by Emily Lowry
“And he didn’t get me,” I said. “He had this vision of me. Of who he wanted me to be. And he was nice, so it’s not like he was forcing me to be that person or anything… but it’s like he ignored everything about me that wasn’t part of his vision. He liked the idea of me, but not actually me. And when someone only likes the idea of you, sooner or later, they will find out the idea of you isn’t the real you, and then they’ll break up with you anyway. So really, I did us both a favor.”
Dylan finished his burger and leaned back. “Profound, Jones.”
“Only because I’m tired.” I drank the last of my soda. “And what about you? What went down in the parking lot?”
“Lauren?” Dylan shrugged. “It was never gonna work. Same thing, really. She wanted us to be this super classy, super adult couple. She wanted our dates to be at museums and art galleries. I’m a bit too hard-headed for that.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “I really don’t think you’d understand art.”
“I could understand art.”
“Could you, though?”
“If I wanted to.”
I smirked. “Sure. You could TOTALLY understand the complexities of art.”
“Like you understand it.”
“I’ll have you know I went to a paint night once.”
Dylan looked at me innocently. “And I suppose because you can complete a connect-the-dots that means you can sketch, too?”
“Pfft — have you seen me with the mazes on the kids’ menu? I SLAY those.”
“They’re designed to be easy so kids feel a sense of accomplishment.”
“Good,” I said. “I feel very accomplished.”
Dylan laughed.
We sat in a companionable silence, the kind of quiet you can only enjoy with someone you’d known for most of your life. My mind wandered. I didn’t have a shift tomorrow, but the forecast called for rain — and lots of it. I didn’t feel like stumbling through the mall for twelve hours, so I would likely be trapped with my parents for most of the day. I hoped they wouldn’t argue too much. Or at least not too loud. That way—
“You okay?” Dylan asked.
“Sorry. Just thinking.”
“About?”
I sighed. “Trying to find a way out of the house tomorrow. You sure I can’t cover a shift? You don’t even have to pay me.”
“Don’t think that’s legal,” Dylan said. “But if you really want to get out of the house — I can hook you up.”
“How’s that?”
“With an old Ramirez tradition.” He winked. “If you’re willing to take a chance.”
24
Jordyn
Rain pattered against my bedroom window. Outside, the sky was a dismal grey, the streets slowly filling with puddles. There was no thunder, no lightning. Just rain.
Aside from the steady rainfall, and sometimes a slight burst of wind through the trees, there was no noise, either. Both of my parents were home, but they were keeping to different areas of the house. It still felt like things could explode at any moment, but at least for now, things were quiet.
I hopped off my bed and paced through the dirty laundry that covered my floor. Beneath my hoodie and shorts, I was wearing a bathing suit, as per Dylan’s instructions. Despite my incessant protests, he wouldn’t tell me what he had planned. And believe me — I begged.
Jordyn: Tell me.
Jordyn: Please.
Jordyn. What about now?
Jordyn: I’ll bake you cookies.
Jordyn: Better yet — I’ll let you bake ME cookies.
Jordyn: Tell me.
Jordyn: Are we there yet?
Jordyn: Come on.
Jordyn: Please? I’d tell you. Maybe.
Jordyn: Dyllllllaaaaannnnnn. It’s Jorddddyyyynnnnn. Tellllll meeeee.
Dylan: Do you want me to block your number?
Jordyn: Only after you tell me.
But, despite my best efforts, Dylan kept his mouth shut. So I was reduced to waiting.
Every time a car drove by our house, I scurried to the window to see if it was Dylan’s. Nervous energy bubbled inside me. I was excited to get out of the house. Excited to see Dylan. And not the normal excitement that comes with seeing a friend. This was something else.
Something more.
My phone vibrated.
Dylan: Here.
Jordyn: I’m not coming outside unless you TELL ME.
Dylan: Leaving in five.
Ugh.
Fine.
25
Dylan
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I waited for Jordyn to emerge. When I pulled up to her house, I had a moment of doubt. Was I supposed to knock on her front door? Honk my horn? Send a text?
When did a simple hang out session with Jordyn start to feel so complicated? And more importantly, WHY was it starting to feel so complicated? If Chase was there, I would’ve sent them both a text. I wouldn’t have even thought about it. So why did things feel different?
The front door opened and Jordyn popped out.
Sauntering through the rain, she adjusted her ponytail. Unlike other girls, she didn’t bring an umbrella or pull her hoodie over her head. In fact, she didn’t shield her hair from the rain at all. She just let it fall, smirking all the way.
And her cute, defiant smirk was making my heart do some very uncomfortable things.
Jordyn hopped in the car. “So. Where are you whisking me off to?”
“I’ve come this far, you think I’m going to give it away?”
“Yes.”
“You know me better than that, Jones.”
Jordyn buckled her seat belt. “And you know how persistent I can be.”
I cranked up the radio until it was so loud she had to cover her ears. I yelled above the music. “What’s that? I can’t hear you.”
Jordyn reached for the volume.
I swatted her hand away. “Driver picks the music!”
I shifted into gear, and we pulled away from her house.
26
Jordyn
Mercifully, Dylan let me turn down the radio as long as I promised not to badger him about where we were going or what we were doing. I didn’t love surprises, but I hoped that Dylan knew me well enough not to surprise me with something I didn’t want. We talked as we drove. Our conversation had an almost strange, practiced casualness to it. It’s like we were both avoiding anything too deep.
We followed a winding road through the foothills as Evermore fell behind us. The windshield wipers slipped across the glass as the rain thundered down. After forty-five minutes of driving, we passed an old wooden sign. It read:
Lake Evermore
I looked at Dylan like he was a crazy person. Because he was. “A lake day? In a rainstorm? Is there something you’re not telling me, Ramirez?”
“There’s a lot of things I don’t tell you, Jones,” he said. “For starters — did you know every member of the Ramirez family was born with gills?”
I snorted. “You know that makes you a mermaid, right?”
“Technically, the term is ‘merman’,” Dylan said. “And what we’re doing today is a Ramirez family tradition. I told Sofia the plan and she almost — ALMOST — wouldn’t let me bring you. Took a lot of convincing. And half my tips. We don’t get to do it that often, either. This is the type of thing you can only do while it’s raining.”
My curiosity was piqued. What on earth could you only do at a lake while it was raining?
We pulled into an empty parking lot, the tires rumbling over gravel.
“Leave your clothes in the car so they don’t get wet. You’ll want ‘em for the drive home.” Dylan hopped out of the car and whipped off his t-shirt, revealing a well-defined set of muscles underneath. I felt an instinctive urge to give his abs a quick jab to see if they were as hard as they looked, but instead I quickly looked away — after taking one last peek — and climbed out of the vehicle.
I stripped down to my bathing suit, feeling se
lf-conscious as I did. My body suddenly looked even more skinny and flat chested than usual. Lauren, for all her shortcomings, at least had cleavage. I knew that everyone was self-conscious about themselves now and again, but this was the first time in my life that I could remember feeling self-conscious about being in a bathing suit near Ramirez. We had spent every summer in my memory together, running around spray parks and jumping in outdoor pools. So why did I suddenly care what he thought about what I looked like?
You know why, Jordyn.
Shut up, brain.
Dylan opened the trunk. He heaved a giant roll of plastic sheeting out, like the kind professional painters used to wall off areas. It must have been at least six feet wide.
“Confession: I don’t love that you brought me to the middle of nowhere, and the first thing you do is pull out a giant roll of plastic. Is there a shovel back there, too?” I looked past him, but there was no shovel in the trunk. Only a few small canvas bags, the kind you use for tent pegs, and a hammer.
“What do you—”
“Patience, Jones,” Dylan said. “Good things come to those who wait.”
“Good things come to those that take them.”
Dylan grinned. He nodded towards the tent pegs. “Grab those and close up.”
I did.
Carrying the giant roll of plastic sheeting over his shoulder, Dylan led me to the top of a small — but steep — hill that overlooked the lake. He set down the roll of plastic, found its edge, then extended his hand.
“Pegs and hammer.”
I handed them over.
The plastic sheet, I saw now, had been modified to have several metal ring holes along its edge. Dylan inserted the pegs through the holes and hammered them, pinning the sheet to the ground. When he was finished, he unrolled the plastic another ten feet down the hill, then repeated the process, putting in more pegs.
When I realized what he was doing, I was more excited than a puppy going to its forever home.
“WAIT. NO. SHUT UP. IS THIS—”
Dylan laughed. Unwrapped another ten feet of plastic sheeting. Pinned it to the ground. “Now you’re getting it, Jones.”
“SHUT. UP.”
Dylan was making a gigantic Slip ‘n Slide.
27
Dylan
We stood at the top of the hill and admired our work. The plastic sheeting — modified by myself, Luis, and my dad — stretched from the top of the hill, across the beach, and into the lake. It was close to a hundred and fifty feet long, with pegs holding it down at ten-foot intervals. I couldn’t count the amount of times my family had come out to this hill on a rainy summer day and set up the Ramirez Slip ‘n Slide.
It had taken three summers to perfect. If the plastic was too thin, it tore. If you used the wrong camping pegs, you’d pull them out of the ground — or worse, they’d snag you on the way down. Even the angle you put them into the ground was important. I’d learned that lesson the hard way, and I still had a scar on my calf to prove it.
Jordyn stared at the sheet in awe. “Ramirez, this might be the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Not bad, right?” I smiled with pride. “Dad and Luis made the first one when I was seven. We were supposed to come out here for a regular lake day, but it was pouring rain. Mom insisted that we go anyway. Luis and I were whining that the lake had nothing fun to do in the rain. We wanted to go somewhere with a water slide.”
I grinned. I remembered Luis and I complaining the entire drive to the lake, dad getting more and more angry. “When we finally got here, dad was so mad. He had this giant plastic tarp leftover from doing renovations at Beachbreak. He threw it on the ground and shouted: you want a water slide, you make one! Then he stormed off. So, Luis and I fiddled with the plastic sheet. We put some sand piles on it to hold it in place. When Dad came back, he almost died laughing. He said he was joking, that we weren’t actually supposed to make one. But… the tradition stuck.”
Jordyn smiled. It wasn’t her usual smile, the one that was part smile, part challenge. It was softer, warmer. “I wish my family did things like that,” she said. “The only time we’re together is when we’re at one of Chase’s football games. Or when we’re at a restaurant trying to pretend we’re a happy family.”
Without thinking, I put my arm around her shoulder and gave her a half-hug. We both looked out over the lake, the water rippling under the rain.
“So,” I said. “There’s a rule you need to know about. So you don’t get hurt.”
“And what would that be?”
“Easy,” I said. “Last one in the lake loses.”
28
Jordyn
Silly, silly, Ramirez. You have to get up pretty early to pull one over on Miss Jordyn Jones. I expected Dylan to pull some kind of stunt, to try to make a getaway. So when he did, I was ready.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and clung to him the way a barnacle clings to a ship. Together, we stumbled and slipped over the wet grass, half-wrestling, until we reached the edge of the Ramirez Slip ‘n Slide.
As soon as our feet touched plastic, we both lost our balance. I flew through the air, looking like a cartoon character that slipped on a banana peel, and landed hard on my butt. Ramirez landed beside me.
Then gravity took over.
We started sliding towards the lake.
No, not sliding—
Careening.
Completely out of control.
But even the threat of tearing up the Slip ‘n Slide couldn’t stop us from fighting. We both wanted to be the first one in the water. Badly.
I grabbed Dylan’s shoulder and pulled as hard as I could, trying to sling shot myself past him.
Sliding on his back like a turtle, Dylan reached out and clutched my ankle.
Tried to pull me back.
I laughed, planted my foot on his forehead, and tried to push off.
The world blurred as we sped down the hill.
We hit the beach.
We were almost at the finish line—
Dylan, now with a wet heel print on his face, made a desperate grab for my other ankle. He pulled as hard as he could, practically climbing me like I was a tree. He wrapped his arms around me.
I squealed with delight and struggled to break free, feeling the warmth of his body against mine.
But he was too strong.
His foot caught the plastic, and we spun so that he would hit the water first.
He laughed triumphantly. “I—”
KERSPLASH.
We hit the water together, our momentum completely sapped, and we tumbled awkwardly, flipping end over end in the coldness of the mountain lake. Even underwater, our hands found each other, wrestling against one another.
We broke the surface together, Dylan’s arms around my waist, my arms around his neck. Somehow, my legs were around him too.
We were both laughing like maniacs, and I had the almost insatiable urge to rest my head on his shoulder, to—
DANGER, JORDYN. DANGER.
In the laughter, our eyes met. I’d never been this close to Dylan before. Never looked this deeply into his eyes. They were warm and inviting, like a spot by the fireplace after a freezing November day. There was a kindness to them I’d never noticed.
And a spark.
All the feelings of my childhood crush rose to the surface, a volcano about to explode. The crush that had never truly gone away, but had been buried deep, dormant, was once again alive, the dangerous heat of the lava dancing all over my skin.
Dylan’s dark eyes were locked on mine, a whirlpool of emotion.
Were we going to—
DANGER, JORDYN!
Without thinking, I lurched backward, kicked off Dylan’s chest, and swam to the beach, safely locking my feelings back down where they belonged. I needed to keep those buried.
“You win round one, Ramirez,” I said, crawling out of the water. “Best two out of three?”
We spent the rest of the day together. We
trudged to the top of the hill, then raced and wrestled our way to the bottom. At some point, we stopped keeping score — probably for the first time in my life. When we tired of racing, we started taking on ridiculous challenges.
I tried to surf the entire way down.
Dylan rolled down the hill like an egg.
I sat cross-legged and pretended to primp my hair and take selfies.
Dylan went on his knees and flexed his biceps, posing like a fitness model.
Throughout the day, rain poured.
And I never wanted it to stop.
29
Dylan
I pulled into the Beachbreak parking lot. Luis was already parked. There was a car beside his, one I had not expected to see—
Dad’s.
“This can’t be good.” I shifted into park, turned off my car, and headed for the back entrance. Even before stepping inside, I could hear Luis and Dad arguing over something. They weren’t shouting, but it was heated.
A tingle of dread crawled across my back. The only person more stubborn than my brother was my dad. Their arguments lasted so long that pages blew off the calendar and seasons changed. Mom liked to joke that they started arguing when Luis learned to talk, and they hadn’t stopped arguing since. I took a deep breath, shouldered open the door, and let their voices wash over me.
“You need to rest,” Luis said firmly. “Get strong.”
“I am strong,” Dad replied, a hint of anger in his voice.
“You know what I mean.”
“The doctor said to rest for two weeks. It has been over two weeks. I am ready to make my return.”