Two
Summer
Papi: Just checking on you, Mija
Me: Sorry, I just finished training. I’m fine, Papi.
Promise.
After staring at Papi’s text for a long minute, I finally sent him a quick response before stepping under the showerhead.
I let the water rinse off not only the chlorine in my hair but any guilt, deciding to try to move on.
Now dressed, I push through the glass doors of the natatorium but stop almost immediately in my tracks when I spot a familiar head of bubblegum pink hair.
My ex, Savannah, is walking in my direction with a group of four people that I once used to call my friends, but when Savannah and I broke up, they sided with her.
I can’t even pretend that I don’t know why.
Their heads are thrown back in a type of laughter I was once allowed to partake in. Coffee cups reside in their hands and a certain lightness hangs in the air. A familiar merriment that I’m now standing on the outside of.
I hate that I stop walking.
But not because Savannah is still beautiful and her laugh remains infectious—which still seem to be true. I stop because I feel like I have to.
As if I owe her that.
Like she’d even want it.
She may have been the one to call things off, but it was my own actions that led her to resort to this outcome.
Savannah’s honey gold eyes land on me and whatever joy she was feeling is quickly replaced with a version of uncomfortableness that I never would’ve thought she could feel toward me.
But because she’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, she stops right in front of me instead of spitting in my direction and telling me what a piece of trash I am.
“Hey, Summer.” Savannah smiles now because that’s just the kind of person she is.
“Hey, Sav.” I wave. “Guys.”
The four of them look at Savannah and then me.
Savannah might be too nice to treat me the way I deserve but these four aren’t. Leander crosses his arms, venom in his stance and a fight already on his tongue. Being able to sense this, I assume, Savannah takes a small step in front of him but pretends as if she was shifting on her feet.
Savannah gestures toward the gym bag slung across my shoulder. “Did you just get done with training?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. The normalcy of the question catches me off guard. “Sort of. What are you guys up to?”
I’ve never been one to find myself in awkward conversations or situations.
Correction. I’ve never let awkwardness bother me. Embarrassment is something I rarely ever feel unless it’s apparently standing like an idiot in front of my ex-girlfriend and her friends.
But I guess this is what I get for having a guilty conscience.
No one hurries to answer. In fact, Leander and his sister, Analisa, give me visible dirty looks. The other two, Pau and Victoria, pretend to be looking at something on their phones.
Savannah either doesn’t notice or she’s just pretending. “We’re just heading off campus to the mall.”
Her gentleness makes me want to tell her that I’m sorry but doing that would mean admitting that she was right. Yes, I feel guilty about the wedge between us but my pride gets the better of me.
I adjust my bag onto my other shoulder, not knowing what else to do with my hands. “That’s cool.”
I mentally facepalm at my apparent newfound inability to have a conversation, but because I’m apparently a masochist, I continue. “What are you planning on—”
Analisa isn’t having it because she quickly interrupts my question. “We have other things to do besides having this conversation right now.”
“Oh.” The sharpness of her words settles uncomfortably against my chest. “Yeah, of course.”
What else can I say?
If anything, Analisa is doing me a favor despite that not being her intention at all.
Leander then tosses his arm over Savannah’s shoulders, pulling her into his side.
Not in a romantic way but in a way that reminds me that he, Analisa, and Savannah have known each other for almost as long as I’ve known River and Lily.
“See you guys around?” I ask but they’re already walking away.
I hate that Savannah looks back at me. Not with anger. Or betrayal. But with concern. That’s the last thing she should be feeling toward me.
I’m the one that thought by being in a relationship with her, it would help me get rid of my feelings for someone else. I know that I shouldn’t have used Savannah in that way. I can’t even give myself the benefit of the doubt anymore.
I can’t convince myself that I wasn’t aware of what I was doing when I asked her out nine months ago. That the only reason I even did it was because I realized the older I get, the more the idea of kissing River Choi becomes that much more enticing.
I panicked. I asked Savannah out to avoid those feelings. And I stayed because it worked until it didn’t.
“Summer!” River calls out to me from across the parking lot and I realize that I’m still standing on the sidewalk like an idiot, staring at the space Savannah once filled.
I shake my head, hoping that’ll do the trick of snapping me out of whatever pity party I started to throw myself.
It doesn’t work wonders but it’ll do the trick for now.
I finally step off the curb and head over to River, who is leaning against the side of his car. The passenger door is already open, ready for me to slip into my seat.
“Was that Savannah?” River asks the second I’m within arm’s reach.
All I do is nod before ducking my head down and settling into my seat because I don’t want to have this conversation again.
But because River isn’t one to take the hint—or he just doesn’t care to—he immediately starts trying to have said conversation with me the second he gets into the driver’s seat.
“What’d she say?”
With over ten years of friendship, I would think I would’ve grown used to his weaponized cluelessness by now.
He knows what he’s doing half the time but gets away with acting stupid because he’s charming about it. But I’ve known him for far too long to play along, so instead I remain quiet with my arms crossed and gym bag kicked toward my feet.
He looks up to me after buckling himself in. “Don’t start with the silent treatment.”
And I sometimes forget that he knows me just as much as I know him.
“Then don’t play dumb,” I retort. “I had a two-second conversation with her—what could we have possibly talked about?”
River, used to the attitude, shrugs and starts the car but my answer doesn’t deter him whatsoever. “You know, one of these days you’re going to have to tell me why you two broke up.”
I remain silent, trying to focus on the ticking of River’s blinker instead of the heartbeat drumming against my ears from the level of annoyance coursing through me.
Not at River particularly, but that I’m more annoyed that I can’t tell him why Savannah and I broke up.
I mean, I could but that’d open up a near world-ending disaster.
The car stays quiet and I let my shoulders drop. Maybe River finally got it through his thick skull that I don’t want to talk.
Or at least I’m able to hope for all of two minutes because as River is driving with one hand lazily draped over the steering wheel, he begins to snap his fingers with his other hand that’s resting on his thigh.
Oh, no.
“River,” I warn.
The snapping only gets louder as he starts to hum that all-too familiar tune. I swat the hand that’s snapping but that does nothing but escalate the situation.
River’s god-awful singing of “My Girl” now fills the small space.
I groan. “Stop it.”
He doesn’t.
“Come on, Summer. What can make me feel this way?” he exclaims but answers his own question in song lyrics when I glare at him.
I cover my ears with my hands while chewing on my bottom lip because I don’t need any of my secret amusement to stir him on. River would sing the entirety of this song if I let him.
I know this because he has. Many times before.
His singing purposely grows louder and more obnoxious. I can only handle so much.
“Okay, okay. I get it.” I reach over and cover his mouth with my hand, muffling his singing. “Your mission in life is to annoy me.”
My body slightly jerks forward when River decides to hit the breaks for a red light at the last second.
I should be used to his driving by now but I swear from the moment he was handed his license, River has made it his life mission to win an award for the world’s worst driver.
I’ve never been able to tell if it’s because of his achromatopsia, which causes him to experience extreme sensitivity to light—the reason he’s usually wearing sunglasses when he’s outside—or he genuinely just has terrible driving skills.
But who am I to complain when he’s giving me free rides? And I mean if he ends up killing us one day, then at least we’d die together.
River says something but it’s muffled against my hand, so I pull away.
“What?” My attempts at trying not to smile get weaker by the second.
“I just feel like people don’t just randomly break up,” River says and now I’m regretting moving my hand.
“How would you know?” I flick his thigh. “You’ve been in what? One relationship?”
River doesn’t waste time trying to defend himself. “You act like that’s a bad thing. I’m still a young man, Summer. A young man with high standards.”
“Standards?” I snort.
The light turns green again and my head lightly hits the headrest from the abrupt way River presses on the gas pedal.
“I have standards, okay?” River argues. “It’s not like I go after every girl I see. And I’ll have you know that Stacey Ramon—you know the girl who’s with that guy with the eraser-shaped head—”
“Benjamin Parkley?”
“Yeah, him.” River nods and I can’t help but laugh because the guy does in fact have a weirdly shaped head. “She wanted to hook up.”
I gasp. “No way.”
“Yes, way.” River grins but his focus remains on the road in front of us. “I just have that effect on people. But I said no because I’m not a homewrecker.”
I turn my entire body toward him, fixing my seatbelt back in place because this conversation is a lot more interesting than the one about Savannah.
“Wait.” I stop him before he can start talking again. “How and when did this happen exactly?”
River dramatically brushes his hand through his black hair. “You sound shocked. As if the act of someone wanting me is repulsive.”
Repulsive? No.
Annoying? Yes.
“I’m just trying to understand how Miss Legally Blonde found any interest in you.” I wave my hand aimlessly in his general direction.
River rests a hand on his chest. “Summer. My sweet girl.” My breath hitches at the nickname but River doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m a chick magnet, okay. I don’t have to try. It just happens.”
I laugh. “Has anyone ever told you that your ego is just a tad bit too big?”
We arrive at River and his roommates’ apartment but neither of us move to get out of the car.
“Alright.” River finally allows himself to turn and look at me. “I told you my secret. It’s your turn. What happened with you and Savannah?”
Just when I thought he was going to drop it.
I make a dramatic display of hitting my head against the dashboard. “I promise you, River.” I don’t dare to lift my head up to look at him. Not when I know I’m about to tell another lie. “We just grew apart.”
I wish it was as simple as that.
When River is abnormally silent for a little too long, I have no choice but to lift my head up to look at him.
I fully expect him to call me out on my lie, but he must see something in the way I’m looking at him because he sighs.
“Okay, fine. I won’t bring it up again.”
I highly doubt that but I appreciate it right now.
“Thanks.” I smile softly.
River might get on my nerves sometimes but if I’m staying here in Ellingbrook for the summer, then I’m glad it’s with him.