remember.”
She grins sheepishly. “I’m sure Ethan would be cool with it.”
“I’m going to head out in about an hour, if he wants to come along just let him know.”
“I will.”
Both of us hesitate for a moment, but I make the first move. I close the window, but leave the curtains open. If anything it will be another excuse to see Hadley after camp. Mabel’s words course through my head. Even though I already made the decision to leave when the house sells, could Hadley and me continue where we left off? Knowing that we’d both leave at the end of the summer?
I cross the room to the closet and grab the camp shirt I still had from years previous. She’d never go for that. And I wouldn’t risk hurting her.
As I enter the hallway, my eyes fall on his bedroom door. My toes dig into the carpet as flames lick inside of my stomach. Instead, I go for the bathroom, wrench open the faucet. Air rockets out of the shower head, breaking up the water flow in quick spurts, but eventually the stream is consistent. It’s warmer than last night since I adjusted the water heater temperature. A chill wraps around my spine as I step under the warm water, but at least it distracts me, even momentarily.
I press my hands against the cool tile and let the thick air envelop me. My thoughts wander. Why did she have to bring him up? Other than nightmares, I rarely allowed myself to think of that night, but in this house, even just for a day it prodded me every goddamn second. I inhale sharply and allow myself to hate him all over again, it makes dealing with it easier.
My hands turn to fists and I pound the tile, remembering the urge to fight back that night. Right after it happened, I replayed the memory over and over wanting to hit him back harder, wanting to take him down faster, but it always ended up the same. I didn’t blame Hadley for that night, it would have happened another day, but maybe if she stayed with me after I bridged the gap between friendship and something more… things would have been different.
Hadley
My fingers clench around the curtains, even though I know Will is gone from his room. Ranch life had been fantastic to Will’s body, making it harder for me not to act like a stupid sixteen year old girl. Why was I a bumbling mess around him? And that accent? If it didn’t mean him disappearing from my life without another word I wouldn’t regret that extra detail that made my insides twist every time he spoke.
A knock on the door broke the spell. My hip bumps against the desk and my pen jar clatters to the wood surface. I scramble to pick it up and the door opens. Mom’s bleary eyes meet mine. Her dirty blonde hair sticks up at all angles and she’s in her robe that has more holes than fabric. Her favorite.
“Good morning,” she says. “I heard you talking.”
I point to the window as I put the last strewn pen back in its place. “Will.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. “I see you’ve fallen back into your routine.”
I focus on the corner of my desk as heat rushes up my neck.
“Well,” she says breathily. “I’m going to start breakfast. Dad has to leave in a few.”
“Okay,” I say, thinking of snow and glacial frost, anything to release the heat from my cheeks.
Calm down you idiot.
She leaves the door cracked open and I let out a breath as I hear her pad down the hallway. She’d given me the third degree about Will at dinner, Dad apparently keeping that gem from the entire family. But he dutifully shifted the conversation to the cruise and Mom had a lot to say about that.
I didn’t want to make a big deal of Will being home, but she was my mom. I told her everything. Sometimes Lily got a bit too interested in detail, even on the hard topics, so Mom was a happy medium. She was there when I made an embarrassing mess of myself crying over Will those years ago. Only after months of her listening to me snuggled up in my bed did I start to feel silly. Turning off all thoughts of Will was my idea but she never pushed for anything I didn’t want. That’s what I’d have to do again, at least for the next two months. It would be easier for everyone if I was able to just be friends with him like I chose to do with Carter. At the end of the summer we will all go our separate ways and move on with our lives. I inhale deeply and let it go slowly, my body relaxing with each passing second.
I grab my phone from the charger and turn it on. Dad has a strict “phone off” rule at night. He knew Lily’s habits of staying out late and calling or texting me in the early hours of the morning. I hadn’t protested at all, I liked sleep as much as he did.
I tuck the phone into my pocket and grab my purse on the way out of the room. Halfway down the hall the phone explodes with nearly a dozen texts. I scroll through them as I descend the stairs. Lily had gone out the night before with the new kid at her non-summer job at a coffee shop on the local campus. Apparently a college guy who stayed on campus over the summer. I knew more about him from those texts than I wanted to that early in the morning. Or ever. But the one that makes me pause in the kitchen doorway is from Carter. Just three words.
I miss you.
My heart squeezes. The timestamp was 1:48 AM.
“Is something wrong?” Mom asks.
I look up at her. She’s leaning against the counter blowing into her steaming mug of coffee.
I shove my phone into my purse. “Nope. Just Lily.”
Mom shakes her head, smiling. “I just hope she’s careful.”
“She is, Mom,” I groan. As much as Mom loves Lily, some of the things Lily did were not mom-approved and I could almost hear the gears in her head spinning, wondering if her daughter would ever be that careless. But she had to know better. I never broke curfew and never had a date with anyone except Carter who had been a perfect gentleman in front of my parents. Thinking of him made his text message pop into my mind again. In a way I was grateful that he took the job at the pool. I’d only have to see him for an hour a day which would be enough space for us. And hopefully he would get over our relationship soon enough. It should have bothered me that I was over it quicker than he was, but for some reason it didn’t. I guess there was something to be said about being the dumper instead of the dumped.
I pour myself a cup of coffee and splash a bit of milk into the mug before settling down at the table. Mom rubs the sleep from her eyes as I grab the box of cereal from the table. This is her idea of “starting breakfast”. She’s great at baking but Dad is the real cook in the house. But this morning he’s going in extra early, so no fluffy pancakes for us. Hard footfalls descend the stairs. I already know it’s Dad by the way he gracefully flies down them.
He’s dressed up this morning, well, if khaki pants and a similar shirt to mine is dressed up. He’s normally in jeans and a t-shirt. He swipes a kiss on Mom’s head and she mumbles sleepily.
He plucks an apple from the bowl on the counter and peels off the sticker before washing it in the sink. He’s wiping the fruit with a paper towel when he turns to me. “Are you still mad?”
The first spoonful of the cereal hovers in front of me. “About what?”
He
