Forever summer (Summer # 4)

by C. J. Duggan

  “x”

  Bastard! It was a simple enough gesture, certain to melt my icy façade, something he would no doubt be taking bets on that this above all else would have me replying.

  I chucked my phone onto the couch. As it bounced and slid away, I looked at it as if it had given me an electric shock. I had to keep busy. I had to refrain from the temptation of replying to Adam’s texts; he was wearing me down and that’s exactly what he was working on.

  “I don’t think so,” I groaned, pulling myself to stand, hearing the bones click and pop as I stretched. I placed my hands on my hips, surveying the damage of all the unfinished business in my flat, which resembled more of a residence for a hobo than that of a dental nurse in her twenties. Enough was enough! Time to commit to neatness and get into the land of the living.

  I started with the first box in the poky hall, sliding it rather inelegantly toward the lounge as my bed socks failed to gain traction on the glossy tiles.

  Shit, it was heavy. I fell to my knees, breathless and confused at what the hell I had packed, as my head tilted to read ‘Books’ written on the side. Now that made sense; I did have a rather impressive book collection, not something many knew about: Ellie Parker, the bookworm. Well, Adam knew it, but I quickly wiped that from my mind. I made work on ripping the packing tape from the box and exposing the interior crammed with books, ranging from Enid Blyton childhood classics, Sweet Valley High to Christopher Pike horror books. My entire reading life’s catalogue was here and I suddenly felt more at home than ever. When I wasn’t out with Tess and Adam, I could be found tucked up on my favourite couch with a book. Both my mum and dad were avid readers, and that love had been passed on to me. I didn't need to go out and explore Maitland just yet. Books were my comfort zone, and that would be fine for now.

  I smiled. “Rock on Friday night.”

  ***

  Another bottle of wine and some tunes later and I had all but forgotten about the Onslow Hotel, about Adam, and the messages on my phone, all of it. I was swept away in a different kind of nostalgia, getting sidetracked in long-lost books that I had forgotten about reading.

  “Awww, Hating Alison Ashley.” I held it up to the light, pouting over my absolute favourite book by Robin Klein. I was soon lost in its chapters until I snapped my mind back to the task at hand and the half-unpacked box. The room actually looked worse.

  “Shit,” I sighed, putting the book aside and pulling myself up onto my knees to look inside the box for the next treasure, when I paused, my brows knitting together in confusion.

  “No. Way.”

  Gone were all the hardcover classics; the last of the childhood memories had well and truly been cleaned out. Instead, the box was filled with a new layer of history, one that I hadn’t even realised I had packed: my diaries.

  I reached in, retrieving the first pink-bound diary, gratified by inky love hearts and the words PRIVATE: KEEP OUT scrawled over its cover with the year 1990 embossed in gold.

  I laughed, quickly moving to the next books: 1991, 1992, 1993. My intense, if not shambolic, boy-crazy chronicles that had been documented all through my teens were all there, all with similar warnings of promised death if anyone so much as looked into the pages. I couldn’t believe it: how had I not remembered these? How had I not recalled packing the … Oh God. A sudden sickness flooded me as I recognised the writing on the side of the box as my mum’s.

  “Oh no, no, no … please, God, please tell me she didn’t read them.” I cringed.

  When Mum had stuck her head into my room the day before I was ready to pack up and leave and was still horrifically behind, I had absentmindedly pointed her in the direction of my bookshelf, which of course included the pretty little shoe boxes on top, the ones containing my deepest, darkest secrets, including probably the biggest, most unbelievable admission of my life. One that I had not had a real chance of pushing into the deep depths of my mind, mainly because it was extremely powerful and the fact I had not long ago written it. I sat there, with a diary marked 1999.

  Suddenly, a wave of nostalgia washed over me, drowning me to the point my lungs struggled to expand and make room for the air that I so desperately needed.

  Don’t open it, Ellie; just put the diary back into the box and slide it into a cupboard somewhere and forget about the things scrawled between the pages.

  The thing I tried to tell myself about diary entries was they were usually written at the height of emotion, that surely a huge percentage of it was overly dramatic and not entirely true.

  My finger traced along the thin red ribbon that marked a page; I had no doubt what it would say, as I parted the book to sit open on my lap. My eyes ticked over the paper and sure enough my greatest fear had been revealed in navy ink, almost like it had been written in a panic.

  Heading to Point Shank tomorrow to see in the New Year, no more than that … a new millennium!! If the world isn’t drained into a sinkhole at the stroke of midnight, it’s time to come to terms with a few resolutions.

  Joining a gym

  Moving to Maitland

  Cutting my hair

  Saving for London

  I laughed at all these hopeful yet predictable resolutions until inevitably I came to the bottom of the page, to the bold block letters that had been underlined, twice.

  And last but not least: TELL ADAM HENDERSON I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM.

  I snapped the book shut.

  Oh Fuck!

  Chapter Two

  Reading this wasn’t exactly news to me, that was the problem. The moment I had admitted it to myself was bad enough, but I had also made another terrible mistake. I had admitted it to Chris’s new girlfriend, Tammy Maskala. Not by choice, mind you; if Point Shank hadn’t become so out of hand with crossed wires, with Tammy mistaking my secret feelings for Tess’s boyfriend, my feelings would have gone to the grave. But in order to clear up the fact, I unwittingly admitted my crush on Adam, and now it was out, like an airborne disease; okay, maybe that was a bit extreme. But I had forced Tammy into a vow of silence, one I had almost made her seal in a blood oath, especially since she was dating Chris, Adam’s older brother. Ugh, this was what I didn’t miss at all: small-town gossip. A lot of the time I tried to put my feelings down to small-town syndrome—that you just run out of boys to admire and then this happens, you fall for your best friend. Inevitable disaster, right? Then why was it that no matter how I tried to convince myself that what I was feeling was a really bad idea, that my heart grew more and more adamant with every moment I spent with Adam? Yep, I definitely had to get away, this could not happen. I was determined to convince myself of it, not even telling Tess my secret, and I told Tess everything. So, yeah, this was big—huge!

  I took in a deep breath, chucking the diary into the pile, thinking now was really not the time to reminisce about the summer trip to Point Shank which was pretty much just days trapped in a car with Adam, just him and me and my infuriating feelings. Nope, this would not do; I needed to sleep, to forget, if not momentarily. I was physically exhausted from the week’s work, but not quite mentally. Maybe a trip down ancient memory lane might tire me? I thought reaching for 1991, where a thirteen-year-old, boy-crazed Ellie’s handwriting slanted in an elegant blue ink would help. I smiled, leaning my back against the couch as I read.

  Maybe this was the way to go: to understand where I am, I had to go back to the beginning. What was the saying? Hindsight was a bitch. Well, I’ll be the judge of that, I thought, as I started reading and was instantly transported to the summer of 1991.

  Dear Diary,

  ***

  “Steven Wigmore is so hot.” I sighed, leaning back on my elbows and admiring the tanned view from the water’s edge through my white-rimmed sunnies.

  Tess, who sported an identical recline, cocked her head to the side. “I guess he’s pretty cute,” she said, giving it plenty of deep thought.

  My head snapped around comically fast. “You guess? Are you blind? He is smoking hot.”


  “Well, he’s a seven,” Tess said, using our usual method of a rating system.

  “A seven? He is like a nine, at least,” I said, with an edge of horror. Looking back out to the water, admiring the smooth, tanned skin of the blonde Adonis, if an Adonis wore Hang Ten board shorts.

  “He is lovely,” I said breathlessly.

  “Ugh, you know I’m right here?” came a muffled voice from the suntanning body lying between us.

  Adam ripped off the towel that was covering his face and squinted up at me in irritation.

  “Give me a bucket; I’m about to puke.”

  My brows knitted together. “I wasn’t talking to you,” I snapped. “You shouldn’t be listening anyway.”

  Adam pulled himself into a sitting position, squinting against the sunlight before he flipped his sunglasses over his eyes. “Believe me, I even tried to asphyxiate myself with my towel without any luck.”

  “Well, let me know if you need any help with that,” I said sweetly, tilting my head.

  “Thanks, but I think I would have better chances suffocating with buff-boy Stevie’s muscles.”

  Tess tipped her glasses up. “Why, Adam Henderson, are you jealous?”

  The sunglasses shielded his eyes, but it did little to mask the look of outrage across his face. “Pfft, please.” Adam shifted to his feet, dusting the sand off the back of his shorts and looking down at us with a smile. I had to shield my eyes as I looked up at him. Adam’s tall, lanky frame blocked the sun from entirely blinding me, but then he smiled—broad, brilliant and white—and it was the equivalent of looking directly into the sun.

  “As if I’d be jealous of a five,” he said, glancing back out to the water, where Steven Wigmore was wrestling with his mates in some kind of macho display of manhood.

  “A five?” Tess laughed.

  Adam picked up his towel, shaking the excess sand from it before looping it over his shoulder.

  “Maybe even a four and a half,” he said with a little smirk, before he saluted us and started down the beach toward his bike. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Adam called back over his shoulder. “We can braid each other’s hair and talk about Jason Priestley.”

  I shook my head. “Why do we put up with him?”

  Tess laughed. “Why does he put up with us?”

  ***

  Memories are an amazing thing: such a small trigger like ‘Steven Wigmore is seriously hot’ opened up the floodgates of a moment in time spent baking in the sun near Lake Onslow. The last summer before starting high school, before believing our lives would change now that we weren’t simple little primary schoolers. I flipped forward in the diary, eager to recall what the reality was, when my eyes locked onto an intriguing sentence.

  Jodie Collins is a fucking bitch!

  My brows rose at the jarring declaration: a good thing my diary hadn’t been photocopied for the entire Year Seven class to see. A small smile lined my face, thinking about how Adam had defended my honour, how he always defended my honour: it had me believing in him again; that one amazing act alone could wipe out him standing me up. I was tempted to reach for my mobile, to text Adam and go on like nothing had happened, but before I did there was one thing that was lingering in my peripheral vision: on top of the Sweet Valley High pile was the infamous 1999 diary.

  Reeeead me, reeeeeead me, it taunted.

  I shook my head; no, not yet! I blindly reached for another book: 1994. I mentally calculated: sixteen? I would have been sweet sixteen; this should be good, I thought. I opened up the book, soon lost in more teenage angst and drama.

  The first line reading:

  Kelly Heart is a stupid mole!

  Oh boy.

  ***

  A chorus of girls surrounded me at the basin of the girls’ toilets.

  “D-did it hurt?” asked Kim Winters, her big blue eyes wide and full of wonder.

  I casually ran my fingers through my fringe, taking in my reflection with a quiet confidence. “The first time always does, but then it feels good—really, really good.” I gave the group a pointed look, as Ellie’s sex ed continued with a series of awkward, yet intriguing questions that I answered without missing a beat. It was all the stuff that wasn’t covered in Mr Ericson’s health class; mine was much more engaging. It was just a shame that all my shared knowledge was actually not based on personal experience but more so on what I had read out of the sealed section of Dolly magazine. I’m not sure why I did it, why I continued with the lies; a part of me liked the attention, craved it from anyone who would give it: good or bad, I didn’t really care, and that was the problem. Along with lies comes the aftermath of disaster; in this case, little-goody-two-shoes Kelly Heart had taken one of my lessons out of the confines of the girls’ toilets and spread a rather inventive rumour that I had sex with the entire Onslow football team. Not very original, but also something that wasn’t exactly denied by the boys of the Onslow Tigers. When the ludicrous rumour had surfaced, Tess turned to me with her big worried eyes; I swear it affected her more than it did me. Adam, on the other hand, didn’t give me that look; there was no sympathy, or worry. He simply sat next to me at the bus stop, crunching on his orange-flavoured Sunnyboy, looking at me with that usual cheeky glint in his eyes.

  “Going to watch footy training tonight?” he asked, cocking his brow.

  “Adam!” Tess cried.

  But I wasn’t offended; I simply bumped him with my shoulder. “Shut up!”

  “Yeah, you must be exhausted,” he mocked.

  “Oh, but I am; I have to conserve my energy for the swim team and cricket season though.”

  “What about the debate team?” Adam posed, with a mouth full of ice.

  “Oh, yeah, I’ll have to check my schedule.”

  “I’m glad you guys think this is so funny, but you know what my mum always says,” said Tess, as she looked around and lowered her voice. “No one wants a slut for a girlfriend.” Tess gave me a pointed look, a look that a mother would give and I could imagine Tess’s mum giving her that very same look. My mouth curved at sweet Tess.

  “Do you think I’m a slut?”

  Tess’s eyes widened in horror. “Of course not, Ellie, I …”

  I turned to Adam. “Do you?”

  Adam seemed surprised by the question, as if the conversation was exclusive between us girls. He looked at me, his serious brown eyes assessing me with interest to the point I straightened as the drawn-out silence caused me to feel uneasy. I could handle anyone thinking the worst of me, it was all just water off a duck’s back, my feelings were like old leather like that, but at the thought of Tess or Adam thinking that of me, I doubted my heart could take it. It was telling me so with the erratic pounding it was doing in my chest.

  Adam shook his head. “You know how incredibly average you are, right?” he said, breaking into a slow smile, watching for my reaction intently.

  I burst out laughing. “Shut up!” I said, shoving him as hard as I could, so hard he had to juggle to keep a hold of his Sunnyboy.

  Even the worry had melted away from Tess’s grim disposition as she laughed at Adam’s response.

  All had seemed well in the world: I had my friends and to hell with what anyone else had thought. If they wanted to misconstrue my girls’ toilet storytelling, what was I to do? I stretched my long legs out in front of me as I leant against the bus shelter, lifting my chin defiantly to all the girls who passed with their filthy looks and bitchy whisperings, or the boys who sniggered and elbowed each other. I breathed a laugh through my nose. Let them look, I thought; I would whole-heartedly sooner be memorable than simply, God forbid, melt into the background. I shuddered, glimpsing at Tess, who sat next to me, poring over the school newsletter. Tess preferred to fly under the radar and for the most part she succeeded. Despite being known as that smart girl, she would often get looks of interest from boys admiring a pretty face. Petite, blonde, shy, definitely the kind of girl you would want to take home to meet your parents. Aside from our colouring,
we really were polar opposites.

  My memory ended as I closed the diary, resting it on my chin with a smile. The page was littered from my sixteen-year-old penmanship with:

  Tess + Ellie + Adam = BFF 4 Life!

  At sixteen, and the vicious circle of rumours that went with the territory, it was surely great to have such an alliance, one that seemed unshakable, until I remembered something. My brows knit together as I flipped through the diary once more, flicking, flicking, until I hit a page, and a time that wasn’t so solid in our friendship.

  September 1994—Adam gets a girlfriend; ugh, how could I forget that?!

  Chapter Three

  I slammed the diary shut, pushing it aside, pursing my lips together as if there was a lingering sour taste in my mouth. I really didn’t need a rundown of that moment in history; it was one I remembered well. Adam’s first true love, the one that had taken him away from Tess and me. Megsy Swanston, or as we commonly referred to her, Megsy Fucking Swanston. She was the equivalent of Yoko Ono to the Beatles. As soon as she entered the picture our impenetrable trio was suddenly an awesome foursome, minus the ‘awesome’. She was one of those ‘out of town’ girls who had to travel by bus to get to her parents’ property on the outskirts of Onslow. She was a quirky, pretty girl with big moon-shaped eyes, a cutesy little nose, and cropped, bobbed hair with a jagged short fringe that only really cool people could get away with. She was sweet and lovely and her parents were hippy-like, organic farmers who sold produce at the local markets. There was no one like Megsy in school; she had been a blow-in in Year Ten, home-schooled before then, and now she had escaped, and Adam was completely enamoured by her. I hated her.

  “Megsy Fucking Swanston.” I laughed and chucked the diary back into the deep recess of the box where some memories simply belonged. I calmed my thoughts thinking of a more happy time, like when Megsy broke Adam’s heart when she left for some artsy kind of school—far, far away. Of course I had felt sorry for Adam, he had taken it really hard; I had never seen him so down, so sad, so un-Adam. But I wasn’t sorry about having my friend back, and as we ventured into 1995 it was like the days of old, the three amigos, and Megsy was nothing but a distant nightmare, only to be buried in the pages of an old diary and locked away into a box forever. Where she belonged.