（ten years ago）
Georgia
I lay on a plastic lounge chair in the scorching Georgia sun, staring up at the milky blue sky through scratched sunglasses. The day was still, the rhythmic rise and fall of the cicadas interrupted only periodically by the spray of water from the pool filter as it slapped the concrete, turning the stone darker for just a moment before evaporating.
The oppressive midday heat ensured I had the pool to myself at this hour. If I blocked out the chain-link fence and NEWBURY PARK COMMUNITY POOL sign, I could almost imagine it was my own.
Someday.
Beads of sweat glistened between the round of my breasts in the new string bikini I had to hide from my father. I’d just turned sixteen, and while I’d been a head taller than most of the guys in my class since I was twelve, I was a late developer, so this was the first summer I’d gotten to enjoy having the curves of a woman.
I sat up, took a long swig of my quickly melting blue-raspberry slushie, and contemplated the five feet between my chair and the pool. Slip on my flip-flops or hazard frying the bottoms of my feet on the blazing stone? I decided shoes were too much trouble and sprinted the short distance on tiptoe before cannonballing into the pool.
As I dove through shards of light in the aqua blue and flipped upside down for a handstand, I heard a muffled voice calling my name. I surfaced, squinting in the sunlight, to see hot-pink toenails in bedazzled flip-flops.
“You need a pedicure,” Summer said.
“I know.” I looked down at my fingernails, which still had traces of dirt under them from working with my mom in the garden that morning. “Manicure, too. I was gonna do them last night, but my dad made me play chess with him.”
“You guys are such nerds. I love it.” Summer perched on a lounge chair and took out a cigarette, frowning across the street at the low line of my house. “Your mom’s not there, is she?”
“She’s at work.”
She lit the cigarette and inhaled. “She’s always at work.”
“Yeah.”
My poor mom had been pulling double nursing shifts at the hospital in an effort to save money. Turned out college was likely gonna cost far more than my parents had thought, and their salaries weren’t nearly as great as they’d hoped––just good enough not to qualify for financial aid. But they valued learning, and a higher education free of debt was the one extravagant gift they wanted to give their children, come hell or high water. So while I studied hard in hope of obtaining a scholarship, they worked every available hour to make sure I’d be able to attend the best of the out-of-state universities that boasted the theater programs I was interested in, regardless.
Summer exhaled, and the smoke hung in the air. “God, it’s hot out here.”
“You should get in. The water’s almost cool.”
She shook her head. “Just did my hair. Anyway, I gotta go with Rhonda to meet Three for lunch at the club. Wanna come? We could play tennis after.”
Rhonda was on her third marriage, to our next-door neighbor, a lawyer I’d heard my dad call an ambulance chaser more than once. Summer never used his real name unless he was in the room.
“Can’t. I gotta hang with my sister when she gets home.”
Summer flicked her cigarette. “She can just go home with my sister.”
“I promised I’d take her to the movies this afternoon.”
Our sisters were both eleven, and my mom still made me babysit Lauren, while Rhonda not only let Brittani stay home alone, but also let her watch R-rated movies. My mom, of course, had figured this out and would allow Lauren to go over to Brittani’s only if I was there as well. But Summer didn’t need to know this.
“Anyway, I was thinking about dyeing my hair pink later,” I said.
Summer wrinkled her perfectly upturned nose. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted pink hair.” I pushed out of the water and flopped down on the lounger next to her.
“Nice suit,” she said. “God, I wish my boobs were as big as yours. I’m getting new ones as soon as I’m eighteen.”
“Well, they’re not the same size,” I confided. “Righty hasn’t quite caught up with lefty.”
She stared at my chest. “I can’t tell.”
“That’s because I added padding from of one of my push-up bras.” I removed the pad from under my right boob and showed it to her.
Her liquid green eyes crinkled with laughter as she took a long drag of her cigarette, then offered it to me. I didn’t smoke, but sometimes I’d have a drag of hers, just for solidarity. “Can’t,” I said. “Lauren’ll rat if she smells it on me.”
She shrugged and stubbed it out, then washed away the mark on the pavement with pool water, flicked the butt into the bushes, and covered it up with dirt. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She extracted a novel from her purse and set it on the lounge chair. “I finished this last night. It’s really good.”
“Thanks! That the one about the kids who murder their friend?”
“I don’t want to give it away.”
Summer was the only girl I knew who was as avid a reader as I was. Most of the girls in our class could barely make it through the assigned reading, but Summer and I could easily rip through a novel in a matter of days if it was a good one.
She gave a little wave as she latched the gate behind her. “See you at class tomorrow. And don’t dye your hair pink. Guys hate fashion colors.”
The next morning I bounded down the stairs to find my mom sitting at the kitchen island reading the paper in her robe, coffee cup in hand, her wavy blond hair pulled up in a scrunchie. She should’ve been Summer’s mom, not mine. Even at forty-four, sans makeup, she was still what they call a knockout. Of course, I got my dad’s genes.
She looked up and smiled. “Morning, honey.”
“Morning. I’m late for French. I gotta go.”
I noticed her eyes slide to my hastily selected mismatched clothes and unbrushed hair, but she stopped herself from saying anything. “At least grab a banana out of the bowl. I’m late shift tonight so I won’t see you, but there are leftovers in the fridge. Kiss?”
She proffered her cheek, and I planted a kiss on it.
Windows down, bumping Snoop Dogg in my mom’s old station wagon, I parked near the battered NEWBURY HIGH SCHOOL sign and hurried through the glass doors, down the wide hallway to the one open classroom, marveling at how much quieter the school was during the summer. The new teacher stood with his back to the class, writing French conjugations on the blackboard in front of twenty or so kids.
I slid into the empty desk in front of Summer. “You’re blocking my view,” she whispered, cutting her eyes toward the front of the class as the teacher turned around. Damn. He looked like a young Johnny Depp, but athletic and without the weird hair and clothes. A ripple of energy passed through the girls around me as he began to speak, welcoming us to class—in French. Well, at least I’d be paying attention this summer.
“Good morning, class. Welcome to French Three, where we will be speaking only in French.”
A groan went up from the class.
“I’m Mr. Stokes, and I’ll do my best not to make your summer-school experience torture.”
When the bell rang an hour later, I gathered up my books, thrilled that our only homework was to watch Amélie . “If all our teachers were that hot, it’d be easy to get straight A’s,” I whispered to Summer.
“As if you don’t already,” she teased. “Can I get a ride home? It’s past noon, so Rhonda’s probably drunk.”
“Sure.”
She threaded her way through the desks to the front of the class, where Mr. Stokes was erasing the blackboard.
“Hey, you look familiar.” Summer addressed him easily, as though speaking to someone our age. “Do you play tennis at River Run Country Club?”
He turned, smiled. “Yeah. Can’t say I’m much good anymore, though.”
“Thought I saw you up there the other day. You didn’t look too bad. I’m Summer.”
“Summer Sanderson, I remember.” He shifted his gaze to me. “And you’re—wait, don’t tell me—Isabella Carter?”
I smiled. “Isabelle. Nice to meet you. Your class was great.”
Your class was great? I was an idiot.
Summer fixed him with those verdant green eyes. “Anymore?”
“What?” he asked.
“You said you weren’t good at tennis anymore?” she clarified.
“Oh. I used to play in high school.”
“And when was that?” she asked.
“Five, six years ago.”
She smiled. “Well, I’ll have to challenge you to a game if I run into you at the club, see if you’ve still got what it takes.”
He laughed, but behind his smile I thought I could see him considering the propriety of playing tennis with a leggy blond sixteen-year-old student. Summer gave him a little wave as she sashayed out the door, and I scrambled to catch up.
Once we were safely in the privacy of the station wagon, I burst out laughing.
“What?” Summer asked, feigning innocence.
“You flirted with that teacher like he was our age!”
“Think he liked it?”
“Oh, come on. Of course he did. You should’ve seen the look on his face as you walked away. Pure gold.”
“Turn there.” She indicated a strip mall up ahead. “We’re getting our nails done. We can’t be walking around looking a mess.”
The rest of the week flew by in a haze of French conjugations and afternoons by the pool, my dripping manicured fingers riffling the pages of the book Summer loaned me.
On the Friday before the Fourth of July holiday, I joined Summer for a sunset game of tennis at River Run. The afternoon was bone-melting hot and an hour in I’d soaked through my gym shorts and T-shirt, yet somehow Summer still looked fresh in her tennis whites.
I batted the ball over the net. “How are you not soaked?”
“It’s this fabric. It dries it out or something.” She whacked the ball to the other side of the court, and I didn’t quite make it.
“I’m beat,” I said, “and I’ve gotta go over to Grannie’s for dinner.”
“I got this outfit in the club store,” she remarked as we zipped up our rackets. “Just charged it to Three’s card.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“Oh, please. He doesn’t know. He never so much as checks the balance. It just comes out of his account every month. We could get you an outfit,” she suggested.
“No, that’s okay.”
“Seriously, he’ll never know the difference.”
“I wouldn’t feel right,” I demurred.
“Suit yourself.” She slung her racket over her shoulder and squinted past me a few courts away. “Is that Ryan?”
“Who’s Ryan?” I turned to look. “That looks like Mr. Stokes.”
Mr. Stokes and another good-looking guy his age were just breaking for water a few courts away. Summer was already walking in their direction, her tennis racket slung over her shoulder.
I hustled to catch up. “So you’re on a first-name basis with our teacher now?”
“Act like you don’t see him,” she whispered.
As we approached, she turned her head toward me, actively not looking in his direction. I laughed nervously.
“Isabelle, Summer,” he called out.
Summer feigned surprise, while I tried unsuccessfully not to act awkward. “Oh, hi!” she exclaimed blithely. “I knew I’d seen you playing here before.”
The cute friend extended his hand to me. He had floppy light-brown hair and broad shoulders. “Hi. I’m Tyler.”
“Isabelle.” He looked me in the eye and smiled as I shook his hand. Was that an interested smile? An electric shock ran through me as I realized he thought we were college girls.
“I’m Summer,” Summer said.
“You gals know Ryan from class?” Tyler asked.
“Something like that,” Summer eluded. She nodded at the court. “He claims not to be any good. How about you?
“Maybe we should play a round of doubles and you can find out for yourself,” Tyler suggested.
“Sounds fun,” Summer agreed. “Monday?”
“Around five?” Tyler asked.
“We’ll see you then.”
Summer gave a little wave as she sauntered away, her skirt flouncing. I followed her up the steps to the clubhouse. “Are you actually going to play with them?” I whispered after the door closed behind us.
“Of course.” She shrugged, browsing through the bikinis on the swimsuit rack. “And you are, too.”
“He’s our teacher. I’m pretty sure we’d get in trouble if the school found out.”
“It’s just a game of tennis. And they’re not that much older than us. Come on.” She batted her eyes at me cartoonishly. “Pretty please? Be my partner in crime. It’ll be fun.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Tyler was cute, and she was right. They were only a couple of years older than us. It could be fun. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
She grabbed my elbow and nodded toward the cash register, where a curvy blonde was paying for an armful of merchandise with a black Amex. A rock the size of Texas glistened on her ring finger as she put her wallet back in her designer tote, then gathered her shopping bags and breezed out the door, sliding a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes.
“Haley Youngblood,” Summer breathed. “That was the latest Dior bag, and did you see those sunglasses? They’re the new Chanel ones with real diamonds on the hinges.”
We watched through the window as the girl fired up a white Range Rover with dealer tags.
“Makes sense,” I said. “Her dad owns, like, half the city.”
“Her husband,” Summer corrected me.
“Ew! No! Seriously?”
She nodded. “She’s from some Podunk town where he has a farm. Apparently she was his waitress. Lucky bitch.”
I pictured her husband’s ample frame. “Define lucky.”
“She can have whatever she wants whenever she wants it.”
“Except love,” I said.
She tilted her head, considering. “There’s different kinds of love, Belle. And after a while, any dick gets old.”
“Literally,” I conceded.
The designated Monday rolled around sultry and hot. As Summer and I pulled out of her driveway in her mom’s red Mitsubishi, the sun slipped behind dark thunderheads gathering on the horizon. I peered up at the sky, praying for thunder. “We should cancel. It’s gonna storm.”
“Too late.” She turned up the hill that led away from the club.
“Where are you going?”
“Silver Creek.”
“Why?” I asked. “I thought we were playing at River Run.”
She shrugged. “Ryan changed it. Probably didn’t want to be seen with us. They live there, and the courts are pretty nice.”
A knot tightened in my stomach. “Oh,” I said.
She looked at me, as though reading my thoughts. “I swear I told you when I dropped off the outfit yesterday, and you totally said you were fine with it, or I wouldn’t have said yes.”
I had no recollection of this, but I’d also been in the middle of a three-page essay in French, so I may not have heard.
“Thank you again.” I smoothed my pristine tennis whites. It was the outfit she’d been wearing when we played last week. I wouldn’t let her buy me one, so she’d given me hers and bought a new one for herself. The thought that maybe she didn’t want to be seen with me in the old one had crossed my mind, but she was my friend, and anyway, my mother taught me you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so I put it out of my head.
“If you don’t wanna do it, I can take you back,” she offered. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“No, it’s fine.” Thunder rumbled overhead. “It’ll be fun.”
The song on the radio switched to our latest Madonna favorite, and she turned it up. “It’s a sign: You’re frozen. ” She sang along, and I joined in, trying to force myself to relax.
The first fat drops of rain were just beginning to fall as we got out of the car at Silver Creek; after dashing the hundred yards from visitor parking to Ryan and Tyler’s apartment, we were drenched.
A clap of thunder cracked as Ryan swung open the door. We darted inside, dripping all over the carpet.
“Sorry,” I said, shivering in the air-conditioning.
“Tyler, towels!” Ryan shouted over his shoulder.
I wrapped my arms around my chest, acutely aware that my soaked tennis whites were now completely transparent. Summer was unfazed, giving Ryan a kiss on the cheek as though she hung out at her teacher’s apartment every day of the week.
Tyler emerged from the back with towels, and I immediately remembered why I agreed to this. He flashed a lopsided smile and wrapped me up in a big towel, lingering with his arms around me. He smelled of Drakkar Noir. I could feel his muscular chest and strong arms, the scruff on his chin roughing my forehead. None of the guys in my class had strength or stubble like that.
“So I guess we’re not playing tennis today,” I said stupidly, looking up at him.
“Guess not.”
“I ordered pizza,” Ryan offered.
“And we have beer and bourbon,” Tyler added.
“Perfect,” Summer said. “I’m usually more of a Scotch girl, but a shot of bourbon sounds like just the thing to warm me up. Who’s with me?”
I, for one, was definitely in need of a drink to loosen up.
“Nice,” Tyler said, and we followed him through their sparsely decorated living room to the kitchen. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of bourbon from the top of the refrigerator and poured generous shots into four red Solo cups.
“We don’t believe in dishes.” He winked. “Bottoms up.”
Summer promptly downed her shot, shivering as it slid down her throat. Tyler watched with admiration, Ryan with something bordering on apprehension.
Tyler raised his cup to me, and we threw back our drinks simultaneously. The alcohol hit me like a ball of fire. I’d never actually had bourbon, and in that moment I discovered that I did not like it.
“Yech,” I blurted. “Ohmygod.” I grabbed Tyler’s open beer and gulped, desperately attempting to wash away the taste.
Tyler laughed. “I take it you don’t like bourbon?”
“That was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!”
“But I bet you’re warm now,” Summer added.
And she was right. I was. I’d just had what must’ve been about three ounces of bourbon and half a beer on an empty stomach, and I was feeling much warmer. So warm, in fact, that I noticed I’d dropped my towel on the floor.
“You guys wanna throw your clothes in the dryer?” Ryan asked. “We have sweats you can wear.”
“Or, of course, you don’t have to put on clothes if you don’t want to,” Tyler chimed in with an exaggerated wink.
“Sweats sound great.” Summer turned to Ryan. “Why don’t you show me where they are?”
She followed him to his bedroom, and I heard the click of the door as it shut behind them.
“You want me to get you some dry clothes?” Tyler asked.
It did sound great to be dry, but the outfit I was wearing had a built-in bra, and my push-up pad was wedged under righty. I didn’t want to be braless and lopsided in whatever T-shirt he handed me. “No, I’m okay.” I picked up my towel and draped it over my shoulders. “This fabric dries fast. I’m almost dry.”
“Okay.” He cracked open a fresh beer and handed it to me. “We could watch a movie in my room, or…”
I perched on the arm of the brown La-Z-Boy couch. “Isn’t the pizza gonna be here soon?”
“Yeah, but whatever.”
He swigged his beer; I stared up at the framed Texas flag over the couch. “You from Texas?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” I sipped the beer, trying not to wince. “This is good.”
“Yeah, it’s cheap, but it’s my favorite,” he agreed. “And you can drink a lot of it and not get too full, you know.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, studying my beer. I literally had no idea what else to say to him. What did grown men like to talk about? I didn’t know anything about sports, cars, or hunting. The boys I’d dated all knew the same people I did, had the same teachers. But this was a whole different ball game. I looked up to see him gazing at me. I gave him a nervous smile.
“You’re really pretty when you smile,” he said.
A flush of heat rushed to my head. “Thanks,” I mumbled, caught off guard.
He held my gaze, his eyes a soulful muddy brown. My stomach flipped. He reached for my face and pulled me into a kiss, his face rough against my skin as his tongue pried my lips apart, reaching into my mouth with fervor.
The scent of his cologne was thick as he pulled me off the arm of the couch into his lap, his arms encircling me, his hands all over me. I wanted to enjoy it, but he kept thrusting his tongue into my mouth like he was digging for something, and it wasn’t as pleasurable as I’d thought it would be. His tongue was big and in there so deep for so long that I had to pull away to breathe, and when I did, he buried his face between my boobs and made an animal-sounding grunt as he pulled my hips forcefully in to his. “Oh God, I just want to eat you.” He bit my arm.
He wasn’t biting hard, but still it kinda hurt, and I didn’t want to be eaten. I wanted to be caressed. But now I wasn’t sure I wanted to be caressed by him anymore. Was this how sex was supposed to be? Maybe I was just naive. The farthest I’d gone was dry humping with fumbling high school boys. I’d never been with someone experienced. His tongue again. By this point I was trying hard to like it, but it didn’t feel like he was interested in me at all; he just wanted to ravage my body.
He kept his eyes trained on my boobs as he threw me down on the couch, lying on top of me, and I didn’t feel what I thought passion should feel like; I just felt squashed and claustrophobic. One hand shot up my top, groping my boob, while the other pawed at my bodysuit.
“Okay.” I tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. I was in the corner of the couch with a two-hundred-pound man on top of me. “Hey.”
He was clawing at my hips, trying to get my panties off, but thankfully my tennis outfit was a one-piece, so finally he just gripped the crotch of it and pulled it aside while he pushed his gym shorts down with his other hand.
“Hey,” I managed, “wait a minute. Slow down.” I was still trying to sound nice, but I was getting a little panicky.
“Oh baby.” He held my shoulder down with one hand while gripping his dick with the other. “It’s just so hot.”
He moved his fleshy torpedo toward my mouth, and I ducked, trying to squirm down through his legs and out from under him, but he was too heavy. “You wanna just fuck, let’s just fuck,” he groaned, fumbling for my crotch.
I was trapped. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to fuck him.
“Wait!” I squirmed, trying to push him away. “I don’t.”
But he didn’t hear. “God you’re sexy,” he grunted, maneuvering his dick between my legs.
“No!” I cried, tears stinging my eyes. “Please.” I could feel his dick poking my inner thigh. I mustered all my strength and shoved him as hard as I could. “I’m a virgin! I’m only sixteen, please!”
Immediately he stopped, his dick flopping over the top of his shorts. “What did you just say?”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, my heart in my throat. I rose up on my elbows. “I wasn’t trying to have sex. I’m a virgin.”
“No, the other thing,” he snapped, his eyes dark.
“I’m sixteen,” I said quietly.
He scowled. “You said you were eighteen.”
“I didn’t.”
But this only seemed to make him madder.
“Why the hell did you come here?” He grabbed one of the pillows from the couch and whacked it into my chest so hard my head hit the armrest. “What the fuck?”
He stormed into the kitchen, leaving me to quickly scramble to my feet as Summer and Ryan emerged from his room, disheveled, she in nothing but his T-shirt, he in boxer briefs. “What’s going on out here?” Ryan demanded.
Tyler stalked out of the kitchen, the bottle of bourbon dangling from his fist. “She’s sixteen.” He pointed at me. “Did you know that?”
“Calm down,” Ryan said.
“Underage!” Tyler pushed Ryan up against the wall, pinning him with his forearm. “What the fuck!”
Summer skirted around them as they yelled expletives at each other and put her arms around me. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
I wiped my wet cheeks with the back of my hand. “I just wanna go home.”
“Come with me while I get dressed.”
She grabbed my hand and dragged me to Ryan’s messy room, where she quickly changed back into her tennis outfit. The guys were in the kitchen talking heatedly when we emerged. We grabbed our purses from the entry table and slipped out the front door without saying goodbye.
Neither of us spoke until we were in the cocoon of the car, safely past the gates of Silver Creek. As we turned onto the road home, Summer asked quietly, “What happened?”
My words tumbled out in a jumbled mess, mixing with tears as I detailed what had happened. “I’m sorry I ruined your night,” I finished.
“No! Belle! Are you kidding? That guy’s an asshole! I’m just glad he didn’t take it further with you.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“I’m always there for you,” she promised.
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not,” she said. Then, “Are you really a virgin?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I tell you everything. I think I woulda told you if I’d done the deed.” She laughed. “Wait, are you?”
She gave me the side-eye. “Not anymore.” She grinned.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to see Ryan in class the rest of the week because of the July Fourth holiday. Summer tagged along with my family to my uncle’s lake house for a few days, ostensibly to get away from Rhonda and Three’s constant fighting, but in reality I could tell she was worried about me. I kept turning it over in my mind, wondering if I’d actually led him on.
“It’s not your fault,” she’d remind me when she caught me chewing my lip with intensity, furrowing my brow. “Guys are just like that.” I figured she would know.
When we got back home, a U-Haul was hooked up to the back of Rhonda’s red Mitsubishi. Summer sighed when she saw it. “Well, I guess we’re moving again. Thanks for letting me know, Rhonda.”
We said our tearful goodbyes a few days later, vowing to keep in touch. It was funny—Summer had been in my life less than two years, but I felt like I’d known her so much longer. She swore she’d miss me and made me promise to come visit them in Arizona, both of us knowing it would never happen. At least we’d have Skype and text. As she waved goodbye, I felt like a deflating helium balloon spinning into space.
I returned to French class on Monday to find that Summer wasn’t the only one missing. To my relief, Mrs. Price, the regular high school French teacher, was at the blackboard writing conjugations. No one was able to get anything out of her regarding what happened to Mr. Stokes, but she did confirm that he would not be returning.
When I called Summer to tell her, she insisted that there was no way anyone could know what had happened, and maybe she was right. Regardless, I felt lighter than I had in months. That evening I dyed my hair pink.