Scarlett rolls her eyes. “Anyway. I may have had to kick his ass to the curb, but I did learn a lot about the kind of person I am when I’m not doubting myself. And about the kind of person I want to be with.”
With that, she slides her hand across the floor to mine and laces our fingers together. I grin at her, but only for a second, because Skyler’s the only person we’ve told so far, which means—
“WAIT. WAIT. WAIT.” Ellie throws her hands in front of her. “You guys are TOGETHER?! How long has this been going on? Why has nobody told me? Do you know I totally called this weeks ago? Tell them, Sky!”
“She did.”
“See!” she squeals gleefully. “OMG, I’m so happy for you guys!”
She practically tackles us into a group hug.
“Do your moms know yet?”
“No,” says Scarlett. “So you have to keep it a secret until we’re ready, okay?”
“Absolutely!” She looks positively ecstatic about the idea of keeping a secret.
“Um, so I can go next,” Ellie says. “You guys know what my real goal was now: I wanted to be friends with all of you before the end of the summer.” She glances at Skyler. “And I almost screwed everything up, but. You guys are the best friends I’ve ever had.” She stops for a second and blinks furiously. Skyler holds her hand. “And I feel like I learned a lot this summer about who I want to be friends with.”
We clink our glasses again. There’s something so victorious about that sound. Scarlett raises her eyebrows at me, and I realize I’m the only one who hasn’t gone.
“Right.” I smile sheepishly. “So, my thing was that I was supposed to get myself reinstated as a junior youth minister at Ranburne Baptist Church. And it turns out maybe that is impossible. At least, right now. Which is funny, because I guess that means I failed, but.” I stare at my hand clasped in Scarlett’s and shake my head. “I’ve gotten everything. I had all these dreams of things I thought I wanted, but real life ended up being so much bigger.”
We stay up all night talking and playing cards and eating world peace cookies from the Tupperware Scarlett snagged from the main house. None of us want this night to end. In the morning, we walk down to the dock to watch the sun come up. We stand, hand in hand in hand in hand, and we look out at the water and the sun shines on my face in a way that feels packed with meaning.
I stare out at a future I never could have imagined. We are going to move into the new apartment we found yesterday, and I am holding hands with the girl I love, and I found a church that loves me, the real me.
Well, Skyler found the church. And Scarlett and I found each other. Ellie gave me that last critical nudge to take a chance and open myself up to new people, even though I was terrified. And if it weren’t for my aunts, I know my mom would still be back in Ranburne right now instead of drinking her morning coffee on the deck of a lake house.
Sometimes people are more than friends. They become your family. They help you understand that life doesn’t have to be the thing that you thought. They pull back the curtain on a world you didn’t know existed. They make you reach for the impossible.
Maybe that’s all of our mission in life. To find the people who can show you there’s another way of living.
Acknowledgments
I couldn’t have written this book without the help of a whole lot of people:
My phenomenal, thoughtful, brilliant beta readers: Kate Boorman, Jaye Robin Brown, Maryann Dabkowski, Lauren Karcz, Alina Klein, Dana Lee, Dana Alison Levy, Terra Elan McVoy, Sahara I. Mehdi, Aisha Saeed, Laura Silverman, and Jenn Woodruff. This book is so much better because of you. Thank you for your ideas, your feedback, your support, and your friendship.
To my Atlanta critique group: I’m so grateful I get to learn to be a better writer and better person from you. You are imperial goddesses, and I will make you inappropriate rainbow meringues anytime.
To my online critique group: I simply could not write books without you. Or mom without you. Or really anything without you. I love you all. (MoB forever!!!)
To Gilly Segal and Kate Goodwin: Thank you for being my friends, for your constant encouragement, and holing up in the mountains with me while I cranked out the first 10,000 words of this book.
To the five other writer girls from the French retreat: You know who you are, and you know how much cheese we can put away with our powers combined. I will dream about writing in that farmhouse forevermore. Slow down, Leenda.
To Catie and Emi: Thank you so much for helping me understand Discord so I look like I know what I’m talking about.
To Cara M., thank you for answering a billion questions about competitive tennis. Tennis help thank-yous also go to Lindsey Roth Culli and Jeanne McKeon.
To Erica Landis, thank you for awesome talks about representation and for your encouragement.
To Alpha Gamma Delta: I write sisterhood books and books about women changing the world because of the friendships I made as an Alpha Gam at Georgia Tech. Loyally.
To this amazing writing community that I get to be a part of, especially these little pockets: OneFour KidLit, the incomparable LBs, the Not-So-YA Book Club, Kidlit Alliance, Yay YA!, and my Atlanta writer crew. To Little Shop of Stories, which is like my very own Hogwarts, and to all the librarians, bloggers, teachers, and book people who make Kidlit awesome. Special thanks to Becky and Aisha for making me feel like I could do this over strawberries and cream.
To my agent, Susan Hawk. I can’t believe this is book four (FOUR!) together. You are always in my corner, always making my dreams come true. Also? You’re really freaking fun to work with. Thank you.
To my editor, Erica Finkel, thank you for helping me take this book to the next level, for caring about words as much as I do, and for helping me decide if lines are too much cheese or exactly the right amount of cheese. Thank you for being the kind of person to champion a book that makes relationships between women the most important thing. To Nicole Schaefer, Trish McNamara, Mary Wowk, Elisa Gonzalez, Andrew Smith, Michael Jacobs, Jenn Jimenez, Hana Anouk Nakamura, Emily Daluga, Jody Mosley, Melanie Chang, Jenny Choy, Mark Harrington, Pam Notarantonio, Amy Vreeland, Tessa Meischeid, and anyone else at Abrams who worked on this book in any way, I’m so very grateful to have you as my publishing home.
To my family, who are the very best at supporting me and making me feel like I can do this, especially Mom, Mica, Bekah, (little) Zack, Hannah, Aunt Amy, Nana, Dennis, and Maxie. I love you guys.
And to Zack, Ansley, and Xander Allen. I love you all to the moon and back. Thank you for being my heart.
About the Author
Rachael Allen is a scientist by day and YA writer by night, who does her best writing holed up in a lake (or mountain or farm) house with friends as close as sisters. She is the winner of the 2019 Georgia YA Author of the Year Award whose books include 17 First Kisses, The Revenge Playbook, and A Taxonomy of Love, which was a Junior Library Guild selection and a 2018 Book All Young Georgians Should Read. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, two children, and two sled dogs. Visit Rachael at rachaelallenwrites.blogspot.com.
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The Summer of Impossibilities Page 28