Cherry Red Summer (Emely and Elyas Book 1)

by Bartsch, Carina

  “And what about Luca?” Alex asked. “Why haven’t you met up with him yet?”

  She did not just say that, did she? I stared at her.

  I was seriously going to chop off her head.

  “Luca?” Elyas asked.

  No, chopping off her head wouldn’t hurt enough. I was going to flay her skin with a potato peeler.

  “Say, Alex?” I hissed at her with a glare. “Have you shown Sebastian your Smurf panties yet?”

  That was a declaration of war. A war Alex would lose. The color drained from her face.

  “Smurf panties?” Sebastian asked.

  Take that, my shitty best friend!

  But it was for naught, because Sebastian thought it was cute. My God, was he gay or something?

  All I could do for the next half hour was sulk. Things eventually calmed down, and little by little the conversations died down and the couples drew closer to each other. Sophie and Andy were kissing, apparently taking no notice of anyone else. Alex and Sebastian were the same, whispering into each other’s ears and making each other smile.

  I sat cross-legged, listening to “Flames” by Vast on the boom box, lost in my thoughts as I played with a blade of grass. Elyas was beside me on his back, propping himself up on his elbows. I could tell he was looking at me, although my back was to him. That way I didn’t have to constantly notice him out of the corner of my eye.

  Emely, I like you.

  I couldn’t get those words out of my head. They were like a never-ending echo between my ears. But I knew, I just knew, I couldn’t believe them. But what if I could? What if—

  Did I want to consider the what-ifs?

  My gut told me Elyas wasn’t the kind of guy to give your heart to. Even if the impossible was true and he had feelings for me—how in the world would I keep someone like him? It’d be easier to catch the wind in my fingers.

  My emotions from high school overwhelmed me, taking over my body like a vicious, oppressive substance in my chest. I couldn’t breathe right anymore.

  I never, ever, wanted to experience something like that again. I wouldn’t survive a second time.

  And some people hide behind a mask because they’re afraid of being hurt.

  Sebastian’s words now stuck in my mind, a constant buzzing in the background.

  Elyas had broken my heart, yes, but I was realizing that was only part of the story. Sooner or later, suppressed feelings screamed louder and louder until you couldn’t ignore them anymore. It was not a coincidence that my relationships after Elyas had been superficial. My subconscious had guided me directly into flimsy, risk-free connections with other people. But I felt OK as long as my love was weak enough and control over my feelings didn’t slip through my fingers.

  Love was a gift; it made life worth living and much more beautiful than it could ever be without love. At the same time, love wielded so much power and entailed so much darkness, it could easily bury people. Love could destroy everything you had built up. Love could bring someone to hate herself . . .

  I let my head sink. The melody of the song was so melancholy, so full of feeling. One second I was floating, the next my limbs felt like lead, weighing me down until I was swallowed by nothingness. The silky, liquid words floated above the melody, as though they had been written for this particular moment. Every line fit so well, I got goose bumps. I looked into the flames, watching them rise up, writhe, and withdraw as they devoured the dry wood underneath. With every crackle the branches lost more life, collapsing more and more and eventually succumbing to the heat. At some point, the only thing left would be a mound of ashes, a reminder of the circle of life.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a dream when I felt a hand lightly touch my back as I bent forward toward the fire. Warmth spread from the spot of the touch and covered my whole back. The hand moved up my spine, gently and tenderly, leaving nothing but tingling behind. The touch was different; it felt like a loving gesture of affection.

  “Elyas . . . ,” I said with a scratchy voice. He took his hand off and the warmth on my back was replaced with an unpleasant chill.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, sitting up. He scooted over to my side, much too close, and joined me in watching my hands play with the blade of grass.

  “Is everything OK with you?” he asked. His voice, his beautiful voice. It enveloped my heart, like the tentacles of an octopus around its prey.

  I nodded.

  Nothing was OK, nothing at all.

  Elyas stretched out his arm and traced his fingers over the scratch I had gotten while gathering wood. My hand responded to him as though my skin were as thin as tissue paper.

  “What did you do here?” he asked softly. His fingers moved over the wound, learning its shape.

  I pulled my hand away. “The firewood didn’t want to be tamed.”

  He smiled. “You really need to take care of yourself better, Emely.”

  I nodded and looked to the side. My thoughts had left me in much too unstable a mood. One look into his eyes would be my demise, giving me the last push to send me plummeting over the edge. I would sink into them inexorably, becoming powerless, and he would be able to do anything he wanted with me.

  Two breaths later I felt a drop of water on my skin, then several, and then it started pouring. The tide had been bound to turn in my direction at some point, and evidently now was that time.

  “Shit,” I heard Andy say.

  “The boom box!” Sebastian said. He took off his jacket as he stood, laying it over the device, and headed to the car with it as the rest of us got to our feet.

  “Dammit! All the blankets are getting wet!” Sophie yelled as she frantically started gathering them up.

  Elyas stood there and sighed. Despite the rain, I doused the fire with the four water buckets Sebastian had set out earlier, just to be sure it was out. An acrid white smoke rose into the dark sky. Sophie and Andy ran for the tents, arms full. Sebastian came back, picked up the last blanket, and held it over Alex’s head. I looked around to see if anything was left, but apart from bottles and beer cans, there was nothing.

  “Good night, Elyas,” I called, pulling up my hood and running off.

  Alex and Sebastian stood in front of our tent saying good night for about the next decade. I wriggled past them and crawled in. My hair was dripping, and my clothes were damp. I slid off my jeans, opened my backpack, and pulled out my pajama pants. I hadn’t thought to bring a pajama top, sadly. I put on the pants and waited for Alex to come inside. It felt like forever.

  “Do you have a thin sweater or T-shirt I could borrow?” I asked. Unlike me, Alex had brought a fully packed travel bag.

  “Sure,” she said, unzipping the bag and rummaging in it. “Here, this should fit.” She held out a black sweatshirt, which I immediately pulled on.

  “That’s great. Thank you.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “And to think you made fun of all my luggage this afternoon!”

  “Yeah,” I said, “because we’re only going to be here for one night, not two months.”

  “I’m prepared for any situation, and you are benefiting from that right now.” She stretched and changed into her pajamas as well. Once she had on her light-blue silk pajamas, neither of said anything for a moment.

  “What is it?” I said.

  She exhaled. “I miss Sebastian.”

  “You’ve been apart for ten minutes.”

  “I know. Sooo long!” She rested her chin in her hands, lying on her stomach.

  “Alex, you’ll see him again in a couple of hours.” I unrolled my sleeping bag and crawled inside.

  “I don’t think I can make it a minute without him. We didn’t even say a proper good-night,” she mumbled.

  “You were in front of the tent for an eternity saying good night!”

  “It was still so abrupt. Stupid rain.”<
br />
  No, not at all. Good rain!

  Alex followed my lead and crawled into her sleeping bag as well. The rustling had hardly stopped when a cell phone beeped. I tried to find mine, but Alex squealed as she picked up hers. “It’s Sebastian!”

  I rolled onto my back.

  “He is sooo sweet, Emely. Do you have any idea how sweet he is?” She held her phone to her heart, and I shook my head. “Wait, I totally have to read this aloud!” She sat up. “Do you know how cold I feel since you’ve been gone? I’ve missed you from the second I let go of you. Instead of holding you in my arms now, I’m lying beside your brother, and unfortunately he is only half as snuggly as you are. He says to tell Emely hi and that he misses her, too. Sleep tight, Alex. Love, Sebastian.”

  I sighed; Elyas had said to say hi to me. Oh, joy. Without wanting to, I imagined him lying next to Sebastian in the tent.

  “Isn’t he sweet?” Alex said.

  “Yes, he is. Pretty freaking sweet, in fact.”

  “Good, so you agree,” she said, jumping up.

  “Agree with what?” I watched her start digging wildly through her bag. “That I should go over there right now and thank him for his text message.”

  “Alex!” I fumed.

  “I know I’ve got a raincoat in here somewhere . . .”

  “Did you hear me? Like hell are you leaving me here all alone!” If Alex took off, I wouldn’t see her face again until morning.

  “I won’t be gone long, just one more kiss!” she said, holding up her raincoat.

  “Alex, please stay here.”

  “I swear I’ll be back in five minutes. Really, Emely!” She put on the coat and unzipped the tent door.

  “Alex!”

  “I’ll be right back,” she called as she crawled outside and vanished. I patted around the tent looking for a heavy object to throw at her. But there wasn’t anything, so I just fell back, growling.

  “Stupid cow,” I muttered to myself. “‘I’ll be right back,’” I said, mimicking her.

  As if. I fumed and eventually checked the time. She had been gone for a half hour now.

  Wrapped up in my sleeping bag like a mummy, I listened to the raindrops pattering on the tent. I gradually gave up hope of Alex’s return. She was probably slumbering peacefully in Sebastian’s arms by now.

  I rolled onto my side, resting my cheek on my hand. Would I ever have the fortune of finding someone like Sebastian?

  Probably not.

  Pretty much guaranteed not, actually.

  I rolled over onto my back again with a sigh. I wanted to fall asleep, but I couldn’t close my eyes—a problem that was happening all too often lately. Stupid Elyas.

  Stupid, good-looking, sweet, loving, charming, intelligent jerk . . . People always say you never forget your “first time.” That didn’t apply to me, because I had successfully suppressed memory of my first time for years now. My first time that I would remember to the end of my days was my first kiss.

  As I shifted back onto my side, I heard the zipper to the tent again. “Oh my God, finally,” I said. “I thought you weren’t coming back at all,” I mumbled.

  “Sorry, dearest. If I’d known you were waiting for me, I’d have hurried.”

  That. Was. Not. Alex.

  “Elyas!” I sat up.

  “Don’t hit me, please!” he said. He crawled through the narrow slit to join me in the tent.

  “Get lost!”

  “Now, please don’t overreact!”

  “I’m reacting in an entirely appropriate way!”

  “What am I supposed to do? You send the Sebastian-eating monster over to our tent, and then I have to lie there listening to her eat him up? Do you know how disgusting it is lying only six inches away from that?”

  I made a face. He had a good point, actually. But I still didn’t want him here, in my tent.

  “Earplugs, Elyas. Haven’t you ever heard of earplugs?”

  “I don’t have any. But I did put my fingers in my ears for about half an hour.”

  “Why didn’t you just keep doing that?”

  “Let’s just say when Sebastian’s hand wandered slowly up my thigh, I’d had enough.”

  An image formed in my head, and I giggled.

  “Personally, I didn’t think it was that funny,” he mumbled. “So, can I please sleep here?”

  “God, Elyas,” I moaned. “There are three other tents you could go to.”

  “Oh yeah? Yvonne and Jessica are already asleep. Domenic is obviously out of consideration, and what I heard coming out of Sophie and Andy’s tent was the hardcore version of what is going on in my tent.”

  Wonderful.

  “And the fact that I don’t want you in here doesn’t concern you, or what?”

  “Please, Emely . . .” He put his hands together to beg. “I promise I won’t touch you. Unless you want me to, of course.”

  “You are worse than the bubonic plague,” I said, lying back down and rolling away from him. How much did a person have to put up with? Why couldn’t I ever catch a break and just be rid of him?

  But that was exactly it: I simply had no chance against him. I couldn’t win.

  “Don’t say that,” he said sweetly.

  “I should cast you out into the rain,” I mumbled.

  “Does that mean you won’t behead me?” He sounded skeptical.

  “I’m not saying you don’t deserve it.”

  “Thanks, Emely. I owe you one.”

  “Can I drive the Mustang?” I asked, raising my head.

  He laughed. “Nice try!”

  I grumbled and dropped my head again. He slid into Alex’s sleeping bag, attempting to position it closer to me, but he pulled back after I shot him a toxic glare. He put a hand under his head, and stared up at the tent with me in silence.

  “‘No, really, Emely. No matter what, I guarantee you can sleep with me in my tent,’” I said, mimicking Alex’s promise to me. You could always count on friends.

  Not ten minutes later, all of the air in the tent smelled like Elyas. Had he put on some extra cologne or something beforehand?

  “Are you absolutely sure you’re not a virgin anymore?” he said, breaking the silence.

  I was torn between wanting to kill him and smiling. I smiled. But instead of answering him, I lightly elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Sorry to disappoint you . . .”

  “Then again,” he continued, upbeat, “that doesn’t rule anything out.”

  “What doesn’t it rule out?”

  “That you’ll stop with the uptight routine and we’ll have uninhibited sex right now.”

  “Conversation over. Good night.” I rolled my back to him as he laughed.

  “Oh, come on. It was just a joke,” he said, which only irritated me more.

  “Elyas, seriously,” I said sitting up on my elbows. “Tell me what it’s going to take.”

  “What what’s going to take?”

  “What if I were to say, ‘OK, Elyas, sleep with me’? Would you finally leave me alone then?”

  He looked up and thought for a moment. “First of all,” he said, “I imagined it a bit differently. I mean, ‘OK, Elyas, sleep with me’ sounds a little lackluster.”

  I lay back down. How had I even come up with the idea of asking him?

  “I had in mind that I would sneak over to your room one night,” he continued, “pick Eva up, and dump her out the window. Then I’d carefully lie down next to you in bed just as you were softly calling out my name in your sleep. Then I’d start kissing your neck while my hands slowly moved down your body—”

  “Elyas!” I said, my face flushing.

  “Well, you asked!”

  We didn’t speak for a moment.

  “I have no idea what if,” he finally said, mo
re seriously. “You’ve been very much on my mind the past five months, so I probably wouldn’t let you out of bed for the next three weeks.”

  I crossed my arms. “Great answer, really great answer.”

  Elyas paused, leaving me stuck with the image of his hands slowly wandering down my body . . .

  Nasty!

  “What would you want me to say?” he asked.

  That pulled me, less than gently, from my thoughts. Good question, though. What did I expect?

  “Nothing,” I replied, sounding more disappointed than I wanted to admit. “I just wanted confirmation one more time.”

  “Confirmation of what?”

  “That you’re a jerk.”

  He audibly inhaled and pulled his hair. “For the love of God, Emely. You know as well as I do that you would have me wrapped around your little finger. Even more than you already do.”

  I turned my head to look at him. There was that feeling in my gut again, that delicate, pleasant tingling. But it abruptly withered as a deep roar filled the campsite. I pulled my sleeping bag up to my chin. “Are there bears here?”

  “No idea,” Elyas whispered. We both listened.

  “Not so loud!” a female voice hissed.

  Sophie.

  I frowned.

  “Sorry, baby, but you turn me on.” Had that been Andy? It was dead quiet for a few seconds.

  “I have to admit I’m a little afraid of Andy,” I whispered.

  “To think you wanted to send me over to their tent,” Elyas whispered back. He shivered. After another couple of seconds, we started laughing. I had never encountered a couple like Andy and Sophie before. On the one hand, they argued like an old couple who had been married for fifty years. On the other, they were still full of passion. I wondered which of the two would gain the upper hand after they got married.

  Elyas and I stopped laughing and fell into silence again.

  “Are you at least a little sorry?” he suddenly asked.

  “About what?” I said, blinking at him.

  “Your little performance at the dock.”

  “Oh that,” I said with a giggle. “Your face! Priceless.”

  “It wasn’t funny. It was mean. You totally went for the kill.” He fumbled with the zipper to his sleeping bag. “I mean, I’m used to being treated harshly by you, but that was worse than usual. I really thought you’d never say another word to me.”