Only So Many Summers (Agate Harbors #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Mia

There was something magical about coming to the lake. It was a time capsule my family walked into every summer. We stayed our week, left our dust behind, and took our memories with us.

My sister, Ruby, had beaten me up to our room—the open loft where we slept and shared a bathroom. She always did everything faster, harder, more impulsively. She was older, longer legged, and had fewer bags to carry up the twenty-two stairs into our shared space.

By the time I’d made it to the top, she’d already unpacked her things—shoved shorts and shirts haphazardly into half-closed dresser drawers and scattered her toothbrush and hair ties across the bathroom counter like dice on a craps table.

The quilts covering the identical twin beds had been there since my family had started coming to this cabin at the Agate Harbors lake resort three years ago, when I’d been eight. Each year the fabric became more faded—the only indication that time had passed.

Too bad I couldn’t use any of those scratchy quilts.

“You both need to unpack before you run off!” Mom’s voice carried from the lower level of the cabin to the open loft above.

“Done!” Ruby announced as she slammed a drawer on her side of the dresser closed with a hip check.

I looked down at the bags still hanging from my arms—the nylon straps making indents in my skin from their weight. Mom had packed me about twice as much as my sister.

Sucks to be me.

“See you, sis.” Ruby brushed by me, a breeze of cool air hitting my face in the stifling hot loft.

“Where are you going?”

She paused, her legs straddling two different stairs. “Out.”

A typical Ruby answer. “With your vacation friends?”

“Yeah…” She glanced down, peeking through the railing to where our mom unpacked below. “With them.”

My sister jogged down the rest of the steps, and I heard the screen door squeak as it opened.

“Where are you going to be, Ruby?” Mom called out.

“I don’t know yet.” There was a pause. I braced myself for my sister’s retort. “Maybe if I had a cell phone…I could let you know.”

It was the current battle between Ruby and our parents.

There were no cell phones in our family until you had your driver’s license.

For Ruby, it meant not having a phone or access to Facebook for the next three years.

For my parents, it meant not always knowing where she was or who she was with.

In my mind, it was a miserable compromise for both sides.

The screen door slammed against the doorframe, announcing her escape.

Mom let out a sigh.

I doubted I’d see Ruby until dark.

I took the shirts my mom had packed me out of the generic black duffel bag and put them in a drawer of the pine dresser Ruby and I shared. She had already claimed the three drawers on the right side of the dresser, so I could only use the left ones.

We had to share the room, but at least we didn’t have to share a bed. There were two beds in the loft, each with rustic log headboards that were far enough apart that I wouldn’t be bothered by Ruby’s snores while I slept.

A nightstand that matched the dresser bridged the gap between the two beds, and a single lamp with a bear-themed shade sat on top, which Ruby would make me keep on until late hours of the night so she could read the Cosmopolitan magazines she snuck up to the cabin with her.

Ruby was only thirteen, but Mom said she acted like she was eighteen—already thinking she was an adult.

I sorted the shirts Mom had packed for me, shoving the ones I knew I couldn’t wear to the back of the drawer. I counted how many that left me for the week.

Two. Two shirts that I could wear comfortably.

That wasn’t enough to rotate for a week without Mom noticing. I’d have to wear something with a tag that’d annoy me all day. But maybe if I wore my swimsuit more often, I could get away with rotating the two safe shirts.

My heart sank as I pulled out the shorts she’d packed for me.

The same problem.

Mom loved to pack me denim shorts, even though she knew they felt rough against my skin.

She thought they were more age appropriate than the soft, stretchy bike shorts I liked to wear.

She called my favorite shorts tumble shorts to subtly remind me that little kids preferred to wear that style of bottoms.

My teeth felt funny just thinking about the denim shorts rubbing against my thighs. If I wore those, I’d be bothered by them all day.

I pushed the three pairs of denim shorts to the back of my drawer. There was one pair of the soft bike shorts I liked. Those would be the only bottoms I’d wear this week. And my swimsuit. I’d have to live in my swimsuit.

At least she hadn’t noticed the three pairs of socks I’d snuck into the bag.

They were my favorite. Seamless, no hard bunches of thread and fabric that would irritate the top of my toes with every step.

I couldn’t stand that. Even standing still, I could feel it—I couldn’t focus on anything else when I had a toe seam.

My hands reached the bottom of my duffel, where I’d thought I’d find my tennis shoes, but it was empty.

“Mom!” I yelled from the loft. “Where are my tennis shoes?”

“What? Are you still here, Mia?”

I walked over to the wood railing that matched the pine of the dresser and nightstand.

I leaned over the edge, glancing at my mother in the kitchen below.

She was unpacking the two giant coolers that sat on the linoleum floor full of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for the week.

Two bottles of margarita mix sat on the counters next to the blender. My parents called it “vacation juice.”

“My tennis shoes—did you pack them?”

“They’re in your bag with your clothes.” Mom continued to unpack the coolers, her head in the fridge with only her arms reaching out from behind the refrigerator door to grab perishables from the cooler next to her. “Have you looked there?”

I went back to my duffel bag, frantically searching every pocket and compartment one more time. “They’re not in there!”

Mom mumbled something about wondering where Dad was, followed by something heavy landing on the kitchen counter that made a thud. “Then we must’ve forgotten them.”

I closed my eyes, trying to control my increasing heartrate. “Can we go to the store to get a pair?”

Mom scoffed, and a cabinet door slammed shut.

“Mia, do you hear yourself? We’ve just spent four hours in the car driving up here.

No one is getting back in the car to drive forty minutes into town to buy you a pair of tennis shoes.

” Another cabinet door slammed. “Not when you have a perfectly good pair of sandals.”

“But I like wearing tennis shoes.” The kind that covered my feet completely. No dirt or sand ever met the skin of my feet when I had socks and tennis shoes on.

She stopped unpacking and tilted her head back to see me up in the loft. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just wear your sandals and stop complaining.”

Sandals were the worst. I always had to be on the lookout for loose gravel or the inevitable stray grain of sand that’d end up between the bottom of my foot and my sandal when I wore them.

Mom never listened to me.

I sighed, resting my forehead on the ledge of the railing, my nose pressed against the lacquered finish.

It still smelled like polyurethane. From up here, I could almost see the entire lower level.

Like the loft, the rest of the cabin was quaint and homey—but I didn’t mind it.

The cabin was just a place to sleep. The real vacation was outside these walls.

This summer vacation was a break for all of us, mostly from each other.

Mom and Dad were both teachers, surrounded by students for nine months straight.

They didn’t seem to mind that Ruby and I went our separate ways while they sat by the pool or resort bar sipping margaritas.

It was the only time of year I saw them drink.

It was also the only time of the year they loosened their grasp on Ruby and me.

Usually they held tight—sometimes so tight I felt like my head would pop off my body.

If it wasn’t good grades at school, it was our manners at the dinner table.

If it wasn’t the extracurricular activities they signed us up for to “keep us busy,” it was the incorrect way we’d made our beds in the morning.

There was always something to comment on.

Enough that for this one week in the summer, it felt like someone pushed the release button on our family’s pressure cooker.

Freedom. Blissful freedom.

I unzipped my second duffel bag. It was full of the things my mom knew I needed even though, when asked, would claim it was unnecessary. She always packed them for me or knew I’d end up in her bed late at night, insisting I sleep next to her with her arm draped over my stomach.

I liked to sleep feeling crushed.

There was no other way to explain it. I needed weight on top of me, holding me down, to sleep.

Something about the pressure on me felt calming.

No one understood it, but it felt good to me.

Even in this stifling loft, I’d be hot, I’d sweat, but I’d endure the heat because I needed that weight on me to sleep.

The sheets came first.

I made quick work of stripping my twin bed, shoving the resort’s sheets and quilt into their new home—under the bed and out of the way.

I pulled out the fitted sheet from my twin bed at home.

These were soft, not rough. The fabric didn’t get caught on my toenails or the calloused skin of my heels.

I stretched it over the mattress and smoothed the wrinkles out of the top.

One by one, I pulled out the four heavy blankets my mom had rolled up to fit into the duffel bag.

The first was my favorite. It was pink minky fabric with thick batting.

I laid it on the bed. The second was a heavy one from my grandfather’s days in the navy.

The third was a substantial knitted blanket that I’d found a couple of years ago in the back of our linen closet at home.

The final blanket was a hand-tied fleece that I’d made at a sleepover.

It had sweet butterflies on one side and solid royal-blue fleece on the other.

After the sleepover, I’d brought it home and stuffed it full of the bean bags from my family’s cornhole set.

No one ever played it, and they never noticed the bags were gone.

It was a whole “Princess and the Pea” situation, only instead of being the princess sleeping on top of all the blankets, I was the pea.

By now it was late afternoon, and the loft was hot.

I felt a bead of sweat drip down my back, following the curve of my spine.

I took the box fan from the closet and propped it up in the open window, turning the fan to suck in the cooler outside air and blow it into the loft.

Hopefully by the time I came back home, the room would be comfortable for sleeping, although how cool I would be under the blankets was debatable.

But that would be later—much later, when the sun had set and the outside air was chilly enough to require a sweatshirt. Right now I’d do anything, including leaving some of my things unpacked, if I could feel the cool breeze brush across my clammy skin.

Looking out the loft window, I could see the tree branches moving back and forth ever so slightly. I couldn’t see the lodge, but I knew it was there, and I knew he’d be there, waiting for me.

I was twenty-two stairs and a few hundred feet away from starting the best week of my summer, but first I needed to get out of the cabin—preferably before Mom decided we needed to continue the whole tennis-shoe conversation.

I heard heavy steps on the deck as I snuck down the stairs, going one at a time so the treads wouldn’t squeak. I was halfway to freedom—far enough that I could see the kitchen between the square spindles of the railing.

“Ah, what can I help you with, Darcy?” My dad opened the side door that led into the kitchen from the deck.

I tested the next tread for squeaks with my toes before putting my full weight on the wood.

“What have you been doing out there? I already have both the coolers unpacked.” My mom’s normally straight blonde hair was turning wavy in the heat of the cabin.

The brass handle of the cabin’s front screen door was within reach. It took everything in me not to skip down the rest of the stairs, fling the door open, and run outside. I just needed to make it down a few more stairs.

“I’ll get started on the margaritas,” I heard my dad say.

I exhaled as my fingers wrapped around the cool metal handle of the screen door. The wooden stairs hadn’t betrayed me.

I’d made it.

I held my breath as I pushed open the door, praying I was going slow enough that the hinges wouldn’t whine.

“Don’t tell me you’re going out like that.”

I jumped, letting go of the door. It slammed closed behind me, the hinges tattling on my almost successful escape.

Mom set the cooler she was carrying by the side handles right in front of my toes, her hands settling on her hips as she looked me up and down.

I followed her line of sight to my feet. I had on one of my tag-less blue T-shirts, soft black bike shorts, and my jelly sandals.

“You can’t wear socks with sandals, Mia.”

Ugh, she’d noticed. But I couldn’t wear just the sandals outside of the cabin. All the paths and roads were gravel. Dust and rocks were just itching to jump on my skin. Socks were necessary.

“And your hair,” Mom continued, frowning at me. “Can’t you just wear it down for once? It looks so nice down. You have such pretty hair.”

I ran my fingers through my ponytail on the back of my head.

This was hardly the first time I’d heard this, a compliment that really wasn’t a compliment.

My hair might’ve been nice—it was blonde and long, but wearing my hair down meant little pieces blowing in my face, tickling my nose, and brushing along my neck.

Having it tied back was much more comfortable.

“If you would just let me brush it—” She reached out toward me.

“Mom!” I yelled, twisting away from her hand.

“Fine, fine. It’s your vacation. Look however you want.”

I turned to leave, my head feeling like it might pop off of my neck at any moment. The screen door swung open, and cool air met my skin. It felt fresh, unlike the city air I was used to.

Outside was quiet except for the bird chatter and the occasional breeze that rustled the leaves of the trees. Peaceful. And mine for the week.