Summer of Seventeen

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  So now I was losing Yansi for the second time.

  Walking felt really slow compared to how I usually traveled. I could have jogged home, but I was too depressed to have the energy. And I was wearing a pair of old hiking boots instead of sneakers. They weren’t really made for running.

  I’d started wearing them to work after nearly losing a foot because I wasn’t paying attention while I was using a really sharp edging tool. Mr. Alfaro wore steel-toe work boots every day. I’d thought about getting a pair, but they cost like seventy bucks.

  It’s weird the things you think about when there’s too much important shit going on. It’s like your brain takes a vacation because it knows you can’t cope with one more thing.

  But once you think you can breathe again, your brain snaps, and you’re right back where you were: at the bottom of the heap, totally fucked.

  My heart still beat, but each time it thumped in my chest, it brought a fresh wave of pain.

  Bad friend. Bad son. Bad boyfriend. Loser. Loser. Loser.

  I kept checking my phone, but there was nothing from Yansi. Nothing from Sean. Of course not.

  It was so fucking unfair. I wasn’t the one who’d used Molly and ended up in ER. I hadn’t done anything!

  But that bastard voice at the back of my brain that went by the dickwad name of ‘conscience’ was sneering. You’ve taken Molly before. You drink till you pass out and you smoke everything going. You even fucked a girl you can’t stand because you were so wasted. What makes you so fucking special? It could have been you in the ER. You got lucky, fucktard.

  And the fact was, if I was Yansi’s dad, I’d kick my ass out, too.

  I really hated having a conscience.

  Marcus’ van was still parked outside the house when I got home. He didn’t start work till either ten or two, depending which shift he was on, but he usually headed out to find somewhere the waves were working, or the paddleboard as a last resort.

  I was going to knock on his door to see if he wanted to hit up some surf spots, but when I heard the sounds of a woman’s voice moaning, I headed to the kitchen instead.

  It was weird not having anything to do. I’d gotten so used to being crazy busy all summer, just having time to sit around was strange. Last summer I’d been the master of lounging around. Mom complained non-stop that I was wearing out the couch by lying on it watching TV, unless there were waves, of course.

  But somehow I’d lost the habit of doing nothing. If that was part of being an adult too, it sucked majorly.

  I could have gone down to the pier to find someone to hang with. I could have called Rob. Instead, I trailed up to my room and gathered all the clothes that needed washing, and yanked the sheets off my bed, too.

  I washed the breakfast dishes and made myself some lunch.

  It was 10AM.

  How freakin’ depressing was that?

  I was finishing up a plate of eggs that had somehow got a little charred where they’d stuck to the pan, when Marcus walked in.

  “’Sup, Nick. How you doin’?”

  I nodded, my mouth full.

  “How’s that friend of yours? Um, Sean?”

  I swallowed down the eggs. “Okay. Got grounded.”

  Marcus laughed. “You bet your ass he did!” Then he looked at me quizzically. “Your sister ground you, too?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. My boss fired me.”

  “The hell you say? What for?”

  I looked at him evenly. “For the same reason everyone else is mad at me—they all think I gave Sean the drugs.”

  He looked sympathetic for a moment. “Wow, tough break.”

  I heard Camille walk into the kitchen behind us and I opened my mouth ready to say hi, but it wasn’t her. Instead, Cheyenne who was one of the bartenders at the Sandbar, was yawning and rubbing her eyes, wearing nothing more than Marcus’ Quiksilver t-shirt.

  It was pretty damn obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and she was seriously hot.

  My cheeks flushed when Marcus caught me checking her out.

  “Hi, Nick,” Cheyenne yawned.

  “Hey,” I mumbled, dropping my eyes to my plate and vaguely waving my fork at her.

  “What’s for breakfast?” she asked.

  She turned to Marcus, wrapping her arms around his neck and plastering her body up against him.

  I nearly choked on a mouthful of eggs when Marcus slid his hands down from her waist and started kneading her ass. Cheyenne wasn’t wearing anything under the shirt at all.

  I remembered Marcus’ comment about little brother likes to watch. Was this some kind of weird test? I dropped my fork and almost kicked over my chair as I ran to get the hell out of there, leaving my untouched coffee cooling on the table.

  I heard a low chuckle as I slammed the front door behind me.

  Well, this day was sure turning out to be shitty.

  I decided I was going to see Sean, no matter what his parents said. We’d snuck in and out of his house enough times for it not to be a huge problem. Unless his parents were in the backyard, but I figured Mr. Wallis would be at work on a Monday, and his mom was always busy with her book club and charity work.

  It was fuck hot again, but the sky was a dull, metallic gray and threatening—weighing down the air, so you could feel the pressure falling one isobar at a time.

  A storm was coming.

  By morning the swell would be topping eight or nine feet. Buoys in the Atlantic had sent out warning spikes during the night, and every surf-dog was waxing down his board, getting ready to ride.

  But I’d be riding without Sean, and that just didn’t seem right.

  I trudged along the road, feeling the heat burning up through my sneakers.

  Walking sucked. I was so used to getting places relatively fast on my skateboard. It took 15 minutes to get to Sean’s place on my board, but nearly an hour to walk. I could have jogged, but it was just too damn hot.

  What I hadn’t counted on was Dylan and Patrick seeing me at the roadside along Orlando Avenue.

  Patrick blasted the horn on his BMW as he made an illegal U-turn and skidded to a halt next to me, kicking up a swirl of dust that threw sand into my eyes and made me cough.

  Dylan pushed a button and the window wound down. A gust of cooler air rolled out, making me feel sweaty and dumb as I took in their matching polo shirts. They must have been going to play golf.

  I’d never played golf. Sean told me once how much green fees cost for a day: it was more than the monthly allowance Mom used to give me. Annual membership would have bought a brand new car. Sometimes I forgot how much money Sean’s family had—he’d never made me feel it. Even when he got something new, he always shared it.

  “Hey, Nick,” Dylan said, his voice aiming for neutral but sounding tense.

  “Hey,” I said sourly, wiping the grit and dust from my streaming eyes.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, his voice struggling to stay calm.

  I didn’t reply because it must have been damn obvious where I was headed.

  He sighed and shook his head.

  Dylan wasn’t a bad guy. I didn’t know him that well because he was older, but he wasn’t a prick.

  “You can’t see him,” he said. “Not just because Mom and Dad grounded him; he’s been pretty sick. That shit could have killed him.”

  He was still staring at me. Maybe he was waiting for me to fall to my knees and confess my sins. He’d wait a long fucking time.

  I folded my arms across my chest and stared back.

  Patrick must have had enough of keeping his mouth shut, because he decided it was his turn.

  “Listen you, little shit,” he shouted. “Stay away from my brother. You’re a fuckin’ coward, letting him take the fall like that.”

  Out of all the Wallis brothers, the only one I couldn’t stand was Patrick. He made it so easy to hate him.

  “You don’t know shit,” I said, walking away.

  When I heard a car door slam behind
me, I guessed what was coming.

  Patrick swung at me as I was turning around, but his fist missed my face, thudding against my shoulder instead. It stung, but it would have been worse if he’d connected with my jaw. That would have meant game over.

  But now he was off balance and he’d left himself wide open. I landed two solid punches into his gut.

  He folded, stumbling backwards, almost tripping over his own feet. He looked shocked, surprised that I’d taken him down so easily.

  Dylan was close behind, but instead of heading my way, he locked his arms around Patrick, hissing at his brother.

  “Leave it! He’s not worth it.”

  Patrick was cussing me out, calling me all kinds of shit, but Dylan hustled him back towards the car without saying another word to me. The car screeched off, burning rubber onto the boiling hot road.

  I shook out my fists as they drove away, rubbing the knuckles and massaging my fingers.

  It’s not like in the movies where the actors go around slugging it out. You hit someone with a fist, it fucking hurts.

  My knuckles were red and I suspected they were going to start swelling. I probably needed to ice them.

  I worked my fingers some more. At least nothing was sprained or broken. Hitting someone in the gut, you can pull muscles, or, if you’re really unlucky, get them at the wrong angle and break your wrist.

  The worst is hitting someone in the face. Human saliva has more bacteria than a dog bite, and a friend of Aidan knew a guy who cut his knuckles on someone’s teeth, got an infection and had to have his hand amputated. True story.

  I wished I’d hit Patrick on his nose, because that really hurts. Your nose swells up making it hard to breathe, and it bleeds like a mofo. But I would have got off on hearing his nose crunch. That’s the only bit Hollywood ever gets right.

  The brief shot of pleasure at landing one on that self-righteous pile of crap didn’t last. Dylan’s car had disappeared in the direction of their house, so unless I wanted another confrontation O.K. Corral-style, I’d have to stay away from Sean. For now, at least.

  Depressed, and with aching hands, I squatted on the ground, staring down at the roadside.

  The dust in the gutter was a light brown that blossomed into the air every time a car passed.

  I heard a couple of vehicles slow down as they approached me, but nobody stopped. Just another dumb kid sitting at the side of the road. Stoned, they would think. Drunk at this time in the morning. Or maybe, Dangerous—call the cops.

  It was that last thought that made me drag myself upright; I really didn’t need another run in with Cocoa Beach’s finest.

  I turned around and headed in the direction I’d come from. I wasn’t really looking for company, but I was sick of my own depressing thoughts.

  So, I went to the pier.

  Rob was there with some of the other guys, but I was more than surprised to see Marcus. With Camille.

  He shot me an amused look, but didn’t speak. Camille said hi, and I muttered something unintelligible back.

  I knew what Sean would have said, The guy’s a legend, and if it had been before I’d met Yansi, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me so much.

  Nothing in life was black and white, but cheating didn’t seem like much of a gray area to me. But at the same time, ever since the night with Erin, the familiar prickle of guilt haunted me. Who the hell was I to judge anyone else?

  “How’s Sean doing?” Rob asked, his eyes slightly unfocussed.

  I could smell the weed before I’d walked over, so I wasn’t surprised.

  “He’s out of the hospital. He’s okay, I guess, but his parents grounded him.”

  There were mutters around the group, and then some trash-talking about Sean’s folks.

  Nobody asked for more details, and the discussion moved to the batch of bad drugs that had been going around town. Rob said that two other kids had been hospitalized.

  I could see the glances that were thrown my way. Even though these guys knew I didn’t deal, bad news spread like fungus.

  When Rob tried to pass the blunt my way, I shook my head.

  Instead, I walked down to the water’s edge and soaked my sore hands in the ripples at my feet. It helped. A bit.

  I turned around to look at my friends, the people I hung out with, sitting in a loose circle on the sand. I missed Sean. Despite all his shit, he was the one person I could talk to. When he was sober.

  Feeling more isolated among my friends than if I’d been alone, I flopped down onto the sand, a little away from the others, staring at the sullen gray waves that mirrored how I felt.

  I must have been giving off serious keep-the-fuck-away vibes, because no one tried to talk to me. I wrapped my arms around my knees, and wondered what the fuck I was going to do now. Everything had gone to shit, in every possible direction.

  I looked up when someone sat down next to me.

  “Hey, Erin,” I said tiredly.

  “Mind if I sit here.”

  You already are. I shook my head.

  She pulled her knees to her chest, matching the way I was sitting. For nearly half a minute, neither of us spoke, but it was making me tense having her so close by. I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. Again.

  “Did you … are you back with Yansi?” she asked at last.

  I let out a long sigh. Was I? I had no idea. Probably not. Not after this morning. I couldn’t imagine her parents letting her anywhere near me. Maybe when we were back in school…

  I realized it must have looked like I was thinking about ignoring her, because Erin was still looking at me, waiting for a reply.

  “Thanks,” I said. “For talking to her.”

  Her lips curved upward in a tiny smile. “Yeah,” she said, with a low chuckle, “that was interesting.”

  I couldn’t help smiling back at her. “I bet!”

  Her smile slipped away. “So, you guys are good now?”

  “We were, but…”

  “But what?”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to Erin of all people about this, but I couldn’t talk to Sean. And Rob, hell he wouldn’t care even if he wasn’t stoned.

  “Her parents won’t let her see me.”

  “Wow, sucks,” she muttered. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “They think what happened to Sean was my fault.” I laughed without any humor whatsoever. “They think I’m a freakin’ drug dealer.”

  She took in a surprised breath.

  “Jeez! That’s random. Why do they think that?”

  I couldn’t help smiling at her again. So far she was the only person who didn’t think I’d given Sean the Molly.

  “Because he’s my friend. Because we hang out.” And then I was hit by a deeper truth. “I guess because they’ve sort of been expecting something like that. For me to fuck up, I mean. They never wanted me to date her anyway.”

  She nodded and raised her eyebrows. “Well, you are a guy.” She laughed coldly. “And you all want the same thing, right?”

  I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. I did want to sleep with Yansi. I wanted it really badly. But it wasn’t all I wanted. I just wanted her.

  Erin’s accusing stare softened. “Except you. So maybe you’re not like that.”

  “Yeah, I am,” I contradicted her, tired of pretending.

  Erin shook her head. “No, you’re really not. Trust me on that.”

  I frowned, but she carried on.

  “Most guys are total horn dogs. All they want is fresh pussy, and as much of it as they can get. At least you want it with someone you care about.”

  I glanced at her in surprise.

  That summed it up pretty good.

  She sighed and studied her fingernails. “I wish some guy cared about me like that.”

  I twisted around to look at her—really look at her.

  Erin had long tan legs, great tits, and her face would have been kind of pretty if it hadn’t been covered in all that gunk and those scary stuck-on eyel
ashes that reminded me of spiders. A lot of guys thought she was hot, but they also thought she was the school bike. I knew that wasn’t true exactly, but she’d been with a lot of guys. Including me.

  “Erin, you’re a really nice person. What you did for me and Yans … you didn’t have to do that, and I know it couldn’t have been easy. You will find a guy to care about you, but you make it kind of hard when you do the stuff you do.”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. I didn’t really talk that much, so she was probably shocked by the whole sentences as much as anything else.

  She swallowed several times before she spoke.

  “You think I’m nice?”

  “Yeah.” I gave her a small smile. “And you’re pretty. All the guys think you’re hot. But that doesn’t mean you have to sleep with them.”

  She looked down, and I could see that her eyes were filling with tears.

  If it had been Yansi, I’d have pulled her into a hug and squeezed the shit out of her. But it wasn’t, so I sat there feeling as useful as tits on a bull, hoping she didn’t cry.

  “Okay. Thanks, Nick.” Her voice was so quiet, I almost missed it. “Yansi’s really lucky.”

  She gave me another small tentative smile, then stood up and walked away. I was left staring out at the waves by myself.

  Suddenly lightning flashed across the sky.

  “Whoa! Electric storm!” Rob yelled.

  I realized that the clouds had gotten darker while I’d been sitting there, and I could see a squall line edging closer. Thunder rumbled and shuddered above us, and I found myself counting instinctively. Ten seconds: that meant the storm was only a couple of miles away.

  We were all used to electric storms living where we did, and we knew that they could be dangerous, especially if you got caught out in the open.

  The beach was clearing quickly, people hurrying back to their cars. Some of the guys decided to head out and I wondered about getting a ride with them, but as I didn’t have anything to go home for, I decided to stay. Besides, I liked watching the lightning, just so long as I wasn’t out in it. I could feel that strange sensation as electricity crackled across my skin, making the hairs on my arms stand up.

  Sometimes I used to sit on the back porch with Mom; we’d stare up, and Mom called it ‘God’s free light show’.