopeful. Just because nothing was ever that simple in real life didn’t mean it
couldn’t
be.

“No.” Kelsi sounded certain.

“I can’t believe she would do something like that,” Beth said, frowning into her ice cream.

“Oh, come on.” Kelsi’s voice crackled with bitterness. “Of course she would do something like that. Ella thinks every guy on the planet is just waiting for a chance with her. She thinks she can treat anybody however she wants and they’ll just, like, suck it up for the opportunity to be near her.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Beth murmured. She didn’t know how to talk about this. She didn’t feel like she could fully participate in Ella-bashing, and yet—sleeping with Kelsi’s boyfriend? It was pretty heinous.

An unwelcome thought took root then. Imagine if this was a different situation, Beth realized. If Beth had actually acted on her growing feelings for Adam, what would that do to George if he found out? She pictured him sitting across from
her with that same hollow, hurt look in his eyes that Kelsi was displaying, and she shuddered.

“Ella is selfish,” Kelsi snapped. “She’s conceited, shallow, and apparently a complete ho. I don’t know why I thought she was even
capable
of changing.”

“Okay,” Beth said a little cautiously. “I think what she did is really shitty. But, you know, it’s not like she did it all alone.”

“Peter was always an asshole,” Kelsi said. “Now I see that he’s the kind of asshole who cheats on me with my sister, and then likes it so much he’s still chasing her a year later.” She let out a bleak laugh. “Maybe that means
I’m
the asshole.”

“You are not,” Beth said firmly. “You can’t blame yourself for what they did, Kelsi.”

“She’s my
sister,
” Kelsi whispered. Her eyes were huge and weepy. “She betrayed me. How could she?”

“I don’t know,” Beth whispered back. “I don’t understand it at all.”

But the worst part was, there was something Beth was very afraid to acknowledge. Suddenly, she could understand betrayal all too well.

Much later, when Kelsi had curled herself up into a ball and was passed out beside her, Beth lay wide awake, thinking.

She could never do what Ella had done. Family was family, and that should come first. Beth felt pretty strongly about that.

But that was so easy to say when you
weren’t
tempted. When George was so far away and Adam was so close, it almost seemed to make sense that Beth should cross that line.
It felt so good to be wanted. To catch all those intense stares and understand what they meant and that they were all just for her.

Her eyes never closed that night.