The Summer Remains (17 page)

“I love you,” I finally said, tossing out the words like a hot dish from the oven, too exhilarated and terrified to even look him in the eye.

“I love you, too,” he said, a smile in his quiet voice. And then we kissed.

We’d kissed before, obviously, but never like
this
. My body lit up as he explored my mouth, and then other parts of me with his hands, underneath the water. We only stopped when a few kids tut-tutted near us, making us giggle and come to our senses.

“God, what kind of sick fucks
are
we?” he asked, shaking his golden hair free of the saltwater, as my heart rate crashed and burned.

“The kind that make out in front of innocent families on summer holidays, apparently.”

Finally he took my hand, and together we trudged through the waves before collapsing onto the sand again. I looped my elbow around his big arm and leaned into his shoulder, thinking about how we were different but sort of the same. We were little crabs scurrying around on the sand trying to find a hole to sink into before a wave came up and swept us away, lost and scared, but no longer alone. The wave was life.

I reached for my towel and checked the date on my phone. Only two more days until I had to make the biggest decision of my possibly-waning existence.

15

The next day, Autumn got the biggest news of
her
possibly-waning existence: her doctors could not find any more traces of cancer. When she called me to share the news, her voice sounded triumphant but muted, like someone whose oceanfront home had just survived a hurricane when there were three more still headed straight for it. But still, this was Autumn, and she know how to celebrate the moment more than anyone. It turned out she was having a day-drinking party under the pier to celebrate, but I politely brushed off the invitation – I was feeling weirdly tired, and besides, I had other things to do.

Cooper didn’t text me all day, which I found a little odd, but it was fine – like I said, I was busy, and I wasn’t the type to desperately wait around on
anyone
, even someone as swoonworthy as him. That night I was sitting in my kitchen, having spent the afternoon at Office Max preparing Cooper’s surprise I’d come up with under the pier, when I got the following text:

Hadley is dying. I need u

My heart skipped a beat, literally speaking. (It had been doing that lately, dizzying me and making me plant my feet firmly on the floor to keep from swaying or falling, but I didn’t really think much of it. That was just what love felt like.) Within a moment, Cooper texted again:

Or maybe I don’t need u. Idk.

Huh?

I sent him a series of question marks, and when he said nothing, I really started to get nervous. That night I was supposed to help Chase with his summer reading essay questions while my mom went out with some dude from a dating website for one of the first times since The Big News – or at least one of the first times she’d admitted to, anyway. Before that, this had been a near-nightly occurrence, me babysitting Chase while she ran around trying to reclaim the years I’d taken from her by being sick. She’d pop her head into my doorway at around six PM, and the conversation would always go like this:
Hey, Chase has a fever and needs a babysitter, and I’m wiped out from taking you to the hospital yesterday, so would you mind?
I wanted her to be with someone and live her life, but I also wanted her to watch her own kid, so…yeah. It was complicated. She was already texting me about how miserable her date was and how badly she wanted to leave, but it wasn’t like I could leave Chase to go bail her out, so I’d kind of rudely told her to deal with it herself.

I can’t be there, like, now,
I told Cooper.

But I can come later?

Ok
, he said.
But come. Don’t bail on me
.
I’m a mess

And then, two minutes later:
Wait. Don’t come.

I frowned as I read the latest texts. He was being weird. And needy. But I didn’t want to let the darkness govern me, and so I chalked it up to the dog situation to save myself from having a heart attack.

I wouldn’t dream of bailing and you know it,
I said.
See you soon.

“Where are you going?” my mom asked from the foyer fifteen minutes later, her date having ended awkwardly early. Because of Cooper’s weirdness, I’d put on my best dress to impress him, this ice blue thing Shelly had gotten me on special at some department store last summer. I’d also done some makeup tricks I’d learned from this YouTube tutorial thingy I’d watched a few days ago during a spell when Cooper was busy and wasn’t talking to me, and all in all, I was starting to feel just a
little
bit cute, if I could say so myself.

“Out,” I said as I grabbed my bag and Cooper’s surprise.

“Wait,” she called as I hit the door to the garage. “Stop, Sum. What about me? Don’t you think I want to see my daughter during her last-”

“During my last what, Shelly?” I interrupted, turning around. “My last…summer?”

The second I’d said it, I wished I could unsay it.

“Wait, I just…sorry,” I told her. “I’m sorry. But please let me live my life. I need this. Do you understand? ...Come on, don’t just stare at me. Do you?”

I turned and left before I could hear her start to cry.

Ten minutes later I pulled into Cooper’s driveway and walked into his garage to find a total mess. An empty bottle of whiskey lay at his side, and some of it had spilled out onto the concrete, staining it with loopy amber veins. He was next to Hadley, who looked fine, if a little tired, and his shirt was soaking wet with liquor and what I determined to be tears.

“Oh my God, did you drink all that?” I asked as I fell at his side and started to pull off his shirt. He was drunk, that was clear. And crying.

“I don’t know,” he said. His body language was distant and weird and I tried to ignore it. “One sip turned into a lot more sips and now I don’t know where my shoes are. And why are you so pale? You look strange.”

“Um,” I said as I lifted his arm out of the puddle of alcohol. “Come on, let’s get this shirt off and talk. You’re drunk.”

He glared past me. Figuring he was just wasted, I helped him clean up in the outdoor shower, and then I found his shoes under a ladder across the garage and grabbed him a robe. When I was done he grunted something, and I asked him to repeat himself.

“What?”

“It’s Hadley. We have to fix her.”

“Okay then,” I told him. “Go sit in the garage again, by the wall. I’ll handle this.”

Soon I got an assistant from the vet on the line, even though Hadley seemed no different than she had the other night when I’d dropped by to pick up Cooper for a movie. Then the assistant put us on hold. Twice.

“It’s a twenty-four hour place and it’s priced like one, too,” Cooper slurred from beside me. “Those bitches had
better
answer.”

“Shhh!” I said as I finally got the assistant back on again. I helped Cooper explain all of Hadley’s symptoms, and soon the assistant decided Hadley probably wasn’t going to die immediately, because her body was still strong enough to try to fight. In the end the assistant told us to hold off on taking Hadley to the emergency vet, and to wait until at least morning, since she probably had a few days left in her.

“Okay, fine, I overreacted,” Cooper said after I’d thanked the assistant and hung up.

“It’s okay,” I said as he glared at the wall again with that weird, far-off look on his face. “She
is
breathing slowly, I guess, which isn’t good. Just try not to freak out.”

He stared ahead, breathing heavily, and since his defenses were lowered I figured this would be as good a time as any to spring something on him. (See previous statements re: me being a shameless bitch.) Autumn’s friend’s wedding was the following week, and before meeting Cooper I’d figured I’d just go alone, but now I was beginning to imagine more. I saw Cooper and me laughing at a softly-lit table in the corner of the venue; dancing under the hipster-ish Christmas lights strung from oak tree to oak tree along the dance floor; drinking champagne together by a river while we made out like teenagers.

“So,” I said with a smile and a blush, “I have this thing next week, this wedding, and I was wondering if you wanted to-”

“Autumn told me,” he suddenly blurted out with dead eyes, turning to me.

“What?”

“Autumn told me. Your mom told her mom, and her mom told her, and she told me.”

My chest vibrated with pure, yellow panic. I tried to swallow it down. “She told you what?”

“I can’t believe you,” he said, emotionless. “You’re a liar. My heart is broken.”

Hadley yawned. I said nothing. I couldn’t. Nothing in the world made sense anymore.

“I could’ve dealt with it, you know,” he said with a trembling lip, his voice starting to shake. “I could’ve understood. You should’ve told me. But I cannot deal with this. You’ve been lying to me this entire time. You’re a
liar
.”

I stared at him.

“Was this your plan all along?” he asked, his voice falling in on itself, getting harder, as he hated me with his eyes. “To find some boy and trick him into falling in love with you before you died? Was this all just some joke – some last laugh, some last summer fling before it all went to hell?”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” I finally croaked, my vision flickering. “I didn’t think any of this would…”

“That’s it,” he interrupted. His eyes were now closed doors, and all of my ivory taffeta dreams were seeping out of the cracks. “That’s exactly it – you didn’t think. I can’t believe you led me on like this and didn’t tell me, and now I might lose you, and…and…”

He turned back to me, his eyes suddenly wild. “Actually, here’s a secret. Secret reveal time! Bombshells for everyone! Ready? I’ve been clinically depressed my whole life, and I got addicted to antidepressants and anxiety medication when I was twenty-one.”

“Wh…
what
?”

Some sick kind of glee took over his face. “Yep! I actually know your friend Hank, from the group – we’ve been to Narcotics Anonymous together. When I was twenty I buckled under the pressure of working for the newspaper and taking care of my mom and being scared shitless that I would eventually leave her like my father did, and I started stealing her pills when mine wouldn’t fuck me up enough to escape the worry. One night I got blitzed on Xanax and drove a company car into a ditch and then walked home, and when I woke up I had no clue what had happened or where it was, and I was caught. I went to counseling with my mom after that, but I still never recovered, not really. The version of me you know is an act – I am damaged, Summer. Fucked up. Every time you talked about people staring at you, every time you said it made you feel awkward, you were wrong. They weren’t looking at you, they were looking at
us
, because they knew my past and didn’t understand why anyone would date such a loser. I’m a
loser
, Summer. A reject. A failed writer. There you go! I’m a liar, too! Any more secrets?”

“Um…I didn’t…”

He took a breath and steeled himself. “Actually, I don’t care. I don’t care what happens with
anything
. I hope I never see you again. Good luck, or just die, either one.”

I winced like I’d been hit by a gust of wind on a winter day. The room started to spin, but I fought off the dizziness and pushed myself up to leave. All I knew for sure was that I had to get away from this place, and be anywhere else than here. In the corner of my eye I saw his face crack, and he sat up and reached for me.

“Wait, Summer, I didn’t mean it.”

“No,” I said faintly. “No. I have to…go. Leave.”

“Don’t leave,” he called, louder this time. “Summer, I didn’t mean it. Stop. Come back. I love you, Summer. Stop!”

I staggered out of the garage and vomited into the bushes. I could hear him calling my name, but I wiped my mouth and kept stumbling until I reached my car, throwing it into reverse and speeding away as if on autopilot. All I could think as I sped down the street, ruined in my best dress, was that I’d been caught. We were over. This was over. I was broken. I hated him. I hated Autumn. I hated the world.

Just give me the stupid surgery now – I wanted to die.

At precisely the same moment I turned onto Third Street, I knew Cooper would be running around his garage to come up with plan B, and that’s when he’d notice the book I’d made at Office Max that day and had accidentally left on the garage floor like a moron. His story had been turned into a real-life book, printed, bound, and covered, with
EIGHTY EIGHT by COOPER NICHOLS
written in elegant black lettering on the cover, along with a simple Post-It note inscribed with the following message:

You told me you’d never write a real book, Cooper. I beg to differ. This book is as real as the love I feel for you.

-Summer

~

I got home at eleven after almost falling asleep at the wheel twice. I was beyond exhausted and just wanted to sleep more than anything in the world, but my mom’s voice stopped me.

“Where have you been?” she asked. She was sitting in the dim kitchen with a half-empty empty bottle of wine and was clearly furious. I didn’t even want to imagine how long she’d been there.

“I was at the Nichols’ house,” I said faintly, because it was true. “I had to help them…do something. With their dog.”

“Which one is Nichols? Is it that boy you’ve been going around with?”

I paused. Something about the way she’d said “that boy” triggered some deep fury within me.

“No, one of my
other
boys,” I said as I turned and looked in the cabinet for a new carton of Instamilk to make this weird feeling go away. “You know how I am. Different boy calling me every night. There are never enough for me. Their thirst for me is literally more insatiable than Niagara Falls’ thirst for water. They just love me and my scar and my fucking feeding tube. That’s me!”

“I…I didn’t mean it like that,” Shelly said. “And please don’t talk about yourself like that, it hurts me. But tell me something: does he know?”