The Season of You & Me (4 page)

You have to do something symbolic
, she’d said.
Something physical to represent that it’s over, something that will begin a new thought pattern.

Emma’s mom was on her third marriage, and she’d been through enough breakups with her to have some opinions on what worked when it came to moving on. She also had access to a self-help-book gold mine that could rival any library’s.
I was ready for a new thought pattern, that much I knew. I had something in mind that would kick-start it. I pumped the bike harder, standing on the pedals to put more power behind it.

The streets were thick with pedestrian traffic. There were sun-kissed people toting beach bags and umbrellas, lumbering across the road after a day on the sand. Others were already dressed and heading out to dinner. Families lined up for mini-golf. The occasional horse and buggy clomped by. There was no reason not to be excited that Crest Haven, a place where people came from all over to enjoy the beach, the food, and the quaint atmosphere, would be my home for the summer. Was I ready to move on? Yes, but I needed to be far away from the crowds. The symbolic physical thing didn’t need an audience.

I rode out farther than I ever had, to a beach at the end of a long straightaway. There was tall grass on either side as far as I could see, and the briny scent of the ocean got stronger as I pedaled to the end of the road. I was on the west side of the island, a place where locals hung out. The beach wasn’t as pristine; the sand was more rocky than powdery, but it was empty and the water only lapped gently at the shore. I had a feeling it was Crest Haven’s version of Meadowbrooke when the sun went down, but for now, it was the perfect place for my symbolic gesture. There were a few cars in the parking lot, and someone whistled as I locked my bike to the rack by the
beach. I ignored it. Blinders on to everything except my mission to obliterate Gavin from my mind.

I kicked off my flip-flops and left them by the start of the path that cut through the beach grass. The sand was cool beneath my feet and I sank into it as I made my way toward the water, my heart still pounding from my ride. My legs ached, I was a sweat ball, but the exertion felt good. Purposeful. The only other people on the beach were a small family who were packing up, and two older guys who were sitting on lawn chairs next to a few fishing rods. I went a little farther down the beach and sat near the shoreline, letting the water lap over my feet. Thoughts of Gavin bubbled up without any effort. It was like the moment I got quiet, he was there.

You don’t have to do this, Cassidy. It was one night.

The final straw had been the picture of Gavin and that girl, the one I probably wouldn’t have seen except that she had tagged him in the shot and posted it on StalkMe.
How could he have been so careless? If only I hadn’t seen it, would we still be together?
There were other clues—a card addressed simply to
Dimples
, which somehow crushed me all the more because those dimples were
for me
;
times where he blew off answering me when I asked him where he’d been when I couldn’t reach him
—
things I chose to ignore because I loved him, or at least I thought I did. Maybe I loved the
idea
of him, of having someone to walk down the halls with, someone to go to prom with, someone to make summer plans with. Was I really willing to
put up with the constant doubt and questioning, wondering if he was telling the truth, all so I could have someone to hang with on a Saturday night?

Not anymore.

When I’d visited Ocean Whispers at Easter, I’d taken a walk on the beach by myself, deliriously happy because I’d discovered the secret of life, of love. Gavin and I were solid then, or at least it felt like it. Prom was a dream, like summer and Gavin’s graduation, end-of-year parties . . . we’d even talked about how we were going to stick together in the fall when he went away to Penn. Defy the odds. It seemed possible. I’d knelt in the damp sand then and wrote “Cassidy Loves Gavin,” whispered it to the ocean. I made a wish that it would be forever, and when the ocean swallowed up our names, it felt like something heard me.

Wish. That word.

I knelt in the damp sand again now and etched “Good-bye, Gavin” with my index finger along the waterline. I sat back and waited for the ocean to swallow it up, to take it in, to make it real, permanent.

Any moment the water would just rise up and erase it.

I waited.

And waited.

Maybe the tide was going out.

Or maybe as far symbolic physical gestures went, this one sucked.

What if I took a picture of it and posted it on StalkMe; maybe it would be like,
eff you
?

Lame, Cass
.

There was something else I could do, something I knew would be tough to let go of, but wasn’t that the point? It needed to be tough to mean something. I traced the Tiffany heart pendant around my neck with my finger. The one I’d put in the don’t-take pile, the one I’d changed my mind about as I was leaving. I couldn’t get rid of it this way, could I? I undid the clasp and let it drape over my hand for a moment before closing my fingers around it. It was the first piece of jewelry a boy had ever given me. It meant something, or it had at one point. Now it was just a reminder, wasn’t it?

I saw this and thought of you, how lucky we are to have each other.

How lucky could we have been if things ended so badly? Had he given other girls a necklace? Told them the same thing?

Fueled by those thoughts, I tossed it into the water.

“Good-bye, Gavin,” I whispered.

There. I could cross “symbolic gesture” off the getting-over-Gavin to-do list.

I stood up and wiped the sand off my butt, turned back toward the parking lot.

I walked a few steps before I froze.

My face flushed hot.

What the hell did I just do? It’s a freaking silver Tiffany heart necklace!
I spun back toward the ocean, stood at the water’s edge, and scanned for anything sparkly. My pulse pounded in my ears. It had to be there, I’d only thrown it moments ago. The edges of my vision blurred. Tears.

I stepped into the water. The ocean was clear, calm, practically like bathwater. I treaded lightly, ignoring the pinch of the shells beneath my feet. The necklace should have been there, but I couldn’t see it; the shells and pebbles close to the shoreline made it hard to differentiate anything. I walked out to smoother sand, the water just below my knees, and turned toward the beach—I hadn’t thrown it any farther than where I was standing.

Nothing.

I went back to the beach, ignoring the looks from the old guys fishing.

Ignoring the snot running down my face.

The salty sting of tears on my cheek.

The necklace was gone.

Only it didn’t make me feel better.

It was like I lost something all over again.

I took the path back to the parking lot, stopping to put on my flip-flops, shoving one foot, then the other into the thongs. The sun was about to set. The sky looked unreal, a burst of orange and pink with thin wispy clouds. So pretty. I needed to get back home before it got too dark. My legs ached.
I crouched down to undo the lock.

And then I lost it.

Total ugly cry, right by my bike.

I put my face in my hands.

It was over, it was really fucking over, and by leaving I made damn sure there wouldn’t even be a chance to talk about it. This was for the best, wasn’t it? Then why did it feel so crappy?

“Hey, hello?”

I looked up.

There was a boy sitting in the driver’s seat of a black car parked a few feet away. He waved, gave me a small concerned smile. I swiped the tears and snot away from my cheek with the back of my hand and acknowledged him with a nod.

“Everything okay? Need help with the bike?”

“Oh, um, no, I’m good,” I said, standing up. Of course he was cute, and there I was probably looking like I had the map of Europe across my face in blotches. Not that I really cared; I wasn’t trolling the parking lot for a date.

“You seem upset,” he said.

Nosy much?

“No, just you know, the sunset, it’s so pretty,” I said, gesturing toward the sky but realizing he probably didn’t buy it. He laughed. The smile lit up his face. There was something about the tilt of his head, the way his hair fell, his pale-blue eyes—he looked familiar, but that was sort of impossible since
I was pretty sure I’d never seen him before. And fate and love and déjà-vu chance meetings were total and utter romantic bullshit.

I hopped on my bike.

“Be careful,” he said, which sounded ominous.

Maybe I’d seen him on
America’s Most Wanted
.

“It gets dark pretty quick, no lights on that road.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, pedaling away. I pumped fast, trying to outrun the setting sun. I couldn’t shake the feeling of having seen the boy in the black car before. If he was so concerned about me and my bike, why hadn’t he gotten out to help me? Was he some whacking-off parking-lot perv who wanted to lure me closer? Was he there to watch the sunset? Why was I thinking about a boy? Nan’s words echoed in my head.

You girls need a new hobby
.

For once, it was wisdom that I understood completely.

I WATCHED IN MY SIDE MIRROR AS THE GIRL RODE
her bike toward town, back along South Ferry Road. If she picked up her pace she’d probably make it before it got too dark. Tourists usually didn’t venture to Crescent Beach. Most locals didn’t either, unless they wanted to party, fish, or search for Crest Haven diamonds, which weren’t exactly diamonds but quartz pebbles you could polish up to shine like gemstones. She wasn’t local, that much I knew. What had she been crying about?

“Duuuuuude.”

I startled. Matt laughed, pulling open the door and sliding into the passenger seat. He put his skateboard between his knees and adjusted his seat belt.

“Christ, could you be any louder?”

“Thanks for picking me up, bro. Was going to tell you to come over and say hi but I saw you were otherwise occupied. Who was the hot girl with the bike?”

I ignored him and started the engine.

“You reek of pot, Matty. Don’t you have body spray or something?”

He sniffed his tee. “Shit, really? Maybe we could hit up CVS and I can bum an Axe tester. Grab some Combos while I’m there.”

I made a K turn out of the lot. Matt yelped to the group of kids at the end of the parking lot. There was a reciprocal yell as we pulled out. I kept my eyes on the road.

“Seriously, you should have come over. Are you too good for us now? Nick, Tom, and Jake were asking about you,” Matt said. He had his hand out the window, letting it go slack against the breeze as I drove.

“I didn’t feel like hanging out, so what’s the point?”

“The point is they’re your friends too.”

“We don’t have a whole lot in common anymore,” I said. The truth was Tom and Jake had stopped coming around after I got hurt, as if being para was contagious, but it wasn’t like I’d ever been super close with them in the first place. Nick on the other hand had been a regular at my house, along with Wade and Tori. He was closer to Matt now than me. They didn’t ignore me or anything, but once we were outside of school, we didn’t hang out much. I got that they didn’t know
what to say, but there really wasn’t anything
to
say. “I’m kind of over hanging out in a parking lot.”

“Whatever, I still think you should trick out your chair and try the half-pipe. What about surfing? Are you gonna get back in the water? Did you see that video I sent you? I think we could do it. We could help you out.”

Yes, I’d seen the video he sent me. And the one Wade sent. And the one Tori had sent me too. Inspirational videos with paraplegics doing
amazing
things. Jumping out of planes, scuba diving, snowboarding. Things I could do too if only I set my mind to it. They meant well, of course. People always did, but I wasn’t about to do something I wasn’t ready for. I wanted to surf again, but I just wasn’t sure I wanted the help he was offering.

“Yeah, cool, maybe. Why couldn’t you get a ride home with Nick?” I asked, changing the subject.

“He wanted to stay. Gotta get home for the raid tonight. You in?”

Was I in?
Realm Wars
raids were my life at the moment.

“Yeah, I thought you forgot, you know—”

“Holy shit, there she is,” Matt said. We’d caught up to the sunset girl. She stood on her pedals and coasted for a bit before she began cycling again.

“Man, I could bury my face in that ass,” Matt said.

I backhanded him in the arm. “Matt.”

He undid his seat belt. “C’mon, Bry, slow down. I just want to talk to her.”

I felt protective of sunset girl for some reason. Whatever she’d been crying over, she didn’t need to be hassled by my horned-out stoner brother. There were no cars coming in the other direction, so I slowed a bit and moved halfway to the other lane to go around her. Matt took that as a sign to chat her up. I pulled him back by his tee.

“Dude. Don’t. Really.”

“C’mon, it’s summer girl season, Bry. I’m just having a little fun,” he said, leaning out the window again.

Sunset girl turned her head toward us, her eyes wide when she saw Matt hanging out of the car. The bike wobbled and she came to a stop, putting her feet down. Matt opened his mouth to speak but I pulled back on the gas and we sped off, peeling out. He braced himself on the window frame as we picked up speed, his hair blowing back, big stupid grin on his face. He finally pulled himself in, hooked his seat belt, and leaned back in his seat.

“I fucking love summer,” he said.

Monday morning I was even more nervous than I’d been going back to school for the first time. As much as I’d known I could handle the kids when I talked to Owen on Friday, being faced with the reality of it was a different story. I sat in the multipurpose room, waiting for Wade and checking over my roster for the bazillionth time. Which parent didn’t think I could handle this? Would I be able to tell? Of course they
were right. What did I think I was doing?

Wade strolled into the multipurpose room five minutes before we were supposed to be at drop-off. He was shirtless, camp polo slung over his shoulder and still wearing sunglasses. He scarfed down a bagel as he crossed the gymnasium floor, nodding and waving to the other counselors with his free hand. By the time he reached me, he had finished his breakfast and was busy shrugging on the polo. His wet hair hung down to his shoulders; he pulled it back with one of the elastics he kept around his wrist.

“Lake, I think you can lose the clipboard.”

“I think it makes me look like I know what I’m doing.”

“You do know what you’re doing.” He finally took off the shades and slid them into the front of his polo. He grabbed the clipboard from me, eyes scanning our camp roster.

“Why are you letting ten rug rats get you so torqued up?” He handed it back to me.

“Don’t know. Maybe because that’s ten lives we’ll be responsible for the entire summer.”

He flinched in mock surprise. “Man, when you put it that way.”

It was a move that was supposed to make me lighten up, but I white-knuckled the hell out of the clipboard anyway. I hadn’t told Wade about my conversation with Owen, and didn’t plan to, but my mind kept flipping between confidence and doubt, and at the moment doubt was winning. I hadn’t
been nervous when I held the same job at fifteen. At fifteen I’d been like Wade. No worries. Work was just a few hours to pass the time before hitting the surf and checking out the summer girls.

Wade ran his hand in front of my face a few times. “Geez, you really are wound up. Bry, the first time you pop a wheelie for these kids you’ll be their superhero. C’mon.”

We made our way out to the blacktop for drop-off. Campers had already started showing up. A lady stood in our designated area holding hands with a blond boy who looked like he might cry at any moment. He had an Avengers lunch box dangling from his clenched fist.

“Hey, who’s your favorite?” I asked.

The kid looked up, eyes darting over my wheelchair, then back to the woman who I assumed was his mother. She nodded at him and smiled. “Go ahead.”

He swung the lunch box back and forth and stared at the ground again. “My favorite is Captain America. That’s who I was for Halloween.”

“I think Iron Man could take him,” Wade said, crouching down to the kid’s eye level. His mom glanced at me fast, then back at Wade.

“Name?” I asked.

“Colby Somers,” she said. I scanned the list, all the while wondering if Colby’s mom was the one who had voiced her concern. Was she giving me the side-eye?

“Yep, right place. Hi, I’m Bryan.”

“I’m Maggie Somers. He can be a little shy at first, but when he warms up he’ll probably talk your ear off. Hey, Cobes, I’m leaving now, okay?”

Still in an Avengers debate with Wade, Colby barely waved at his mom. She smiled at me before heading out. I put a check mark next to his name.
One down, nine to go.

“Since my man Colby-Wan here was first today, he gets to be line leader. Sound cool, Bry?” Wade asked. In five minutes Colby had changed from constipated little dude to beaming model camper when he heard Wade’s nickname for him.

Maybe things would work out fine.

“Hey, Bryan!”

I turned toward the sound of my name.

“H-bomb! Didn’t know you were going to be here,” I lied. Hunter Emmerich was my chem teacher’s son and had been my afterschool buddy on several occasions during the year when I helped Mr. E. take stock in the lab.

He scrunched up his face. “You did too.”

I pretended to go down the list. “Hmmmm . . . no H-bomb here.”

“Really?” He looked panicked.

“Yeah, oh wait, here you are.” I high-fived him and all was right with the world. Mr. Emmerich smiled.

“He could not get here fast enough.”

“Bryan, this is my half sister!” Hunter pointed to a girl
who stood behind Mr. Emmerich’s shoulder. She had her arms crossed and was looking in the opposite direction. Mr. E. tapped her on the shoulder. She turned. I nearly dropped my clipboard.

Sunset girl.

Her eyes flashed with recognition, then lowered, taking in my wheelchair. From the furrow between her brows I figured it was the last thing she expected to see. I’d never gotten out of the car that night.

“This is Bryan—he spells it with a
y
, isn’t that cool? This is Cassidy; she screams in her sleep. She’s working here this summer too.”

“Hunter,” she said. Her cheeks reddened.

“You’re working here?”

Cassidy nodded. “I don’t actually scream in my sleep, by the way, only when someone wakes me by getting all up in my face.” She bent over and tickled Hunter’s side. He shrank back, giggling.

I smiled. “I do spell my name with a
y
. Nice to meet you, again.”

“Again?” Mr. E. said.

Cassidy studied me, the corner of her mouth turned up slightly. “Yes, I sort of met Bryan the other night when I was out riding my bike. He practically ran me over with his car. Guess I’ll be seeing you around.” She crossed her arms again and walked away, leaving me with a confused Mr. Emmerich.

“I didn’t practically run her over, sir,” I said, wondering why she’d . . . of course. She had no clue that was my brother’s idea to hang out the car and drool, or that I was trying to save her from his awkward advances. I laughed. Touché, Mr. E.’s daughter.

“Later, Dad,” Hunter said, giving Mr. E.’s legs a squeeze before joining Wade and Colby. Mr. E. waved and walked toward the rec center, jogging a bit to catch up to Cassidy.

“Who was that blond chick?” Wade asked.

“Mr. E.’s daughter. Cassidy.”

“No chance of her name being on our roster, eh?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know she was going to be here,” I said.

“Me too. I’ll have her info by the end of the day,” he said.

Of course he would.

The rest of drop-off was easy. Too much went on for me to even worry about which parents had complained. When all the kids were accounted for, we herded them back to the gym for morning sing-along. As we passed Owen’s office, he called my name.

“I’ll catch up,” I said to Wade. He saluted me, as did the rest of the line. Twenty minutes into camp and the kids were already his minions.

I wheeled into Owen’s office, and right there in my line of vision was the ass my brother had wanted to bury his face in. Total unintentional #wheelchairperk was being able to get
an eyeful of a girl’s rear view without seeming like a perv. I looked away quick. I was already on uncertain ground with her and wanted to at least apologize for the other night before getting caught checking her out. She stepped aside to make room for me, still wearing the same little upturned half smile/half smirk from when she met me at drop-off.

“Bry, could you show Cassidy where Tori’s room is? I have to get to the multipurpose room before the masses revolt.”

“Um, yeah, sure,” I said.

“Great.” Owen grabbed a whistle that dangled from a hook on the wall and shuffled around his desk to our side. He motioned for us to go out ahead of him. Cass went first. I followed, purposely looking anywhere but at the fray on her cutoffs.

“So, it’s this way,” I yelled over the noise of the hallway, motioning with my chin and pushing off ahead of her. She had her camp polo slung over her arm, her eyes scanning the hallways, looking everywhere but at me. We turned the corner into a longer, less chaotic hallway. The test kitchen was at the end of it.

“Hey, about the other night,” I said. “I didn’t . . . well, I wasn’t trying to scare you or anything, you know that, right?”

She stopped. I reversed so I could look her in the eye.

“Then what were you and your cretin buddy trying to do?”

I laughed. “That cretin is my brother, and I was trying to . . . well, he thought . . . that was his way of flirting. I sped
away because I was trying to stop him from embarrassing the hell out of himself. Sorry if we made you feel uncomfortable.”

“That’s his idea of flirting?”

“Yeah, I know. He’s fifteen, kind of clueless.”

“Well, okay, apology accepted, but tell him he’s a little scary.”

“I tell him that all the time.”

She smiled then, not the little side-smirk one, but full on. It was distracting. For a moment I thought she was going to say something else, but we resumed our trek toward Tori’s room. Cassidy took a breath in, and this time I didn’t imagine it. She was about to say something but pressed her lips together instead.

“What?” I asked. She stopped and looked at me.

“You used to surf, didn’t you?” she asked.

It was the last thing I anticipated her asking. My face must have shown it. Her brow furrowed again, a little line right between her eyebrows. “That was awkward . . . was that awkward? Sorry. It’s just, you looked familiar the other night and I couldn’t place you, but when I saw you this morning . . .”

“Have you seen me surf?” I asked. There’s no way I would have not remembered meeting Cassidy Emmerich.

She shook her head, ran her fingers across the polo that was slung over her arm.

“Then what?”

“I was here last summer when they had that, um, fish fry
for you, to raise money. They had a big display of photos and stuff, a video too . . . of you surfing . . . that’s why you looked familiar. I wasn’t sure at first, but when I saw Mr. Beckett, I remembered meeting him there too, and it all kind of clicked.”