The Summer I Turned Pretty (15 page)

"I'm really glad you came," I told him.

He took my hand and said, "Me too. I'm glad you're glad."

"Of course I'm glad."

I let go of his hand to roll up the bottoms of my jeans, and he said, quietly, "It didn't seem like you were that glad."

172

"Well, I am." I looked up at him and gave him a quick kiss. "See? This is me, being glad."

He smiled and we started walking again. "Good. So which one of those guys was your first kiss?"

"I told you that?"

"Yup. You said your first kiss was a boy at the beach when you were thirteen."

"Oh." I looked up at his face in the moonlight, and he was still smiling. "Guess."

Immediately he said, "The older one, Conrad."

"Why'd you guess him?"

He shrugged. "Just a feeling, the way he looks at you."

"He hardly looks at me at all," I told him. "And you're wrong, Sextus. It was Jeremiah."

173

chapter twenty - eight

AGE 14

"Truth or dare?" Taylor asked Conrad.

"I'm not playing," he said.

Taylor pouted. "Don't be so gay," she said. Jeremiah said, "You shouldn't use the word 'gay' like

Taylor opened her mouth and closed it. Then she said, "I didn't mean anything by it, Jeremy. I just meant he's being lame."

"Well, 'gay' doesn't mean 'lame,' Taylor, now does it?" Jeremiah said. He spoke in a sarcastic tone, but even mean attention was better than no attention. Probably he was just mad about all the attention she'd been giving Conrad that day.

Taylor heaved a great big sigh and turned to Conrad.

174

"Conrad, you're being very lame. Play truth or dare with us.

He ignored her and turned the volume on the TV up louder. Then he pretended to mute her with the remote, which made me laugh out loud.

"Fine, he's out. Steven, truth or dare."

Steven rolled his eyes. "Truth."

Taylor's eyes lit up. "Okay. How far did you go with Claire Cho?" I knew she'd been saving that one up for a long time, waiting for the exact moment she could ask. Claire Cho was a girl that Steven had dated for most of freshman year. Taylor swore Claire had cankles, but I thought Claire's ankles were perfectly slim. I thought Claire Cho was kind of perfect.

Steven actually blushed. "I'm not answering that."

"You have to. It's truth or dare. You can't sit here and listen to other people tell secrets if you're not going to," I said. I had been wondering about him and Claire too.

"Nobody's even told any secrets yet!" he protested.

"We're about to, Steven," Taylor said. "Now man up and tell us."

"Yeah, Steven, man up," Jeremiah chimed in.

We all started to chant, "Man up! Man up!" Even Conrad turned the TV on mute to hear the answer.

"Fine," Steven said. "If you shut up, I'll tell you."

We shut right up and waited. "Well?" I said.

"Third," he said at last.

175

I relaxed back into the couch. Third base. Wow. Interesting. My brother had been to third base. Weird. Gross.

Taylor looked pink with satisfaction. "Well done, Stevie."

He shook his head at her and said, "Now it's my turn." He looked around the room, and I sank deep into the couch cushions. I really, really hoped he wasn't going to pick me and make me say it out loud--how I hadn't even so much as kissed a boy yet. Knowing Steven, he would.

He surprised me when he said, "Taylor. Truth or dare?" He was actually playing along.

Automatically she said, "You can't pick me because I just asked you. You have to pick someone else." Which was true, that was the rule.

"Are you scared, Tay-Tay? Why don't you man up?"

Taylor hesitated. "Fine. Truth."

Steven grinned evilly. "Who would you kiss in this room?"

Taylor considered it for a few seconds, and then she got that cat-that-ate-the-canary look on her face. It was the same look she'd had on her face when she'd dyed her little sister's hair blue when we were eight. She waited until she had everyone's attention, and then she said, triumphantly, "Belly."

There was a stunned kind of silence for a minute, and then everyone started to laugh, Conrad loudest. I threw a pillow at Taylor, hard.

176

"That's not fair. You didn't answer for real," Jeremiah said, shaking his finger at her.

"Yes, I did," Taylor said smugly. "I pick Belly. Take a closer look at everybody's favorite little sister, Jeremy. She's turning hot before your very eyes."

I hid my face behind a pillow. I knew I was blushing even harder than Steven had. Mostly because it wasn't true, I wasn't turning hot before anyone's eyes, and we all knew it. "Taylor, shut up. Please shut up."

"Yes, please shut up, Tay- Tay," Steven said. He looked kind of red too.

"If you're so serious, then kiss her," said Conrad, his eyes still on the TV.

"Hey," I said, glaring at him. "I'm a person. You can't just kiss me without my permission."

He looked at me and said, "I'm not the one who wants to kiss you."

Hotly, I said, "Either way, permission not granted. To either of you." I wished I could stick my tongue out at him without being accused of being a big baby.

Taylor broke in quickly. She said, "I picked truth, not dare. That's why we're not kissing right now."

"We're not kissing right now because I don't want to kiss you," I told her. I felt flushed, partly because I was mad, and partly because I was flattered. "Now let's stop talking about it. It's your turn to ask."

"Fine. Jeremiah. Truth or dare."

177

"Dare," he said, leaning against the couch lazily.

"Okay. Kiss somebody in this room, right now ."Taylor looked at him confidently and waited.

It felt like the whole room was sitting on the edge of its seat while we waited for Jeremiah to say something. Would he actually do it? He was not the kind of guy to pass up a dare. I, for one, was curious about what kind of kisser he'd be, if he'd go for a French or if he'd give her a quick peck. I also wondered if it would be their first kiss, or if they'd kissed sometime earlier in the week, like at the arcade when I wasn't looking, maybe. I was pretty sure they had.

Jeremiah sat up straight. "Easy," he said, rubbing his hands together with a smile. Taylor smiled back and tilted her head to the side so her hair fell in her eyes just a little bit.

Then he leaned over to me and said, "Ready?" and before I could answer, he kissed me right on the lips. His mouth was a little bit open, but it wasn't a French kiss or anything. I tried to push him off, but he kept on kissing me, for a few more seconds.

I pushed him off again, and he leaned back into the couch, as casual as can be. Everyone else was sitting there with their mouths hanging open, except for Conrad, who didn't even look surprised. But then, he never looked surprised. I, on the other hand, was finding it kind of hard to breathe. I had just had my first kiss. In front of people. In front of my brother.

178

I couldn't believe that Jeremiah had stolen my first kiss like that. I had been waiting, wanting it to be special, and it had happened during a game of truth or dare. How unspecial could you get? And to top it all off, he had only done it to make Taylor jealous, not because he liked me.

It had worked. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was staring at Jeremiah like he had thrown down some kind of gauntlet. Which, I guess he kind of had.

"Gross," Steven said. "This game is gross. I'm outta here." Then he looked at all of us disgustedly and left.

I got up too, and so did Conrad. "See ya," I said. "And, Jeremiah, I'm getting you back for that."

He winked and said, "A back rub should make us about even," and I threw a pillow directly at his head and slammed the door behind me. The fact that he was being fake-flirty was the worst part. It was so patronizing, so demeaning.

It took me about three seconds before I realized that Taylor wasn't coming after me. She was inside, laughing at Jeremiah's dumb jokes.

In the hallway, Conrad gave me his trademark knowing look and said, "You know you loved it."

I glared at him. "How would you know? You're too obsessed with yourself to notice anybody else."

He walked away from me and said over his shoulder, "Oh, I notice everything, Belly. Even poor little you."

"Screw you!" I said, because that was all I could think

179

of. I could hear him chuckling as he shut his bedroom door.

I went back to my room and got under the covers. I closed my eyes and replayed and replayed what had just happened. Jeremiah's lips had touched my lips. My lips were no longer my own. They had been touched. By
Jeremiah.
I had finally been kissed, and it was my friend Jeremiah who'd been the one to do it. My friend Jeremiah who had been ignoring me that whole week.

I wished I could talk to Taylor. I wished we could talk about my first kiss, but we couldn't, because right this minute she was downstairs kissing the same boy who had just kissed me. I was sure of it.

When she came back upstairs an hour later, I pretended I was sleeping.

"Belly?" she whispered across the room.

I didn't say anything, but I stirred a little, for effect.

"I know you're still awake, Belly," she said. "And I forgive you."

I wanted to sit right up and say, "You forgive me? Well, I don't forgive you, for coming here and ruining my whole summer." But I didn't say any of it. I just kept fake-sleeping.

The next morning I woke up early, just after seven, and Taylor was already gone. I knew where she was. She'd gone to watch the sunrise with Jeremiah. We'd been planning to

180

go watch the sunrise on the beach one morning before she left, but we always overslept. It was her second to last morning, and she'd chosen Jeremiah. Figured.

I changed into my bathing suit and headed for the pool. In the mornings it was always a little cold outside, just a little bit of bite to the air, but I didn't mind. Swimming in the mornings made me feel like I was swimming in the ocean even when I wasn't. In theory swimming in the ocean sounds great and all, but the salt water burned my eyes too much to do it every day. Plus, the pool was more private, more my own. Even though everyone else swam in it too, in the mornings and at night I had it pretty much to myself, besides Susannah.

When I opened the gate to the pool, I saw my mother sitting in one of the lounge chairs reading a book. Except she wasn't really reading it. She was more just holding it and staring off into space.

"Hi, Mom," I said, more to break her out of her spell than anything else.

She looked up, startled. "Good morning," she said, clearing her throat. "Did you sleep well?"

I shrugged and dropped my towel onto the chair next to hers. "I guess," I said.

My mother shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at me. "Are you and Taylor having fun?"

"Tons," I said. "Buckets full."

"Where is Taylor?"

181

"Who knows?" I said. "Who cares?" "Are you two fighting?" my mother asked casually. "No. I'm just starting to wish I hadn't brung her, is all."

"Best friends are important. They're the closest thing to a sister you'll ever have," she told me. "Don't squander it."

Irritably I said, "I haven't squandered anything. Why do you always have to put the blame on me for everything?"

"I'm not blaming you. Why must you always make things about you, dear?" My mother smiled at me in her infuriatingly calm way.

I rolled my eyes and jumped backward into the pool. It was freezing cold. When I came up to the surface, I yelled, "I don't!"

Then I started my laps, and whenever I thought about Taylor and Jeremiah, I got madder and pushed harder. By the time I was done, my shoulders burned.

My mother had left, but Taylor and Jeremiah and Steven were just coming in.

"Belly, if you swim too much, you'll get those broad swimmer's shoulders," Taylor warned, dipping her foot in the water.

I ignored her. What did Taylor know about exercise? She thought walking around the mall in high heels was exercise. "Where were you guys?" I asked, floating on my back.

182

"Just hanging out," Jeremiah said vaguely.

Judas, I thought. A bunch of Benedict Arnolds. "Where's Conrad?"

"Who knows? He's too cool to hang out," Jeremiah said, falling onto a lounge chair.

"He went running," Steven said, a tad defensively. "He has to get in shape for football season. He has to leave for practice next week, remember?"

I remembered. That year Conrad had to leave early so he could get back in time for tryouts. He'd never seemed like the football type to me, but there he was, trying out for the team. I guessed Mr. Fisher had a lot to do with it; he was exactly the type. So was Jeremiah. Although he'd never take it seriously. He never took anything seriously.

"I'll probably play for the team next year too," Jeremiah said casually. He sneaked a peek at Taylor to see if she looked impressed. She didn't. She wasn't even looking at him.

His shoulders sagged a little, and I felt sorry for him despite myself.

I said, "Jere, race me, okay?"

He shrugged and stood up, taking off his shirt. Then he walked over to the deep end and dove in. "You want a handicap?" he asked when he emerged up top.

"No. I think I can beat you without one," I said, paddling over.

"Whoo-hoo! Let's see."

183

We raced across the length of the pool, freestyle, and he beat me the first time, and then the second. But I wore him down by the third and fourth and beat him too. Taylor cheered me on, which only annoyed me more.

The next morning she was gone again. This time, though, I was gonna join them. It wasn't like she and Jeremiah owned the beach. I had just as much right as they did to watch the sunrise. I got up, put my clothes on, and headed outside.

I didn't see them at first. They were farther down than usual, and they had their backs to me. He had his arms around her, and they were kissing. They weren't even watching the sunrise. And ... it wasn't Jeremiah, either. It was Steven. My brother.