Day 33
Sidney
Breakfast was … weird. For five minutes—or maybe it was five hours—all I could think about was what we did last night.
But then Asher kissed my temple and stole a triangle of toast from my plate, and by the time we left the kitchen for our morning swim, it was hand in hand and normal.
As normal as the two of us ever are, at least.
But when we got back, Sylvie and Greg were packing up their car for a trip to the little fish town that Sylvie loves so much.
A family trip, she told him. It took everything in me not to laugh or even seem interested when Sylvie explained it would just be the three of them, and Asher went into full-on pout mode.
I wonder if telling our parents about us would make things easier or harder.
If they’d be more understanding of letting us spend time together, or if they’d go out of their way to make sure we have some space from each other.
My parents would probably switch rooms with Asher and become my new roomies. They wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
But Asher being gone is a good excuse to spend some time with Kara. I’m fried from my day on the river, so we’re sitting in a shady spot on the deck.
“Still no news?” Kara’s voice is even and almost uninterested.
“About?”
She raises her eyes and looks toward the house, as if Asher just stands there at all times, like a sentinel at our door.
I shake my head, but the words—the stories—are filling me up, trying to burst out of me like an overfilled balloon. I don’t know what’s stopping me, but all I can do is shake my head.
Kara and I paint rocks and talk about college—when we’ll only be an hour apart instead of four—and around lunchtime my mom sits down with us.
“You want to go to the river this afternoon?” Mom picks up one of my rocks and sets it down next to another one. A large daisy, and a cluster of three little ones. She sets another covered in vines and leaves next to them.
“I swam this morning, but maybe tomorrow?” My mom knows I swam this morning, so it’s weird that she would offer to take me to the river.
She nods and digs around in the box I keep my rocks in, pulling out a few more and making her own little rock collage of flowers, leaves, and birds. “I’m going to get my glass and join you out here,” she says as she gets up from the table and disappears back into the house.
Five minutes later, she has a small pattern laid out on the table, and pieces of colorful glass cluttered on top of it. Kara and I paint and she fidgets pieces together until they resemble a bird the size of my hand.
“Things seem to be going well with you and Asher.”
Mom’s words make my stomach jump. What does she know? What has she seen? Does she somehow know what happened last night in Asher’s bed? Or on the river? Oh my god, does she own some kind of spy-drone? Everything around me has blurred into a swirl of panic.
Kara’s trying hard not to smile.
“I’m glad the two of you are getting along,” Mom says.
Getting along. Not kissing, or sneaking into each other’s rooms to do who-knows-what. Getting along.
“Yep.” It’s all I can manage in the aftermath of thinking my mother somehow knows all of my dirtiest secrets. The imaginary ants crawl off of me and scatter to the floor.
“Well I’m glad Greg got through to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you feel guilty about the fish.” Mom pushes a bright red piece of glass into a corner.
“You think getting kicked out of the houses is your fault. And don’t get me wrong, you’re not blameless.
Not even close to it.” It’s been weeks, but her voice sounds irritated again, just talking about it.
“But the pranks have never seemed like you.” She picks up a piece of glass and moves it to the side.
“And I know something happened that night before the fish.” At this, Kara’s eyes snap from her paints to mine.
She knows what happened the night before. My date with Caleb.
“I could hear you in your room doing god knows what…” Mom looks to me and raises her brows.
“Mayonnaise.” I toss one of my rocks back into the box to keep my hands busy. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Ugh.” Mom shakes her head. “Well, after the fish incident I told Greg he better talk to Asher, tell him to fix things with you. I’m glad it seems to have worked.”
Mom is beaming with pride for being the fixer she prides herself on being. I, on the other hand, feel like I may throw up. And it must show on my face, because when Mom excuses herself for another drink it’s not two seconds before Kara says, “Now do you have anything to tell me?”
I do. I tell her everything. And as the words rush out of me all of our moments click together like puzzle pieces in my mind.
Asher
When we get back from the fish town, Sidney isn’t in the house, or on the deck or the dock. The only reason I find her is because I call her and hear her obnoxious ringtone. It’s faint, and only rings once, but it’s enough to let me know that she’s here somewhere.
I walk to the front of the house again and catch a bit of movement in the water, to the far side, out by the little cluster of trees that jut out.
“Are you ignoring me now?” I mean it as a joke, but she doesn’t say anything, just squats down and picks up a rock, tossing it into a red sand bucket a few feet away.
“Are you mad at me?” I sound amused when I say it, because there’s not anything she can actually be mad at me for.
She just keeps looking down at her toes, plucking rocks out of the water, like if she ignores me I’ll go away.
“You can’t be, I haven’t even been here all day to do anything. ”
Sidney looks up from her toes and meets my eyes. “Did your dad tell you to fix things with me?” She throws up air quotes and she has the angriest fingers I’ve ever seen.
Crap. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t like what?” She stands up and slams her hands onto her hips. “Like you were suddenly nice to me? Suddenly interested in me?”
Crap crap crap. I know exactly how this looks, and I don’t even know how to explain this in a way that won’t scare Sidney one way or the other. But also, she’s blowing this completely out of proportion. “No, it wasn’t like that.”
“I get why you didn’t want to tell our parents now. I doubt your mom would have been on board with you making out with me just to keep the peace this summer.”
“I’m not some sort of gigolo over here. My dad told me to stop the pranks. He didn’t tell me to leave my bedroom door open to do it.” She’s trying to turn this into something sinister, just because she wants to be mad at me and find a way to tell herself this whole thing should be over.
“Well, consider it mission accomplished. I guarantee there will be no more pranks. No dates required.”
She’s shutting down, shutting me out. It’s like I can see the ghost of Old Sidney floating overhead, preparing to reinhabit her body with every word that comes out of her mouth.
She decided I was guilty before we even talked.
And our next date was going to be a surprise, but I don’t have the luxury of springing it on her anymore, not when she’s looking at me like she wouldn’t get in my car if I paid her.
“I get that you’re looking for something horrible about me, but—” She opens her mouth but I cut her off.
“Just do one thing for me. With me. And then you can pretend like I don’t exist for the rest of the summer, if that’s what you want.
You can go back to terrorizing me. Set all my clothes on fire on the front lawn. ”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and it wasn’t a smart move to say it, to remind her of what a one-eighty our relationship has taken since the start of summer.
“I know, Sid, I’m just…” I don’t blame her for being mad, I just want to fix it.
I need to fix it. “We said four dates. Come with me to Todd’s graduation party this weekend.
” She opens her mouth to argue, and I keep going.
“Come to my house. See where I live the other ten months out of the year. Meet my best friend. After that, if you still think that this all happened out of nowhere—that my dad somehow talked me into all of this—you can run away screaming.” I shove my hands down into my pockets. “I won’t stop you.”
“I’m not sure how seeing where you live is going to prove anything.”
“It will. Just trust me.” But even as I say it, I know that’s the problem. She doesn’t. Will she ever?
“Maybe I’ll see where you live and decide that you’re even nerdier than I thought. Maybe your best friend isn’t as awesome as you think, and the food will be horrible at the party, and this will all backfire on you…” She looks down at her bare feet in the water and I do, too.
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Fine.” Sidney looks out at the water and then back to me. “But it’s your last date.”
Last. Not second, not next. Last. I imagine Sidney will somehow cram her second date in before the party, so she can be done with me and cut me loose like every other guy.
“Fine,” I say.
“I’ll just tell my parents I want to go home that weekend, and you’re going to drop me off on your way.”
She didn’t say it like it’s optional, but I try anyway. “Or we could just tell them you’re going with me. Your parents won’t care that we’re going somewhere together for the weekend.” I’m testing a theory.
Sid bites her lip, and it’s all the answer I need. “You’re making it sound like we’re taking a romantic weekend trip, and not going to sit in a tent to sneak sips of keg beer out of plastic cups when we’re not talking to your friend’s sixty-year-old aunts who want to know our life stories.”
I can’t help shaking my head at the vivid scenario she’s conjured up already. “I thought you were mad I didn’t want to tell them.”
“I’m mad about your motivation for not telling them.
We’re not lying, we’re just not offering up information on our personal lives.
This is not need-to-know information. Our lives aren’t in danger.
And we have nothing to announce. You’re taking me on a last-ditch date to a graduation party…
” Her voice has lost some of its bite; she’s back to sounding like the sarcastic girl who insulted my clothing choices every morning while racing me for a stupid chair.
“That’s a lot of explanation for not doing anything wrong.”
“We agreed on four dates.” She says it firmly, her voice edged with that sharpness again. Before tonight it had been weeks since I’d heard it, and I’m hoping not to hear it anytime in the near future.
“Fine.” It’s not how I feel at all. I feel like maybe this is all a colossal waste of time.
Like I’m playing a game that I can never possibly win, because the winner—or maybe more accurately, the loser—was picked before the race even started.
But if I’m going to convince Sidney that I’m really in this, then this is my best chance.
Maybe my last chance. “On the plus side, you can snoop in my room and get your lurky-lurker on.”
“Your room?”
“Yes. I have one of those. Did you think I slept in a crypt?”
“I wondered.” There’s the promise of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. This is our happy place—picking on each other. “But why would we be in your room if we’re going to a grad party?”
“We have to sleep somewhere?”
“Oh.”
“Is … that okay? I mean, I guess we could leave early and I don’t have to stay for the after-party and the bonfire and stuff. But that’s kind of the best part. I mean, I’m only stopping into the boring family part because Todd’s mom would kill me if I didn’t and—”
Sidney cuts me off. “It’s fine. We can stay.”
“We have a guest room,” I assure her.
“It’s a plan then.”
“Technically, it’s a date.” I wait for her scowl, but she smiles. It’s weak and tentative, but it’s there. Barely.