The Summer Remains (24 page)

“And thank you for being so lovable,” Cooper said as he kissed my sweaty forehead, his voice scratchier than normal. The casual touch was a bit awkward after his aggressive display before, but I tried not to break eye contact. Fleetingly I wondered if my hair smelled good. “And it’s not cheesy,” he said with a sad smile. “You stuck with me through my weird meltdown thing in the garage. I will stick with you through anything. Even if you are a frustrating little knucklehead sometimes.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just tried to catch my breath.

“You know something?” he asked after a moment, lost in wonder. “Remember when we met, and I didn’t text you for a few days after that?”

“Yeah?”

“
Well
, I was trying to save you from me. From my…situation. But I failed. It was useless, because I couldn’t turn off my feelings for you even if I’d wanted to.”

“I know what you mean.
Trust me
. This whole summer has been one long exercise in trying to save you from myself.”

He smirked into the darkness.

“What is it?” I asked, and he rolled over and rested his head on his bicep, a twinkle in his eye.

“There was another reason I called Last Great Hope, you know.”

Oh no,
I thought.
Elopement. Cheesy ring. Shotgun wedding in someone’s backyard the day before the surgery.
I wanted love, sure, but not
that
kind of love, the kind I knew Shelly would try to force onto Cooper’s shoulders.

“There was?”

“Yep,” he smiled. “The nurses told me to get laid.”

“Cooper! That’s why we came here? Are you serious?”

“
Hell
to the no,” he said. “I still wanted to bust you out of the hospital, remember? I didn’t want you to spend your only days before surgery locked up in that room.” He smirked that patented Nichols Smirk. I’d seen his mom do it a few times, too, and it seemed like they’d gotten the whole business down to an art form. “But honestly, it was in the back of my mind. I think the nurses felt sorry for me and wanted to help out.”

“You dick,” I said, and his smirk grew into a full-on smile.

“Tell me something else, Sum: was I your first?”

I looked away. What did he think this was, some cheesy college-aged romance novel starring an impossibly naïve heroine who’d never even been kissed before? I’d never been able to lock anyone down into a relationship, sure, but still, Autumn had lots of guy friends, and she’d been stealing bottles of vodka from her oblivious grandpa and arranging backyard get-togethers since we were seventeen – get-togethers involving hammocks that were far away from any scar-revealing fluorescent lights, might I add.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but no. Don’t worry, though, the previous guy was completely awful, and I barely knew him. He didn’t know my elbow from my kneecap, and I ended the whole thing and put it out of its misery before twenty minutes had passed. Maybe I should’ve stayed with him out of punishment and made
him
deal with this summer instead of you, actually, since he was so bad.”

Now Cooper was the one looking away. “Please don’t say things like that anymore, Summer. Seriously.”

“You
are
mad, though,” I told him. “You can admit it. It’s okay.”

He stared into the bathroom, his eyes impassive. “Fine. I am. But I’m not
that
mad, and I don’t want you to
think
I’m that mad, or that I regret this in any way. God knows I had nothing else to do this summer. You know, that’s why I’ve started writing-”

Out of nowhere I started choking on my spit, since sometimes it had nowhere to go but out of my mouth.

“What is it?” he asked, propping himself up and scooting closer. “Don’t cry, it’s fine, let me just-”

“No,” I said, “I’m not crying, I just have to vomit.”

“
Oh
.”

He jumped up, grabbed a plastic grocery bag from the bathroom, and held it under me as I emptied the contents of my throat and stomach into it. He did his best to try to act like he wasn’t grossed out, but he was. Anyone would have been. Soon I was crying, the tears mixing in with the bile dripping from my lips.

“Stop it,” he said after he threw away the bag and gave me some paper towels for my mouth. “I can deal with a little vomit.”

There was something else in his eyes, something he couldn’t say.

“Do you want to know what it feels like, not having a throat?” I asked after I cleaned myself, and he nodded.

“I guess. It would help me understand.”

“Okay. Remember those little straw tubes you’d get out of candy machines or at the fair or whatever, those Chinese Finger Traps, where you’d put in your fingers and it would contract and they’d get stuck? That’s the only way I know how to describe it. It’s just…too tight. Things come up, but nothing goes down.”

He bit his lip, his eyes full of thunderheads I had never seen in them. “I’m very sorry you have to deal with that, Summer. Do you want to sleep?”

I nodded and put my head against the inside of his leg so I could feel his pulse. Within minutes I had started to drift away, accompanied by the cruelest irony I had ever known: only now that I knew my life was probably finite was I truly enjoying it. Here I was, gallivanting around town with the hot boy of my dreams, and I was fine. I really
could
live normally. If only I could go back, armed with the knowledge and the bravery and the love I had now. How differently things could have turned out…how happy the scarred girl with the hole in her throat could have been…

Another thought came to me, and I slowly sat up again. “And one last thing. Remember today at the Kissing Tree or whatever? This is crazy, but I thought you were going to-”

That’s when Cooper’s eyes got very large and he told me I was bleeding.

“What?” I asked with a smile, his words not registering.

“You’re…you’re bleeding, Summer.”

I looked down and gasped at the trail of bloody bile that was seeping out of my feeding tube.

20

We drove an hour straight to my hospital, back to where this had all started. Dr. Steinberg was eating dinner downtown when we arrived, so to stabilize me they immediately admitted me and wrapped so many bandages around my midsection I looked like an Egyptian mummy. When Steinberg got there I was put to sleep and they performed an endoscopy, and I awoke the next morning to some bad news. I was basically okay, but I’d done
way
too much in St. Augustine, apparently, and some internal bleeding originating from my stomach had set off a chain reaction, and…the result was not good. Dr. Dill was being called to Florida, and my surgery was being moved up. I now had thirty-six hours until the Hail Mary. So much had been accomplished with Cooper in St. Augustine, and yet I felt like it had all been wiped away in a moment again, sending us back to square one. So it goes, right?

They dressed my stomach tube with bandages again and sent me home for two nights. Cooper drove me to Shelly’s, wracked with guilt all the while. Obviously my latest setback wasn’t his fault, but he wouldn’t listen. Still, he kissed me quietly in the driveway under the oaks before heading back to his mom’s, saying he wanted to give me time alone with my family, which I understood. I spent the rest of the day at home with them. My dad dropped by from Orlando and sort of awkwardly sat there making the smallest of small talk for a few hours while Chase played video games and my mom and my aunt silently glared from the kitchen. Shelly’s much older half-sister, Susan, didn’t have much going on in her life, and we’d sort of absorbed her as part of my family since she was a divorcee with no children of her own. Ever since my parents’ split she had shown her sisterly support by hating the shit out of my dad, and it struck me as a weird and awkward and selfish thing to do around me. Divorce: another thing that sucked almost as much as health problems.
Why
did I always have to feel like the only adult in the room, again? Why couldn’t Aunt Kathryn, my dad’s sister who was totally normal and respectable and dignified, have come instead? Ugh.

I ended up passing out on the couch while everyone watched
Home Alone
for some reason, and the day before my surgery arrived bright and humid, just like any other day, except it wasn’t any other day. Not to me, at least. My pierced stomach was in knots from the second I woke in a panicked sweat at six in the morning. I wanted to make time slow down, but I was in such a panicked cloud of anxiety,
nothing
would work. I was on a collision course with fate, and there would be no jumping off this train, wherever it was headed.

At around ten most of the Anti-Support Group showed up and congregated in the dining room with my mom and Susan while different members came up to see me one by one. One last meeting, I guess. Because the whole surgery process had been sped up so majorly, things felt pretty thrown-together, but still, I think people knew what they had to do.

First to approach me was Hank, the one-armed veteran.

“So, I hear the chances may not be great,” he said, in lieu of a greeting.

“They are certainly not astounding, no.”

“Yeah,” he said. “This is really shitty.”

“I know. Life’s just shitty sometimes, until it’s not life anymore, I guess.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, I want you to have something.” He took a short, rusted, jagged piece of metal out of his pocket. “Um, I know this might sound weird or whatever, but this a piece of shrapnel they removed from my shoulder after my truck drove over an IED, and, uh, I wanted you to have it.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it. “Um, thanks, Hank, but…
why
?”

“Because you saved my life,” he said simply.

“I…
what
?”

“Six months ago I had a plan to kill myself,” he said flatly as he stared down at me. “I was going to tie a cinder block around my ankles and jump off the end of the pier at night. I had the block, the rope, everything. And then I met you in Publix that day and you invited me to the group, and everything changed. You were the only person in my life who ever listened to me, Summer. The
only
one. Everyone else fell away, got sick of listening to me complain, whatever, which I kind of understood, but then I found you, and you sat there and listened to me pour my broken heart out every Thursday – in my own way, at least. Anyway, feeling like you’re being heard is a huge thing for a person. The hugest, probably. I can’t even…yeah.”

I shuddered, and he continued. “Anyway, you were the only person who made me feel like I mattered, and you made me decide to stay. So, because you saved me, I thought I’d give you the thing that almost killed me, because you need to know that people can overcome things – because you
will
overcome this surgery. I know it. Oh,” he added, “and I also wanted to give it to you because I’m kind of in love with you?”

He’d added on that last part so casually, I almost hadn’t noticed it. I sort of squirmed a little and then reached up to hug him, whiplashed. He returned the hug, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

“Oh, uh, thank you, Hank!” I said as I sort of patted him on the shoulder with one hand and took the shrapnel with the other. “Thanks so much. God, I don’t even know what to say, that was all so nice of you to share with me. And thanks for this, um…shrapnel?”

“No problem,” he said. “Oh, and Summer?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell that pretty boy from the meeting to take good care of you, because if he doesn’t, I would love to in his place.”

“I’ll tell him,” I nodded through a fake smile as he turned and went back to the kitchen.

Kim wheeled up after that.

“Well look at us now,” I said as she stopped beside me, motioning at our chairs. “We match. We’re wheelchair sisters now.”

“I love it,” she laughed in her high-pitched voice. “Speaking of that, this is for you.” She reached into her purple purse and took out a small vanity mirror.

“Um, thanks,” I said as I took it. “But a mirror? What is this for?”

“I don’t need it anymore,” she said. “You know, before the Anti-Support Group, I used to sit in my house all day staring into that thing, hating how I looked, hating my whole life and stuff. But after I met you, I stopped. You listened to me, and you introduced me to friends, and you were the only person who ever made me feel pretty. I mean, I get compliments, but
fake ones
. Everyone else talks down to me like I’m a little puppy because of the wheelchair and everything. But you’re the only person who talks to me like I’m an actual
person
, not some charity case, and makes me feel like I’m really loved by someone. My
parents
don’t even make me feel like you do, Summer. I’m really glad I met you.
Really
. And just know this: whatever happens now, wherever you go, I’ll be waiting.”

“Oh,
Kim
.”

I leaned over and wrapped my arms around her bony body. Sometimes words weren’t enough. Just hugs.

The younger members came and went, unable to really say much about my situation, which was fine. Last to come over was Autumn, which was a relief, since I knew there would be no waterworks with her. I lit up as she threw her arms around me.

“Hey, bitch,” she said as she sat on the coffee table and crossed her legs. “Good to see you again. Hope you had fun in St. Auggy. And sorry for, you know, nearly ruining your one great chance at love, or whatever that whole thing was.”

“Yeah, about that…not your best moment.”

“Ugh, I know. My mom had literally
just
told me that morning, and when I ran into Cooper, I just kind of…lost it. But honestly, it’s not my journey to comment on, and I should’ve kept my nose out of it, as usual.
Whoops
. Sorry again.” She rested a hand on my knee and let out a long, dramatic sigh. “So, the shy girl used Spark to land the hottie after all. I still can’t believe it. What was it like? What happened after I blabbed and it all fell down? Was that, like,
real
the other night, or were you just acting like you weren’t mad at him to be polite?”

I stared out of the window at my cat as she chased around a lizard in the bushes, just trying to get by in this too-big world. I breathed for a moment and pictured that night of chaos in the garage – the night he’d finally let me in.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I had this vision of him as some knight on a horse, this outrageously perfect boy who never got it wrong or stepped out of line.” I tried to hold in the tears. “And then he had that meltdown, and dropped all the cheesy, affected lines and everything, and I got to know the real Cooper a little bit better, and let me tell you…the reality of him was so much better than that. The version of him I found under that façade was even better than anything I knew before. The way he stuck with me in the hospital, the way he took me off for that little vacation…
ugh
. Maybe I should thank you, actually.”

She started crying, and I followed suit. I’d been wrong: there would be waterworks.

“God, look at us,” she finally said, “we’re a mess. All I came here to do was say thanks for dealing with all of us losers every Thursday in the group.”

“You’re not losers,” I laughed with wet eyes. “Because if you are, then I’m, like,
below
loser status, and I don’t even know what that is. Part-time Taco Bell employee, maybe?”

She laughed her big, goofy laugh that made me feel like a teenager in a mall again.

“Listen,” she said, “there is another thing. I know I’ve seen you, like, every day this summer, and will probably see you again before surgery, but since bringing a present has become, like, ‘a thing’ today and all, I wanted to give you something, too, since I am nothing but a brainless lamb who also uses too many run-on sentences. Hold on.”

She walked to the foyer and then brought back a garment bag. “So,” she said as she lifted something pink out of the bag, “like, I know I always complain about not having a fiancé or whatever, and God knows I’m not any closer to getting engaged. Like,
at all
. I’ve had one date lately, come to think of it, and the guy literally left the bar early because I wouldn’t stop asking him what he wanted to name his firstborn, which wasn’t exactly the best first-date behavior on my part, looking back on it. But anyway, whatever happens with the surgery, I just wanted to make sure you’ll still be a bridesmaid at my wedding, if it ever happens, God willing. Because I am a psychopath, I already picked out my bridesmaids dresses years ago, and yesterday I got one for you.” She held up the dress. Pale pink and floaty, it was actually bereft of the Ugly Curse that seemed to befall most bridesmaid dresses, and it was actually kind of pretty. “So, Summer,” she said, “whatever happens tomorrow, will you take this, and will you still be in my wedding?”

“I would
love
to be in your completely theoretical wedding,” I said as I laughed through the tears falling from my eyes and took the dress. “There would be no greater theoretical honor.”

“Awesome!” she beamed. “And I promise not to get too emotional during the vow exchange, I know how you hate cheesy stuff. I’ll keep it to, like, three crying sessions, I promise.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And Autumn?”

“Yeah?”

“I forgive you for the Cooper thing. Really. I don’t want to be on a bad note with you, or whatever.”

“Good,” she said as she kissed my forehead. “And I’m sorry, once again, for being such a drunken, big-mouthed bitch.”

“All is forgiven. But, actually: one
more
thing.”

“Yes?”

“Please go talk to Hank and distract him,” I said as I threw a glance over at the dining table. “He’s basically raping me with his eyes right now, and I really have to call my Uncle Earl and pretend like I remember what the hell his homemade pepper sauce tastes like, so…yeah. I need a break.”

She cast a flirty look over at Hank. “Wait – you mean he’s horny?” she asked, a new light in her eyes. “Maybe I should go investigate this. Besides that whole one-armed thing, he really
is
kinda cute. I’ve always liked depressed bad boys, after all.”

“Okay, you did
not
just say that. Are you
really
trying to pick up a dude at our final goodbye session?”

She ignored me and pranced toward the dining room with a determined smile on her face.

Night came at light speed, and soon it was time for my last supper, or maybe-not-last supper, or whatever this was. Dr. Steinberg had arranged for Last Great Hope to send me out to dinner, and I’d decided on this place called Ruth’s Chris in Ponte Vedra, the fancy part of my city. This was both because I’d really liked steak on the few occasions I’d been able to swallow pieces of it, and also because I wanted to go to the most expensive restaurant I could think of and hit up Last Great Hope for all they had. (My own little way of getting revenge on the world, I guess.) And I instantly knew who I wanted to go with.

Of course, Shelly really didn’t want me to leave and begged me to spend every possible moment with her, but I overruled her. In the end she relented and helped me get into my dress for the night, this golden thing I’d worn to my senior prom. I’d gone with a group of girls I barely knew who had invited me out of pity, and the whole thing was awful and miserable, but hey, at least I’d gotten a good dress out of it. After Shelly did my makeup she stood back and tried to figure out what to do with my hair. It was basically falling out in clumps now since my damaged stomach wasn’t digesting any nutrients from the milk, and what
did
remain was dry and brittle as a bone left out in the sun. So Shelly decided to just grease it and put it in a bun, and when she was done she wheeled me over to the mirror to see how I looked.