Five Summers (3 page)

“What?” she asked blankly after I’d stared at her for a good ten seconds.

“Give us one minute,” I said to Adam, pulling Jo with me. “Seriously, I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

I linked elbows with Skylar as we walked down toward the water, its soft, rhythmic lapping muffling our voices from prying ears.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Something happened?” Jo parroted. “See, I
knew
this was a bad idea.”

Skylar looked out at the lake, the moonlight casting a soft glow onto her tear-streaked face.

“He broke it off,” she said, her voice wavering.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t, really, but I hated seeing Skylar in pain. For someone so outwardly confident, she has always had thin skin. My personal theory is that she never had an awkward phase—no glasses, no braces, no acne, no body odor, none of the stuff that hardens you through middle school, the emotional equivalent of walking on hot coals with bare feet.

“It’s probably because it’s the last night of camp,” I said. “It’s a breakup of convenience. Obviously he’s crazy.”

“No,” she said. “He said he couldn’t ever see us working out because . . . he doesn’t find me . . . interesting.” Fresh tears spilled over onto her cheeks, and she wiped them away shakily with the back of one hand.

“Oh, please,” Jo cried. “Was this before or after you wouldn’t touch his crotch?”

“Shhhhh!” Skylar hushed.

“He’s a loser,” I said, taking the leaf out of her hair and smoothing it behind her ear. “A
pretentious
loser.”

“Yeah,” Skylar sniffed. “I really liked him, though. And I thought”—her voice cracked again—“he really liked me.”

We stood there for a minute just comforting her, and I tried not to let my eyes drift over to Adam, to see if he was looking at me.

“Listen,” Jo said. “I need to go check in with my dad. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll walk you back to the bunk? There’s a bag of Cheetos with your name on it.”

Skylar smiled weakly. “Thanks,” she said. “But I think I just need to be by myself for awhile.”

“Okay, but if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” Jo started to jog off and then turned, tossing her whistle to Skylar. “Don’t be afraid to use it!” she called.

“Nothing says love like a panic whistle,” I muttered, patting Skylar’s back. “But will you really be okay? I don’t want to leave you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “And besides, you’ve got Adam waiting for you.”

“It’s not like we . . .” I struggled to finish the sentence. “It’s not a big deal.” I said, hoping she couldn’t tell I was lying.

“It is!” Skylar leaned in and hugged me. “It
is
a big deal, Emma. Adam genuinely likes you. And you’ve been waiting for this. You’re lucky.” She pulled back and managed a wan smile. “Now go get him.”

“Are you sure?”

“
Go
,” she said.

I turned back once before I reached Adam, and saw Skylar in silhouette against the stars, her hair spilling messily down her back in a tousled waterfall. I wouldn’t see her again until the next morning.

“I can’t believe it’s our last night,” I said to Adam as we walked down the beach, each step taking us further and further from what was starting to seem like a foregone conclusion: my hope, my wish, my chance, gaining momentum like a snowball of hormones that compelled me to do things like flip my hair over my shoulder and push my lips out ever so slightly when I wasn’t talking, sort of like I was sucking an invisible straw. All it had taken, it turned out, was asking him to go for a walk. It had been so easy: I’d asked, he had said yes. Well, actually, to be technical, he had said “Sure,” but it had seemed enthusiastic. Why hadn’t I done that ages ago? Why hadn’t anyone told me?

“Yeah, crazy,” Adam said, but he was kind of frowning, looking at the ground. Not at my lips. His mind seemed someplace else. I spit out the invisible straw.

“Mark’s an idiot,” I said, rubbing the worn cuff sleeve of the hoodie between my thumb and forefinger. “I think it’s nice.”

“What is?”

“That you’re . . . you know. A virgin.” I instantly regretted saying it. “I mean, it’s nice when
guys
are virgins,” I hedged. “Because . . . I don’t know, it’s just sweet.” Now I was really digging myself into a hole. “Or, what I mean is, girls want a guy who thinks they’re special and who’s . . . waited for them. You know?” He relaxed a little bit, looked at me, and smiled softly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I guess I can’t speak for other girls, but I want to feel special.”

“You are special, Emma,” he said, looking so earnest it was all I could do to keep from kissing him right then and there. My heart pounded in my ears. I could barely see straight.

“So what was all that with Skylar back there?” he asked as we rounded the bend that led out to the big rocks where counselors sometimes led low-tide explorations during the day.

“Oh. Um . . .” It felt like breaking her trust to tell him, but I figured he’d find out soon anyway. Adam and Zeke were sort of friends. “She and Zeke broke up.”

Adam shook his head. “She could have any guy she wants,” he said. “I never understood why she picked that douche.”

“My feelings exactly.” I brushed his hand with mine, accidentally on purpose. “But I think all the adoration can go to her head sometimes.
You
know what that’s like.” Adam wasn’t classically handsome, like Superman or Brad Pitt—his nose was a little big, not that I’m one to talk—but he had a nice face, twinkling eyes, and an amazing smile. Plus he was funny, with that almost imperceptible edge of sadness that’s like catnip to anyone with a double-X chromosome. Throughout our years of friendship, Adam always had some not-quite-thing going on with some not-quite-right girl. He had a knack for making everyone feel close to him, when no one really was.

That summer, I had been trying to get him to open up to me about his life back home, with middling results. He’d told me that in sixth grade he’d been diagnosed with mild ADHD and that his dad wanted to treat him but his mom didn’t, because she read a book called
The Overmedicated Child
that Adam had found—complete with damning annotations—in the pantry underneath her carb-free diet bars. I knew he had some trouble in school and that his prized possession was his grandfather’s Red Sox cap, which was signed on the back by Carl Yastrzemski, and which he had never worn outside the house because he was so superstitious about losing it. But that was basically it. For someone so talkative, Adam didn’t say much.

“Oh, come on,” he protested, grabbing my hand for balance as we navigated the newly wobbly terrain of slick boulders with our arms outstretched. “I’m not that bad.”

“You just got voted Biggest Flirt—by the
counselors
,” I reminded him, and he laughed.

“Touché.”

The rocks looking out at the western coast of Wexley Island—a supervised overnight campground about half a mile off shore that everyone called “Sexy Island” for the rumored counselor hook-ups that frequently went down there—could be jagged and uncomfortable, but they were also isolated, and they had pretty great views, especially on a clear night like that one, when the stars were so big and unbelievably bright they looked almost fake. Adam climbed nimbly onto a big, flat rock that was conveniently about the size of a loveseat. He cocked one eyebrow and reached a hand down for me.

“Can I can convince you to join me on this luxury boulder?” he asked. I grasped his hand, braced my foot, and swung my other leg up. It wasn’t graceful, but at least I didn’t fall. I slid next to Adam, and our thighs touched. From our perch we could see the counselors’ boat out on the lake in the moonlight. They were singing, and someone was shouting something about finding the goddamn lighter. I could feel Adam looking at me, but I was too afraid to look back. My skin felt electrically charged, and every infinitesimal movement he made set off an explosion in my brain that made me want to simultaneously fly and vomit.

“It’s pretty up here,” I finally squeaked.

“You’re pretty up here.” I looked over. He was smiling, but he didn’t say it like a joke.

“Stop it,” I said.
Please don’t stop
,
I thought.

“I mean it.” He looked at me for a long minute. “Emma—” he paused, like he was trying to figure out what to say next. And then he put his hand on my leg.

I remember the next few seconds happening in slow motion. I turned to him, trying not to look as scared as I was. He started to lean—so slowly I wasn’t even sure he was really leaning. Maybe I was just having lust-induced vertigo. His lips parted slightly, those warm brown eyes searching my face for permission, like that time I slipped climbing a tree in the north field when we were twelve and he had to take a two-inch splinter out of my shoulder. I knew what I was supposed to do; I was supposed to cock my head, close my eyes, and let go.

But I couldn’t.

It was only once I was in the moment that I realized I couldn’t go through with it. My thoughts started spiraling anxiously. Yes, kissing Adam would be amazing, I thought, but then what? The next morning our parents would come and pick us up, and we couldn’t exactly have a tender good-bye. And then he would go north to Maine and I would go south to Boston and we didn’t even know if we would be back the next year as CITs (a.k.a. counselors in training) together. If we kissed, everything would change, five years of friendship reset in a single second. Everything would change even more than it was already going to. I didn’t know if it was worth it. At least the dull ache of my unrequited longing was familiar. I knew what it felt like. I knew I could survive it. But that kiss . . . suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.

So at the last second, I turned my head. His lips brushed my earlobe, his nose bumped against my cheek.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Oh,” he said, pulling back, looking surprised. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I mean, I thought . . . wow. Sorry.” The first fireworks shot through the still night sky like lightning, and Adam shifted away from me. Sparks were literally flying through the air and we had a front row seat, and I was wearing his hoodie, which smelled so much like him I wanted to live in it. I couldn’t have asked for a better moment, and I’d just ruined it, so I muttered an excuse about having to get back to help Jo wrap up the leftover s’mores, gave him a stiff, awkward hug, and jumped down to the sand, barely sticking the landing, I was shaking so hard. As I ran back, cutting through the woods so no one saw me, willing the hot tears to wait until I was safe in my bed or curled in my friends’ arms, I could still hear the fireworks crackling overhead like gunfire, invisible bullets grazing my heart again and again.

That was the last night I saw Adam. It was also the last time for years that Skylar, Jo, Maddie, and I were all in one place—well, the next morning was, but it was so chaotic and went so fast it barely registered. Our real good-bye had been on the beach, when we sealed the pact, but none of us had known it at the time. If we had, maybe we would have stayed longer, lingered with our toes in the cool sand, listening to each other laugh, letting our candles burn down to our ink-stained fingertips.

Only Sky and Jo came back the next summer as CITs. So did Adam and Nate, and the twins. Maddie had some family stuff to deal with, she said, so she didn’t come back, and I applied, but—and it’s still hard to say this, three years later—I wasn’t chosen. Mack wrote me a nice note along with my rejection, explaining that he just hadn’t seen enough of my wilderness skills to be able to confidently hire me, but it stung. In retrospect I guess reading in the bunk all day was a bad call. I cried for a week and then threw myself even more into school, even getting a summer internship from my dad’s friend, collating papers at his asbestos litigation law firm (which was as thrilling as it sounds). I told the others I was too busy to be a counselor, but Jo probably knew the truth; I never asked and she never mentioned it. We all kept in touch every few weeks that first year, but then we started to let months go by, which turned into whole semesters. We tried to four-way video chat once, but Maddie’s Internet connection kept dropping out. She blamed Mercury in retrograde.