Summer by Summer (15 page)

There was a problem with the hut. One he may not have noticed, but one I certainly noticed and . . . and . . .

“Summer!” This time his tone sharpened.

Slowly, I looked up and met his gaze. “Well, um, I . . .”

There was a whimsical glint in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m going to sleep on the front porch.”

Relief flooded me. “You . . . you are?”

He nodded. “I know you’re pretty shy, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Guilt raced over my skin and down my jelly spine, but sleeping in the same room . . . on the same bed . . . No, I just couldn’t. It had been different on the beach by the fire. This was way too intimate. “Maybe we could take turns. One night I could have the bed, the next night you could.”

He cocked a brow. “And leave you outside? Uh, no. That’s not going to happen.”

He’d never let me do that. After all, he was the guy who didn’t sleep so I could and he’d stayed awake for the sole purpose of keeping the crabs off me. “Well, we can work something out.”

“We already did.” In every muscle of his face I saw resolve. There’d be no more discussion of who slept in the cabin and who slept outside.

My elation at the newly found shelter took a fairly solid hit. The shelter made things better for me, but Bray would still be outside in the elements. What about crabs crawling on him? All the giddy excitement waned. He must have noticed and stepped closer.

“Do you remember what I told you at the beach? I’ve been camping with my dad hundreds of times. We slept outside by choice.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek.

“I’ll get the best sleep knowing you’re inside on the mattress. Speaking of that, let’s go check it for bugs.” He cast a long glance out to sea. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”

Bray

For the first time since we got to the island, things were working in our favor. Until today, everything had been moment to moment. Now we had provisions. I suspected I could scrounge more out of the buildings, but for now we needed to concentrate on what we had. I’d spent years camping with my dad, so I knew how to watch the sun and tell when the day’s light was leaving. We needed to get dinner made soon.

The bed was fine — no bugs, no rodents — and would be a great place for Summer. I’d made myself a mattress out of some soft palm fronds and covered them with the tarp. I wanted Summer to use it as a blanket, but she insisted I take it. She wasn’t happy about me sleeping on the porch, but I was beginning to understand Summer more and more. She really was like a wild kitten. Half fragile, half wildcat. Which meant me sleeping outside was the right thing to do,
no matter how it scraped my ego and my desires. In everything I did, Summer worked right alongside me.

Exhausted from the day and preparing our lagoon campsite, we collapsed by the new fire and watched as the sun dipped lower and lower toward the horizon. The brilliant blue of the sky became a purple flame tinged with orange and yellow. Thin lines of transparent clouds raced across as if drawn by some giant paint brush. Summer sat beside me, and when the wind shifted, she wrapped her arms around her knees.

“Cold?”

“I’m okay,” she said, and I watched as she tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and let the heat from the setting sun absorb into her face.

I stayed quiet for several seconds. When she opened her eyes, I said, “Keep that up, will you?”

She looked over. “What?”

“Praying. It helps.”

Her eyes turned suspicious. “How’d you know?”

I shrugged. “Just seen you do it several times.”

“I didn’t for a long time.”

“You didn’t pray?”

“It’s strange how in one crisis you can push God away, but in another you find Him again.”

“Is that what’s happening for you, Summer?”

She smiled over at me. “Yes. I’m realizing that God never designs bad things to happen to us. They just sometimes happen. In each one, we can choose to let Him help or to push Him away. I’ve decided to stop pushing.”

“That’s great, Summer.”

She pulled a breath. “I miss going to church. Isn’t that strange? Now that I can’t go, I want to, even though I’ve gone a year barely giving it a thought.”

“Hey, when we go home, I’ll take you to church every Sunday. How’s that?” I bumped my shoulder against hers and grinned.

Firelight danced across her features as she looked over at me, judging my words. She turned back to face the water, where diamonds and liquid gold fought for dominance on the low waves. I knew the moment she started to worry.

“What, Summer?”

She pulled a steadying breath. “What do you think our families are doing right now?”

Her hand fell to the sand between us as if anchoring herself to the earth could stop what was going on miles and miles away.

“We’ve been gone four nights, that’s not that long. There are so many little islands near mainland Belize. My dad will be hiring private planes to search for us. He probably already has. I don’t know the protocol for search and rescue, but the authorities will be looking too.”

Her green eyes locked on me. “But we’ve only seen one plane.”

I felt the chill to my toes. She was right.

“Think of how happy they’ll be when they find us.” I’d been careful not to reach down and touch Summer’s hand. But my skin itched for contact with her. I placed my fingers close and pretended I could feel the warmth of hers so near.

“If they find us.” It was barely an echo. She faced me. “Bray, why haven’t there been
more
rescue planes? One? Only one?”

I’d been wondering that myself. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make much sense. Maybe something else happened in the storm and it’s diverted the rescue planes. It was a pretty serious storm. The worst one I’ve ever been in.”

She sat quietly for a long time. “We could have missed a couple planes, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Look, Summer, my dad won’t give up on us. I know him. He’ll send search teams, I swear. Maybe it’s just taking a little time to coordinate. We’ll make it off the island.”

First joy then despair. So many emotions ran across Summer’s face, and I was beginning to learn them all.

“I bet you’re excited to get back to college.”

“Eh.”

“Oh, come on. Absolute freedom. I bet girls are beating down your dorm room door.” She was trying to make me feel better.

“Women love ape men.”

“Did you have a girlfriend?”

“No.” And I didn’t really want to get into why. I liked the idea of not being committed. Getting to hook up with whichever girl tripped my trigger. And for some reason, thinking of myself in those terms made me feel ashamed as I sat by Summer.

“So what are you most excited about returning to?”

What was I most excited about? Nothing. Parties and campus fun seemed really foreign to me right now. Like they were from another life. Someone else’s life. I was Bray. Survivor. Protector and guardian of Summer. And that other guy was slipping away. “I can tell you what I’m not excited about.”

“What’s that?” She rocked back, settling into the conversation.

“My mom and dad’s divorce.” Even saying it caused a spike in my gut.

“What?” Her gaze widened.

I didn’t answer, just gave her a sad smile and nodded.

Her eyes roamed my face, then the darkening horizon. “That just can’t be. They’re so . . . so
happy
.”

“No, they just seem happy when they’re together. But they’re not together much, are they?” I couldn’t help the acid in my tone.

Her shoulders curled forward. “No, now that I think about it. But I never really sensed anything
wrong
between them.”

“I know. They’re good at hiding it. Experts.”

“That’s why you wanted me to leave. Were you hoping they’d reconcile?”

I scooted so the side of my hand grazed hers. “I thought if we all spent time together, they’d remember how it used to be.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Poor Joshie. Does he know?”

I shook my head, leaning back to rest my hand behind me and give myself some space. “No. This is the last family vacation.”

Her brow furrowed. “This is just all wrong. Did they tell you why?”

My head fell to one side then the other. “They said they’d grown apart, that the magic that had drawn them together had died somewhere along the way. They didn’t even realize it was happening, but because they still care about each other, they want to part while things are still civil.”

“That’s a cop-out.” Summer’s hand fisted in the sand. “The magic doesn’t die. It never dies. But with time, it changes. It became you, then Josh.
That’s
the magic. They’re just too stupid to see it.”

Normally, I didn’t appreciate people calling my parents stupid, but she was right, and more than a little scary with this much fire and fury sparking from every cell of her body. I leaned back a little more.

Summer flew up from the ground and began slamming things into the cold wash water. She scrubbed each utensil, dumped the water, and then carried everything into the hut. I sat quietly and watched — something akin to watching a tornado cycle through your neighborhood.

Finally, she emerged. “I’m sorry, Bray.” She came down the steps and stood in front of me. “I should be consoling you . . .”

“Nah. I’ve had months to get used to the idea.”

When her inspection of my face became too much, I looked away, off to the right where palm trees swayed in the last of the fading light.

Suddenly, she was right there, hovering over me. “Bray! There’s something in your hair.”

Panic caused her voice to crack, and that ran down my spine like ice water. I felt something crawl over my scalp. My hands shot up, but hers were in the way.

“Spider. I got it,” she said and I felt her swat at my head. A long exhale followed from both of us.

“Thanks.” I expected her to walk away, but she stayed there, standing over me.

“Your hair’s getting all matted.” I felt one gentle tug, then another as her fingers snagged. She used her thumb and forefinger on my chin to glide my head to one side. She dove in again, pulling and tugging as knots released, leaving my scalp tingling like a live wire. My hands itched to reach up, to touch her, but I didn’t. I stayed immobile, letting her have her way with my hair, scared if I moved too quickly, she’d bolt away from me. Dizziness almost overtook me, and I realized I needed to breathe. I released the air I’d been holding and it blew out in a long sigh. Summer looked down, her eyes locked on mine.

I didn’t dare move, though the entirety of my body said to pull her down to me. I fought it. But for a moment we were trapped. Her lips parted and she swallowed, then her gaze went to my hairline, but not without struggle. I could see the emotion, the desire. It mirrored my own. Could it be that Summer was fighting this just as much as I was? Could it be that she wanted it just as badly? But then, she opened her mouth and shattered my optimism.

“When you love someone. Real love,” she said as her hands sank into my hair again, “the magic never dies. Even if they do.”

And that’s when I knew. I’d never have Summer. She belonged to someone else.

CHAPTER 9

Summer

I’d made a promise to Michael and I intended to keep it. As I readied for bed, that was all I could think about: Michael. He haunted my dreams for the first month after he died. So much so, I feared going to bed. Insomnia claimed me for a time, but I knew I couldn’t let something like sleeplessness rob me anymore. I told Michael to stay out of my dreams. And he’d done it.

I slipped my swimsuit off and put my shorts and T-shirt back on. The bed cracked and popped as I stretched out, but my thoughts were plagued with Michael. I felt like I’d somehow done something horrible . . . horrible and raw and he was looking down on me with so much disapproval that I wanted to just curl up in my memories and forget anything else.

I took deep breaths, trying to force my taut muscles to release at least some of the tension they held. A beam of moonlight cast a silvery glow across the room. I stared at the tiny dust particles trapped in it like glitter in a snow globe until my eyes became so heavy I could no longer keep them open. Michael’s face was the last thing I remembered.

Bray

Something harsh woke me. I tried to force the grog from my mind and body, but everything was dreamlike and heavy. What had I heard? Some unnamable sound had jarred me awake. I sat up on my makeshift bed, waiting, listening. The front porch wasn’t much shelter from wild animals — this was a jungle after all. I tried to remember the sound that woke me, but couldn’t. It had been shrill, and close. My eyes took in the landscape. There could be jaguars on the island.

I heard no movement as my gaze trailed from the lagoon to the partial moon hanging above. Below me, the fire had burned down to fading golden coals. I stood up as quietly as possible on the tarp and waited. Nothing. I didn’t bother to pull my shirt on, but knew I needed to stoke up the fire. It wasn’t much, but might deter a hungry animal.

With the fire ablaze and no sign of danger, I returned to the porch and stared out over the water. It was ink-dark with silver-white moonlight catching the movement of wind-rippled sea. Stars punctured the sky, tiny holes in black canvas. For the first time since we’d been here, I almost felt like I was camping, and I felt my pulse settle. I owed my dad a lot for all he’d taught me. Things like how to build a fire and keep it burning. How to avoid using poison oak as toilet paper. Mom always packed the first aid kit, instructing me on each item from bug bite ointment to Neosporin. Every. Single. Trip. I’d tease her, saying we were manly men and just rubbed a little dirt in our cuts. She’d purse her mouth and those dimples would appear on each cheek. Joshie had those too. I missed Joshie.