Crushing Summer

by C. M. Stunich

  “Sorry, Heidi, I'm not in, not this year.” I paused and licked the salty air from my lips, letting my eyes slide over to Casper's sweaty face. Maybe I'd freaked him out for no reason? Maybe Julie had just gotten out and decided to mingle? She probably wouldn't even be chosen for a title, most likely would end up as a Student. “We're looking for Casper's sister. Have you seen her?” Heidi rolled her turquoise eyes and popped out a hip. She was dressed in a soft, white cotton sundress with little floral accents sewn in. To me, she looked like a supermodel, but she hated when I told her that, so I kept my mouth shut. Throwing compliments at Heidi during an argument, even as one-sided as this, was akin to letting our friendship commit suicide.

  “I don't know the girl. I might've seen her, but who would know?” She rolled her eyes again, just for good measure. “What's she look like?”

  “She's not supposed to be out alone,” Casper snapped, pushing past my friend and moving into a jog towards the bustling crowd. I raised my brows at my friend and shrugged before taking off after him. I had no idea what sort of illness she was suffering from, but if he was this serious about finding her, then so was I. I was the one that let him come here in the first place. When he'd asked me to a movie, I should've immediately picked a different venue. Maybe there was some part of me that had wanted to come? I don't know, but I was determined not to let Assignment Night screw anything up.

  I moved between the cars, trailing behind Casper's striped back as he dove into the group of people who were waiting for the votes to be counted. High school students, juniors and seniors mostly, sat behind a long table, counting and recounting the votes from the buckets, typing names into spreadsheets as new nominees were pulled out. After this, the two people chosen as Queen Bee and the King would stand up on the stage made up of shipping pallets, mics in hand, and they'd go through each title, their duties, their responsibilities, their privileges, and then they'd start to name names. After that, everything would change. It always did.

  “Julie!” Casper was shouting, not caring that the crowd was parting for him, spreading in two and watching him with curious eyes. Until he got to Cage. The two boys paused, staring at one another as I moved up behind Casper's back.

  “Looking for someone?” Cage asked, nice as can be. Casper nodded and wiped some sweat from his forehead. His eyes flicked this way and that, searching for Julie.

  “My sister's here, somewhere. She's … ” I moved up beside Casper, trying to pretend that I didn't feel Cage's eyes fall on me, that I didn't care. Goose bumps sprung up over my skin as I watched my new friend try to decide if he should reveal the cause of his sister's illness. After a minute, he decided against it. “She's sick, and if she has an episode, she's got to take a shot. She can't be out alone, without anyone around to do it for her. If she doesn't get the medicine right away, she could –”

  “Casper?” A pale hand shot out of the crowd, like something from a horror movie. I'll admit, I jumped a bit on that one. A heart shaped face emerged, followed by a thin, frail body wrapped up in a black lace gown that went all the way from throat to wrists to ankles. “No need to freak, I'm right here.” Casper swiped a hand through his hair angrily and glared at his sister. It didn't take an expert to let me know that he resented her. His nervousness, his fear, it wasn't all out of worry. That anger towards her was written all over his face.

  “You're not supposed to go out alone,” he said as the crowd started to filter back in, sandwiching us between the younger kids in back, the middle schoolers and the freshman, and the sophomores, juniors, and seniors up front.

  “I'm fifteen years old, Casp, relax.” Julie pulled out a plastic card and a shot from the front pocket of her dress. “Don't take everything Mom and Dad say seriously,” she said, words a little breathy, light as the air around us but half as heavy. Julie looked liked she could take to the sky at any moment and float away. I hated to admit it to myself, but even if Casper hadn't told me she was ill, I would've known. She had that look on her face that said she knew her time on this earth was temporary. My grandma had it, my uncle, my cousin. Once you decide that you're going to leave soon, that you're going to whisper goodbye to this world and find out what's next, you start to look at things differently.

  Julie was taking in the crowd, her brother, me and Cage, like we were separate from her somehow, standing on the opposite side of a fence and looking in. I liked her right away and smiled. She stuck her syringe back in her pocket and smiled back.

  “Is this your date?” she asked bluntly, voice soft but somehow impossible to lose in the murmur of the people around us. She had quiet authority in her small stature. I held out my hand, ignoring Cage's raised brows as he took in Casper with a very different expression from before.

  “Chloe Summer,” I said, still smiling.

  “Julie Alice,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It doesn't exactly flow off the tongue, but there it is. At least I won't be stuck with it for much longer.”

  “Julie!”

  “Casper!” she shouted back, eyes wide. Julie crossed her arms over her chest. “If I can't make jokes about my own mortality, what do I have left? An arm riddled with needle holes and a medical chart that's longer than War and Peace, that's what. Let me die with dignity and some humor, okay? That's not much to ask, is it?” Casper rolled his eyes.

  “Can you please stop?” he said, like he'd heard this a hundred times before. “It's just … morbid.”

  “Didn't you give your last girlfriend a card that read 'In your morbidity, I find my light.'?” Casper paled a little and glanced away from me, but I just laughed. “You're the one who's always decorating everything with little skulls and listening to music about coffins, so lay off. Hypocrite,” she murmured under her breath. I glanced back over my shoulder at her brother who raised his eyes just enough that I was able to grab them and hold. An ex-girlfriend, huh? Interesting. I wonder if he'd left her by choice or if the move had forced them to reconsider. I guess that was something I'd have to wait to find out.

  “This must be the sister?” Heidi asked, sauntering up to us with Justin by her side. Every time I looked at the guy, I saw Tatiana. It was impossible for me to see his face without imagining her head on his shoulder. I still couldn't believe that he and Heidi had been having an affair. It was wrong on so many levels.

  “Julie Alice,” she said, tucking some glimmering raven hair behind her ear. It took me a minute to realize that it was a wig. I could tell by the way she touched it, almost tentatively, like it was borrowed rather than owned. It was certainly pretty though. “Still alive … for the moment anyway.”

  “Julie.” A warning from Casper.

  “Casper.”

  The two siblings stared at one another like they waging a battle that had started eons ago.

  “Changed your mind about The Assignment?” Cage asked me quietly, drawing my attention back to his perfectly pressed sweater, his slick smile. Something inside my chest told me to stay away from guys like Cage Lawrence. But I didn't want to. I was drawn to him at the same time I felt like I should be warned away, like the guy should walk around with pink spots or something, a warning from nature telling you that he was bad news. I mean he was perfectly nice, respectable, had good grades. There was just something there, something deep down that made me want to sweat in ways both good and bad.

  I shook my head, but Heidi answered for me, cutting right through a conversation that Casper and Julie were having.

  “Chloe's just here to watch,” she said, pulling my gaze back to her. I ended up staring at Justin instead, watching his innocent blue eyes, his white-blonde hair, his beach tanned skin. He was pretty, but if Cage was bad news, Justin was a national disaster waiting to happen. I didn't like him at all, and I'd told Heidi that. She'd almost best friend broken up with me, for sure. “She wants to see me get crowned Queen Bee,” she said with a little giggle that said she didn't believe that was going to happen but secretly wished for it.

  “Hmm,” Cage said, and t
hen smiled as a blonde in a yellow sundress glommed onto his arm. She cupped her hand around his ear and whispered something fiercely, not so subtly alerting the crowd to a simple fact: Cage Lawrence was chosen as the King. Not a big surprise, not really. He was practically in charge of the whole event anyway. “Hey, you know, good luck with that,” he said, taking the blonde's arm as applause started in the group around us and spread quickly. There were a couple groans here and there, too, from Rush, the only guy in our school who took football seriously, from Peter, the school playboy, even from Justin.

  “I thought you said I was a shoe-in?” he whispered, nibbling my friend's ear. I looked away and found Casper with a wrinkled nose that was pretty much identical to mine.

  “Want to get out of here?” I asked and nearly exploded from my skin when Heidi snatched at my wrist with her long, pink fingernails. She pouted her lower lip at me and batted her eyelashes. I raised my brows.

  “Stick around for the Assignments? I mean, what can it hurt, right? You're out of the danger zone now.” Heidi shook my arm and puffed her lip out even further, giving me the lost puppy dog look. It usually worked. What can I say? I was a bit of a softie.

  With a sigh, I said, “Fine. As long as Casper's okay with that?” I gave him a raised brow to ask his permission and he shrugged, looking over at his sister who merely smiled.

  “I have to stay,” Julie told him, thin lips curling at the corners. “I signed up.”

  “You did what?” Casper snarled, grabbing her arm a little harder than I think he'd meant to. He released her right away and brushed some of his dark hair from his eye. It fell back into place almost immediately. Julie just shrugged and turned around as a piercing shriek echoed out from the speakers placed on either side of the voting tables. A mumbled apology followed right after and my peers began to quiet. This was something nobody wanted to miss, that they would pause the gossip and the rumors for. This, this meant everything during summer in San Aplastar. Heck, The Assignment was summer in this town.

  “I signed up. I'm fifteen. It's what people do around here, right?” She tossed a look over her shoulder, raven hair flying, and then narrowed her eyes on me, willing me to speak the truth. She needn't have worried. I had kind of a strict all honesty, all the time policy. It made things simpler. Without secrets, there was nothing to hide, so I never had to worry. Everything was out in the open all the time. Well, except with my mom. That was a little different. I'd never actually lie to her, but I might omit a thing or two. Like the drowning. Yeah, like that.

  “It is,” I admitted with a shrug, watching as Casper wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and sighed deeply. He let his beautiful eyes fall over to mine.

  “Is she in any danger?” he asked, and my tongue got caught in my mouth. It felt like I was trying to talk through sandpaper. All I could do was shrug again. It depended, really, on what she was Assigned. If she was a Student, she'd be fine. If she got another title, things could get ugly. Casper groaned, but the sound of his voice was cut off by Shayla Harold's. Guess we knew who had been chosen as Queen Bee. At least Shayla was nice. Or at least she used to be. The Assignment changed people.

  “Good evening everyone!” she shouted, her voice all exclamation points. She was excited, that much was obvious, practically bouncing up and down on the shipping pallets. “My name is Shayla Arkley Harold, and I'm proud to announce that tonight is the first official night of The Assignment.” Cheers exploded around us, people waving cell phones and lighters like we were at a rock concert or something. I crossed my arms over my chest and listened carefully. This announcement was going to tell me who to avoid this summer, who was going to draw trouble like magnets to a fridge. “As you know, this blessed local tradition began over fifty years ago right here in this spot and has continued ever since. I know you all know the rules, but as tradition dictates, we have to repeat them this year and every year.” Shayla sucked in a massive breath, tucking a handful of tiny braids behind her ear. They were decorated with little colored beads with the letters from assignment on them. I thought it was a bit overkill, but maybe that was just me. “And to help me do that,” Shayla paused and bit her lower lip hard. “I have this year's reigning King, Cage Edward Lawrence.” She swung out her arm like a gameshow host and welcomed Cage onto the pallet next to her. The crowd cheered again, as if they hadn't already known.

  “Thank you, Shayla,” he said, sounding bemused. He wasn't nearly as excited as she was. Or at least he wasn't showing it. Cage struck me as the kind of guy who could hold back any emotion, no matter how strong it was. Like, he could sit through a funeral without crying, win the lottery without cheering. I tried not to like that about him. “And if you haven't already guessed, the title of Queen Bee this year has been granted almost unanimously to Miss Harold, so let's give her a round of applause for that.” More cheering, and Casper and I exchanged another look. He leaned in close and whispered against my ear, hot breath teasing my skin and making me shiver.

  “No wonder you wanted to avoid this thing. It's cheesy and dull.” I smiled; he smiled back.

  “As you know the role of Queen Bee is to make sure that everything goes smoothly, that everybody follows the rules.” Cage paused for dramatic effect, a wicked smile curving his lips. “But also to be obeyed, worshipped. This summer, for better or worse, Shayla is your one and only.”

  “One of two,” Shayla quipped, hooking her arm around Cage's. “As King, Cage is my partner.” She beamed up at him, and I'm pretty sure there was the want for more, to be partners in love maybe? Cage pretended not to notice and Shayla unhooked her arm with a slight frown.

  “The Assignment runs from tonight until the Friday before Labor Day, ending at midnight, no exceptions. After that, we forget this ever happened and we go back to doing whatever it is we want to do.” Cage gripped the microphone tight, searching the crowd with his pretty gray eyes. “Until then, we abide by the rules set down before us. There are no exceptions, no backing out. If you signed up, you're in. Period. Understood?” I shivered at the finality in his voice. It felt like more than a game, like a death sentence or something. I was so glad that I opted out.

  “Now, we're going to go through the major titles first. If you don't hear your name called, you can assume that you're a Student. A Student's job is to follow the rules perfectly, no mistakes. The Student is the most important part of The Assignment. Without Students, the other titles wouldn't mean much of anything, now would they?” Some twittering from the crowd. I ignored them all and kept my eyes focused on Cage.

  “For our first Assignment, we're going to name the Heartthrob. As you know, this title is specifically for the boys.” Cage grinned and there were some distinctly girly giggles that bubbled out of the crowd. “The female equivalent for this spot would be the Crush, which we'll get to in just a minute.” Cage nodded his chin and Shayla unfolded a piece of paper that one of the volunteers handed her. She didn't seem surprised by what she saw.

  “Alright everybody. Get ready for this. The Heartthrob, the one that we all want to be or be with, the beautiful one, the idealism of our affections, the source of crushes, will be played by the following individual. Remember, your goal is to get with the Heartthrob, whatever the cost. We might be your Queen and King, but Heartthrob, he's your heart.” Shayla grinned. “I'd like to bestow this honor, with your votes, on Patrick Carrob. Give him a hand everyone!” I clapped, just like everybody else as Pat broke through the crowd, accompanied by whistles and pats on the back. He was grinning big and wide with white, white teeth, and he was probably the only guy there that wasn't wearing a shirt, showing off his tanned skin and hardened body. I knew Pat was a big time surfer and sort of the class clown. Now, if that had been a title, he'd have been Assigned it.

  “Hey!” he shouted, throwing up his fist in a victorious pump. His sandy hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it back with a dash of his hand. It stayed that way, maybe since it looked to be a little damp. I wondered if he'd sneaked off for a
surf or something earlier. “I want to thank the Academy, whatever the hell that means, right?” Some laughter followed his joke, but I didn't think it was very funny. He was a good looking guy, but I had a hard time figuring out how he'd nabbed the Heartthrob spot. It just didn't seem like his style.

  “Next up,” Cage began, taking another piece of paper from a girl on his left. “We have the Crush.” He paused as a hush fell over the group. Nobody needed to mention Tatiana, but we were all thinking about her. Last year's Crush, now dead. Gone. Lost at sea. Returned half-eaten. I swallowed hard. “This is a position that I'd like to dedicate to a dear friend of mine, lost tragically in an accident last year.” Cage cleared his throat, but he didn't say her name, not aloud anyway. It was kind of taboo. “The Crush is your all, your everything, the one you dream of kissing at night or the one you crave to be, nothing else. She is your ultimate goal and the one whose name you scribble in your notebook.” More laughter, mostly from the guys this time. “And I am proud to announce that this year's Crush position goes to … ” Cage unfolded the paper and paused, thick brows climbing his forehead. The mic squeaked and the crowd went deathly silent, waiting in hushed anticipation.

  “You alright, Cage?” Shayla asked, waving her hand in front of his face. His eyes flicked over to her face as he licked his lips and shook his head, like he was a bit shocked about something. My first thought was that through some cruel joke, Tatiana had been voted in again. But I was wrong. Really, really wrong.

  “This year's Crush Assignment goes to … Chloe Summer.”

  I stood in shocked silence while the people around me began to murmur, confused. They couldn't have known that I didn't sign up, so that would explain why they'd voted for me. But I hadn't listed myself on the roster, so my win should've been null and void, given to the next girl on the list. This was a mistake, just a stupid mistake, and I was going to clear it up.