Summer Boys #3: After Summer

  Kelsi sighed. But she didn’t deny it. “You haven’t exactly been banging down my door, either, Tim. Our relationship is a two-way street.”

  “Right. I know.” He crammed his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. “I guess I’ve been scared.”

  Scared. Kelsi pondered the word. Was Tim scared that she didn’t love him anymore? Or was he just scared that she’d never give it up? “I know college changes people, Tim. And we’ve both become so different over the last few months. But there’s a part of me that hasn’t changed. And I have to be true to myself.”

  Tim walked a few paces back. Kelsi watched him move. He was so athletic. He had that way of walking, of rocking back on his heels.

  “I love you, Kelsi.” Tim’s eyes searched her face. “I’ve tried to be supportive. You know that. But, yeah—it’s been hard.”

  Bennett’s CD played in the background, and Kelsi suddenly thought about the jerk who’d dumped her in high school because she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him. And the even bigger jerk in Pebble Beach who’d done the same.

  Tim respected the fact that she wanted to wait until she was ready, but he assumed it would be a finite waiting period. Whenever Kelsi told him she wasn’t ready, the “yet” was always implied.

  Maybe Bennett was right. She was an idealist. But this was who she was right now. And she didn’t want to be with someone who was waiting for her to change.

  Kelsi didn’t want to judge Tim too harshly, because she did love him. But she wondered if the reasons she’d loved him only made sense in the mess of last summer, when she was reeling from her huge fight with Ella, and Tim had seemed like such a rock. Maybe they weren’t the people they’d seemed to be in all that sunshine and sea air. Maybe here, in their real lives, they were strangers after all.

  “I don’t think what’s going on here is about my virginity,” Kelsi said slowly. “Not really.”

  “What do you mean?” Tim looked confused.

  “I don’t like frat parties,” Kelsi said, holding his gaze. “I don’t think drinking beer is a fun sport, and I don’t have any interest in football. You do.”

  “Here we go again with the dumb jock, frat-guy bull,” Tim said, temper kicking into his voice.

  Kelsi raised her hands in the air. “I’m not saying that,” she said. “But maybe we don’t have anything in common except the fact we love each other. And I’m…not sure that’s enough.”

  Tim stared at her for a long moment.

  “Are you breaking up with me?” he asked quietly, holding her gaze.

  Kelsi could hear the melancholy chords of one of the songs, and she felt a tremendous sadness move through her.

  “Yes,” she said, and was surprised that her voice sounded so clear. So sure.

  A few days later, after all the crying and talking, Kelsi was helping Taryn carry out armfuls of dirty laundry to stuff inside Bennett’s hatchback. She felt much calmer.

  “Can you believe that when you come back from Thanksgiving, all my clothes will be clean?” Taryn bounced up and down like a kid on Christmas morning.

  Kelsi turned her head to the side to avoid a dangling sock potentially touching her mouth. “I honestly can’t. I hope your mom’s washing machine can take the workload.”

  Bennett was leaning against the bumper, but he straightened up when he saw Kelsi approaching. “Here,” he said, racing over. “No one should have to touch my sister’s dirty clothes other than her brother.” He chuckled. “Wait, that sounded kind of weird.”

  Kelsi laughed, feeling her palms get sweaty.

  “Alllllll-righty,” Taryn said, having karate-kicked the last knot of sheets into the packed backseat. “That’s that! I just have to run and grab my duffle bag. Kelsi, be a dear and keep my poor lonely brother company while I’m gone.”

  Kelsi’s cheeks flamed red as Taryn raced back to the dorm. Luckily, the wind had picked up and blew her brown hair across her face.

  Bennett hopped onto the hood of his car and patted for Kelsi to join him. “So, my sister said you liked the CD?” he said, picking off a sticker from the toe of his Converse.

  “Oh yeah!” Kelsi said, leaning next to him. “I loved it. That one Pedro the Lion song might just be my favorite.”

  Bennet’s face lit up. “You know, Pedro the Lion is playing a show at my school after Thanksgiving. Maybe, if you were interested I could try to score us some tickets. It would give us something fun to look forward to.”

  Kelsi smiled. “Maybe,” she replied.

  She knew it would be a long time before she healed from her breakup with Tim. She knew she’d need time to be by herself, to get to know herself again. But there was always the future. And she liked the idea that there were fun things like concerts, and new friendships, and surprises worth waiting for.

  18

  On Thanksgiving morning, Beth came back from her early run cold, panting, and not exactly thrilled to find George stretched out on her parents’ sofa in the family room. He was dozing in front of the television.

  “Don’t sleep,” she warned him. “We have to hit the road as soon as I shower.”

  George muttered something and waved a hand at her, so Beth left him there and raced up the stairs toward her bathroom.

  She showered quickly, and sighed when she emerged from the bathroom to find George still stretched out—but this time, across her bed.

  “I need a cuddle,” George said, grinning at her. “The sun’s not even up yet.”

  “Come on,” she said. “We have to get going. This is why we should have left last night with my parents.”

  “I liked last year’s Thanksgiving better,” George said around a yawn. “Remember?”

  “Of course I remember,” Beth said. She pulled on a pair of jeans and her swim team sweatshirt, and packed a few changes of clothes into her duffle bag.

  “Your mom cooked all morning, and we just lounged and made out and pretended we liked each other,” George said. He grinned when Beth threw a look at him.

  “Come here,” he said, opening his arms. “Just for, like, five seconds.”

  Beth could see exactly where that would lead. She shook her head.

  “Later,” she said. “Right now, we have to get on the road.”

  George sat up slowly, and there was a tightness around his mouth.

  “Do I, like, physically repulse you?” he asked.

  Beth felt her eyes widen as she stared back at him. She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “You barely even look at me anymore!” He was half shouting. “You pull away. I thought we’d spend more time together when your swimming thing ended but you’ve spent the past week going out of your way to get rid of me.”

  “I’ve spent the past week catching up on stuff,” Beth retorted. “Like sleep. Maybe you missed the fact that I’ve been exhausted this whole term. Maybe you were too busy dressing me up like your personal slut for Halloween!”

  George gaped at her. “I apologized for that about seventy times.”

  “Yeah, well, the boyfriend I thought I had would never have done it in the first place,” Beth snapped at him. She looked at her watch. “Let’s not do this now. We have to start driving.”

  But George ignored her.

  “What’s going on?” George demanded. “You’ve been acting weird for weeks now. You never touch me, you’re always tired—”

  “Maybe I’m not exactly thrilled that every time we even hug, it immediately leads to groping,” Beth said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “That is such bullshit—”

  “Like at the Halloween party?” Beth shook her head at him. “When you actually interrupted conversations by pawing at me?”

  George looked down.

  “I can’t believe this is what you think of me,” he said. “Like I’m some sex-crazed asshole.”

  Beth ran her fingers through her still-damp hair, frustrated.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

 
; It was quiet then. Outside her bedroom window, weak morning light began to creep across the sky. The trees were bare and the ground was frozen over.

  “I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise,” George said slowly. He frowned, and his eyes darkened. He searched Beth’s face. “But all of this feels kind of familiar. Doesn’t it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Not to me,” Beth said, having no idea where Mr. Random was going. “It just feels bad.”

  “Well, I’m the one who would know,” George said, and his voice was bitter.

  He paused for a moment, and Beth felt something icy shiver down her spine. Like she knew in the breathless moment before he spoke what he was going to say.

  “You’re cheating on me again, aren’t you?” George accused, getting up from the bed and facing her across it. “Is it that Adam guy again? The lifeguard? Let me guess, he’s a big swimmer, right?” George’s eyes were dark and angry, the way Beth remembered all too well.

  Except this time, she hadn’t done anything to deserve his wrath. This time, instead of feeling a wave of guilt and self-loathing, Beth looked right back at him and felt something like rage sweep through her.

  “What did you just say?” Beth demanded.

  “You heard me,” George said quietly.

  “I haven’t even thought about Adam since we were in Pebble Beach,” Beth spat at him.

  “Then who is it?” George demanded. “I know it has to be some guy on the swim team, right? Because that’s the only thing you have time for anymore. So, who are you sleeping with? Is it that jock coach guy? You like the jocks, don’t you?”

  “This is like a bad dream,” Beth whispered. “I can’t believe you would accuse me of cheating on you.”

  “Because you’ve never done something like that.” George’s tone was dripping with sarcasm.

  “Screw this,” Beth muttered. She grabbed her bag off the floor, swung it over her shoulder, and headed downstairs. She could hear George following her, but she didn’t turn around. She just slammed her way outside and threw her bag into the backseat of her mother’s car, which she was taking on the road trip to Connecticut.

  The sun was barely up, and it was so cold outside it made Beth’s hair freeze against her head.

  “You’re just walking away from me?” George asked. “Very mature, Bethy.”

  “I thought we’d dealt with this!” Beth threw back at him, with such force she was surprised it didn’t crack the ice on the branches of the leafless trees. “What was the point of the last few months if you still don’t trust me?”

  “How am I supposed to trust you?” George exploded, his voice harsh in the hushed morning air. “You lie to me, you cheat on me, you pretend everything’s okay but now it’s like you’d rather be anywhere else than with me! What the hell, Beth?”

  “I don’t understand what happened,” she burst out. “It’s like the only thing you think about is sex. I can’t even change my shirt without you wanting me to have sex with you. And when I’m not in the mood, it means that I’m cheating on you.”

  “It’s actually normal to want to have sex with your boyfriend, Beth,” George snapped at her. She knew the normal part was supposed to sting, and it did, but she shook it off.

  “You don’t talk about anything but sex.” Beth started using her fingers to list her points. “You don’t suggest we do anything except have sex. You don’t want to do anything except have sex. When you complain that we don’t hang out enough, I think you mean you want to spend time together, but no, you mean sex.”

  “Having sex is the closest two people can be!” George argued.

  “It doesn’t feel that way to me,” Beth said quietly. “Not anymore.”

  George stared at her for a long moment, so long that Beth began to feel the November cold seep under her jacket. Then he shook his head.

  “You had sex with me because you felt guilty,” he said in the same anguished sort of tone. “That night in Maine. I’ve always known it. If anyone ruined what was special about us, it was you.”

  “Is that what this is?” Beth felt helpless and sick. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms as if that might warm her. “I’m the enemy here?”

  And then, standing there in her parents’ driveway, not far from the tree where they would hang the hammock when the weather was better—the hammock she and George had kissed in months before, before the summer even started—Beth considered the impossible.

  She tried to imagine her life without George.

  When she’d tried to do it before, she couldn’t. Back in the summer, when things had gotten crazy, the bottom line was that she didn’t know how to live without George in her life.

  But whatever that was—that certainty—she didn’t have it any longer. It was like she’d read about those feelings in a book once upon a time. Like she’d heard about it all happening to someone else.

  She didn’t want to live like this. She didn’t want to feel like the cruel one. She wanted to swim without worrying what might happen when she came back out of the water.

  “George…” She could barely say his name. She was so upset, and yet, somehow, knew that this was exactly what she had to do. That it was overdue.

  He just watched her, like he couldn’t understand how they’d gotten to this place.

  Beth didn’t know, either.

  “I think this is it,” she whispered.

  “How is that possible?” he asked, barely above a whisper himself.

  But he didn’t disagree.

  “I don’t know,” Beth said.

  “I just can’t trust you,” he said. “And I keep trying to hold on, and it isn’t working.”

  “I think we need to end things,” Beth said, more because she had to say it than because it needed to be said. She felt numb. Oddly light-headed.

  “I think you’re right,” George said.

  They looked at each other as the winter wind kicked in and rustled in the bare branches above them. In a way, although Beth hadn’t even considered this when she’d rolled out of bed earlier, she knew that this had been coming for a long time. Maybe even since the summer, when she’d tried to fix something that had stayed broken.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him.

  “I know,” he said. “I am, too.”

  Beth held his gaze for a moment, and then she climbed in the car, turned up the heater to high, and drove away.

  They didn’t say good-bye.

  19

  “So tell me,” Ryan said, his eyes glowing suggestively. He leaned in closer. “What do you like best about Thanksgiving? Because I’m a big fan of dessert.”

  He made it sound naughty and appealing all at once. Most of the family - like Uncle Carr, Jessi, Jordan, and Drew - were outside tossing around the Nerf. Sneaking off to a quiet nook of the house with Ryan and chilling in the kitchen would have been perfectly fine with Ella, except for one small detail.

  He wasn’t talking to her.

  He was leaning on the counter, talking to Jamie.

  Granted, Jamie was cute. She was a Tuttle and was, by definition, cute. Today she had even backed away from her usual freaky bohemian thing, and was wearing black boots and a very low-key and yet flattering black dress from H&M, which made her green eyes seem to glow from beneath her curly dark hair.

  Not that it mattered how cute she looked, Ella thought from her seat at the kitchen table. It didn’t matter if Jamie looked like Keira Knightley—you would think that Ryan would know better than to hit on Ella’s freaking cousin when Ella was right there.

  Hello!

  Jamie shot a mystified look at Ella.

  “Um,” she said. “I like the green-bean casserole, actually.”

  “No way!” Kelsi chimed in from the stovetop, where she was stirring flour into the rich-smelling gravy. Her voice was happy and light, as if her sister’s boyfriend wasn’t acting like a jerk right there in front of everyone on Thanksgiving afternoon. Ella knew it was for her benefit. “It’s all about the s
tuffing!”

  Ella shot her sister a look, mentally thanking her, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice. He was concentrating fully on Jamie.

  Ella knew exactly what that concentration meant. Not only had she once been the recipient of it, she’d given it out herself.

  Ella watched Ryan reach across the counter and draw a little pattern on the Formica in front of Jamie.

  “I can’t wait to taste it,” he murmured.

  Jamie actually blushed. That was how dirty he’d made it sound.

  “Um,” Jamie said. She widened her eyes slightly in Ella’s direction. Ella smiled as if everything was fine, but she didn’t move from her place at the table. She was almost afraid to move. If she did, she wasn’t sure what she would do.

  “So whatever happened with that guy Dex, Jamie?” Kelsi asked in that same overly bright tone.

  “Oh,” Jamie said nervously, her eyes flicking from Ryan to Ella and then back again. “We’re sort of seeing each other now. Actually, things are well, they’re going really well.”

  “Define ‘well,’” Ryan said in his sexiest voice. And that did it. Ella had had enough. She opened her mouth to rip him a new one, but Ryan straightened up and turned away from Jamie.

  Not to apologize for whatever blow to the head he must have suffered that had made him forget which Tuttle he was with. But to take his vibrating cell phone out of his pocket, grin, and disappear into the hallway to answer it.

  Ella actually gaped after him.

  And then had to deal with the humiliation of turning back to find her sister and her cousin staring at her.

  “Ella,” Jamie began, frowning.

  “I don’t know why he’s acting like this,” Ella said, before Jamie could say anything further.

  “You don’t have to put up with that,” Kelsi said from the stove. “You deserve better.”

  There was something about the matter-of-fact way Kelsi said it that made moisture prick at Ella’s eyes. It made her think of Jeremy.

  “When did Beth say she was getting here?” Ella asked, swallowing and dodging the emotion.

  “Soon, I hope,” Kelsi said, squinting at the clock. “She said she got on the road late.”