Next Summer (11 page)

Ella had thought, for almost a year now, that the worst thing that could possibly happen would be Kelsi finding out what had happened with Peter. But it turned out that Kelsi’s
finding out
wasn’t half as bad as what happened next: Kelsi hating her.

That part of it was almost funny, actually. Ella had spent years being irritated to death by Kelsi. It seemed ridiculous—in a way that tore at her heart—to suddenly regret losing someone she’d only valued for so short a time. Ella was surprised how much it hurt. Seriously hurt, like some kind of emotional flu that made all her bones ache with it. Even if there was a tiny part of her that was relieved that all the secrecy was over now—Kelsi knew and there was no more worrying
when
or
if
.

The morning after the Peter disaster, Ella wandered out into the yard to find Beth already there with the three younger cousins, refereeing a game of badminton. Jessi whaled on the
birdie, and it went completely wide of the net, which sent both her brothers into gales of laughter. Her next birdie nearly took Jordan’s head off.
A girl after my own heart,
Ella thought. Then she saw the way Beth pinched her lips together when she caught sight of Ella approaching, and Ella’s stomach sank. Kelsi must have told her.

“Are you going down to the beach?” Ella asked in a casual tone. If Beth was mad at her, too, there was nothing she could do except muddle through it.

“Later,” Beth said. Ella thought that Beth was concentrating a little too hard on the badminton.
She doesn’t want to look at me,
Ella realized. She felt that much worse, and then, defiantly, sort of mad about it. Why was Beth taking sides?

“Well,” Ella said, feeling awkward and angry. “I don’t think—”

“Look,” Beth said, cutting her off. Ella didn’t like the expression on her cousin’s face. It was hard and hot and made Ella feel like crying again. “I was up all night with Kelsi so I’m a little wiped, okay?”

“You don’t even know my side of it all,” Ella said, her voice cracking.

“Is there one?” Beth asked, her eyebrows raised. “I don’t know, El. This situation seems like a no-brainer to me.”

Ella didn’t have a response. She felt like her heart had gone through a food processor. The guilt was that overwhelming.

“I just…” Ella couldn’t finish the sentence. In her head, she had so many different explanations—and maybe that was
the problem. They all tangled around each other and by the time they got to her mouth, they hardly made sense anymore.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Beth said, and turned her head away. “It’s not my business anyway.”

A few days later, Ella found herself wandering through the little shops in town, comparing the prices of driftwood art and seashell necklaces. She picked up a statuette of a clamshell, complete with googly eyes and felt ears, and managed not to make a face. Did people really buy this junk? She put the clamshell back on its shelf, and smiled politely at the woman behind the counter.

Stepping out into the afternoon sunshine, Ella settled her sunglasses back on her nose. Kelsi was still avoiding her like the plague, while Beth was all wrapped up in G-2. But Ella was cool with it. She didn’t mind being alone, she told herself. It was nice not to check with anyone else if she wanted to hang out on the pier at night, staring at the water and ignoring the millions of kissing couples. It was all Ella, all the time, and why shouldn’t she enjoy her own company?

She set off down the sidewalk, avoiding a gridlock of strollers.
Who am I kidding?
She was lonely—a new feeling for her. And she was beginning to worry that maybe she didn’t even know what love was. It sounded melodramatic when she
thought about it like that, but deep down, it rang true. She’d messed up pretty badly when it came to loving her sister, so maybe it wasn’t a surprise that she couldn’t seem to find a real, loving relationship with a boy. Every time she started to focus on a guy, she got distracted by some other hot body or chiseled face, and Ella forgot all about the promises she made to herself. Maybe some people weren’t made to have real relationships. Maybe some people were supposed to be on their own.

Ella tried to convince herself that she didn’t mind if she was one of those people. She just wished that if that were true, it didn’t make her feel so empty and scared.

And that, Ella decided as she headed toward the nail salon, was about all the self-pity she could stomach. She was going to treat herself to a pedicure, and then she was going to move on. One way or another.

Evening was just starting to stretch out across the sky as Ella headed home. She opted for the long way around, so she could saunter past the lifeguard station and see if a certain frustrating-but-adorable boy happened to be hanging around.

Bingo. Jeremy was there, locking up the station and pocketing the keys. He’d pulled on a oversize charcoal gray sweatshirt, and looked deliciously windblown.

Ella quickly checked herself for potential humiliations. No food to dribble, and nothing to trip over. She was wearing flip-flops. She was about as safe as she was going to be.

She hung back as Jeremy swung a JanSport bag over his shoulder, and let him turn around and notice her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” he replied. He walked closer to her. Ella had to tilt her head back to keep looking him in the eye, and there was something exhilarating about having to do that.

“Are you okay?” he asked, startling her. Ella nodded, suddenly feeling choked up by his kindness. Nobody had been nice to her in days.

“Um,” Jeremy said softly. “Can I walk you home?” A red flush started behind his ears, Ella noticed, but he didn’t look away.

Ella didn’t feel as amused or triumphant as she did when other guys finally succumbed to her devices. And besides, Jeremy wasn’t really falling for her tricks. He was warming up to her because he wanted to, which made her happy. And, after her fight with Kelsi, she hadn’t thought happiness would be possible again. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“That would be great,” she whispered, and smiled a real smile for the first time in what seemed like eternity.

Over the next few days, Kelsi avoided the cottage as much as possible, and slept on the couch whenever she wasn’t crashing at Beth’s. Her dad noticed that something was up with her and Ella, but he hadn’t pried, which was for the best. Kelsi didn’t feel like talking to anyone. She decided that she would spend the rest of her days in Pebble Beach exploring the great outdoors, communing with nature the way she used to do when she was that trusting, idiot hippie chick.

The worst part of it, Kelsi thought one morning while she was getting tea at the organic café in town, was that she had no real reason to be upset. She hadn’t learned anything new, had she? Peter was an asshole and Ella…It hurt just to think about Ella, but Kelsi knew that her little sister had always been exactly what she was now revealed to be: egocentric, careless, recklessly cruel. It had just been the past year—when Ella
was all sweetness and light—that had been out of character, not what she’d done last summer.

Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her overalls, which startled her. She jumped a little bit, and then pulled it out.

Tim.

At first, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to talk to him. But then it dawned on her that Tim was totally unrelated to anything else that was going on in her life. He didn’t even know Ella existed, which made him just about the only person Kelsi could imagine talking to at the moment.

“I can’t believe you picked up,” Tim said when she answered.

“Neither can I,” Kelsi said, sitting back in her chair.

“I thought it would take at least six calls.”

“Six?” Kelsi wrinkled up her nose as she processed that. “Why six? Why not seven? Or, like, two?”

“Something about you, that night at the bonfire…” There was a teasing lilt to his voice. “Told me you were a six-calls kind of girl.”

“You’re completely bullshitting me.”

“Possibly,” Tim agreed.

“I guess I should be impressed that you admit it,” Kelsi said.

“That’s why you called?” Kelsi realized she was smiling. “To impress me?”

“I called because you look cute in your overalls,” Tim said.

Kelsi sat up straight and looked around, her heart pounding. He wasn’t sitting anywhere near her, which meant he had to be somewhere on the street, or even—

“Boo,” he said, walking out from inside the café and snapping his phone shut. “You looked much cuter a few seconds ago, when you were smiling. Just so you know.”

“You mean before I knew you were stalking me?” Kelsi glared at him as she turned off her phone.

“I don’t think my desire for morning coffee makes me a stalker, Kelsi,” Tim said in that carefree way of his. “How was I supposed to know you’d be here? Pebble Beach is a small town. There are only so many places to hide.”

She continued to glare at him, which had no discernible effect.

“So anyway,” he said after a moment. “Want to hang out? You look like you could use some fun.”

“Describe what you consider
fun
,” Kelsi shot back.

Tim’s grin widened.

“Hmm. I don’t think we’re ready for that yet,” he said. “That’s a third-date kind of thing, definitely.”

“Which will never happen,” Kelsi told him immediately. “Because we’re not dating.”
As if,
she thought, actually snorting to herself. Like she would be dumb enough to date this guy.

“I’m totally opposed to guns,” Kelsi said in her deeply offended, liberal hippie voice. That’s what Ella always called it—not that she wanted to think about Ella. “So maybe you should keep them to yourself.”

“You’re a smart girl,” Tim said. If he noticed the deeply offended liberal hippie voice, or the cold, anti-Ella voice, he didn’t show it. “You’re supposed to be wowed when I bust out my metaphors.”

Kelsi rolled her eyes, but maddeningly, she couldn’t keep herself from smiling.

“I have an idea,” Tim said after a moment. “But you have to trust me.”

“Count me out,” Kelsi said through a laugh that slipped out of her mouth when she wasn’t thinking.

“You
have
to trust me,” he said again, smiling a little.

“Well,” Kelsi said, “I’ll try.”

Tim laughed. “I guess that’s as good as it gets,” he said. “Come on. The day is slipping away.”

He put his hand on her wrist and tugged her to her feet like he didn’t have the slightest doubt that she’d be thrilled if he dragged her off somewhere.

As for Kelsi, she was surprised to notice that when she stopped trying to push Tim away, she actually kind of liked having him close by.

Beth had tried everything—sensory deprivation, reverse psychology, excessive exercising, anything to get her to stop thinking about Adam
that way.
But none of it worked. She was so exhausted from it that she just wanted to raise a white flag and admit defeat. Beth looked over at Adam one afternoon and the little voice sounded in her head, saying,
Just surrender.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He’d turned his head quicker than she’d thought he might, and caught her gawking at him.

“Nothing’s wrong!” Beth said abruptly. She smiled, embarrassed, and hoped the heat she could feel creeping along her jaw didn’t actually show.

They were spending another one of Adam’s lunch hours sitting up on their favorite rock overlooking the beach. Beth let her feet drum against the stone beneath her. She wished everything could be as simple as when she was staring blankly out at
the sea of water that stretched all the way to the horizon and then beyond.

“I’ve called Kelsi a couple of times, but I haven’t heard back,” Adam said. “Did she go on that road trip already?”

“Not yet,” she replied nonchalantly. “I was supposed to go with them, but it turns out I can’t.”

Adam looked at her for a moment, but didn’t say anything.

The silence loomed over them for a while, and Beth did everything she could not to stare at Adam. She was hyper-aware of him beside her. His skin was still damp despite the streaming sunshine. He smelled like a heady mix of coconut suntan lotion and salt water. She knew that if she smiled at him, he would smile back and his eyes would light up in a way that never failed to turn her to mush. But there was nothing wrong with yearning, was there? It was action that got you into trouble.

“I really like Kelsi,” Adam said suddenly, putting his sandwich down and brushing the crumbs from his hands. The queasy, jealous feeling Beth was becoming familiar with snaked around her abdomen and pulled tight.

“Kelsi’s great,” Beth said staunchly. She had no right to say anything else. She had no right to feel that sharp pang.

“You Tuttle ladies are all very cool,” Adam was saying. He turned his head and their eyes met. Beth found she was holding her breath.

“Here’s the real thing,” Adam said, ignoring her attempt at humor. He was still looking at Beth in that intense way.

And she knew, somehow, that she had to make sure he didn’t say whatever he was about to say. But she didn’t do anything that might distract him. In fact, Beth did the exact opposite.

“Here’s what thing?” she asked, and she could hear how breathy she sounded.
This is terrible,
she thought.
You have to stop this.

But Beth was frozen there on the rock with sand between her toes, her hair blowing slightly in the wind. And the only thing she saw was the expression on Adam’s face.

“I like your cousin,” he said, his eyes fixed on hers. “But you know who I
really
like?”

Beth knew this was where she should end this conversation. But he was smiling, and she could feel herself willing this into reality.

“Who?” she asked breathlessly.

“You.”

“Of course you, Beth,” he added, after a moment of silence. “It’s probably pretty obvious by now how I feel about you.”

There was no taking that back, Beth thought in the endless moment they were transfixed by each other. Of course she knew. She’d known each time they accidentally touched hands or knees while they were surfing. She’d known when he’d made those throwaway comments about skinny-dipping and
when he’d tensed up at the mention of George. And she’d secretly delighted in that knowledge. But knowing it was so different from hearing Adam say it.

Everything was all too real now.

“Adam…” Suddenly, there was a lump in her throat. She glanced away. “I have a boyfriend.”

“I know you do,” he said immediately. “I didn’t intend for this to happen. But I can’t get you out of my head, Beth.”

She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. Beth couldn’t take simmering in the sun with these feelings swirling all around them.

“Maybe I should go,” she said, sliding off the rock. He jumped down, too, and there was an awkward instant where Beth should have taken off, but instead felt stuck there in the sand.

“I don’t mean to make things hard for you,” Adam said.

Beth looked up at him, and saw all the confusion she felt written across his face.

“I just…” She shook her head. “I just have to go, okay?”

“I think this—” Adam never took his eyes off her face. “What’s happening between us is special.”

He moved closer as he said it. Beth looked up at him, and swallowed hard. He was so close now. She felt fear race through her—and something else. Longing. Desire.

“Adam, no.” But it was like she barely spoke at all. Like she’d only meant to speak her words and they had gotten lost somewhere between her head and her voice.

He didn’t say anything else, just leaned in and kissed her.
Beth felt his lips against hers, soft, sweet, and warm, and so new they made her tremble. Then his arms went around her. His mouth was urgent, hungry, eager to consume her. She responded to his kiss, drinking him in, her fingers in his hair.

Then she pulled away, breathless. She shook her head, overcome by what they’d done.

“Please, don’t fight this,” Adam whispered.

And for a split second, Beth agreed with every single particle of her being.

So it felt almost heroic when she forced herself to turn and walk away.