by Angel Lawson
“What?” I swear I’ve said the word ten times tonight, but Anita’s mind works at a different speed than my own.
“The boys like you. Like, really like you. All of them.”
“Well, that’s…” But I know it. I feel it, and that feeling is both parts amazing and terrifying. Amazing because I like them too and I want to explore every little thing about them—with them. But terrifying because France or no, my time here is limited. And they have dreams off this island and I’m sure as hell not going to be the reason they break them.
Anita clutches my arm. “I see that look on your face. Roll it back, girl. This is a good thing. These boys…they need to learn how to settle down. How to love someone. You may be the best damn thing to enter their lives.”
“But what if it’s the opposite? What if I come in here and crush their fragile ecosystem. Their Pact has worked. Why stop now?”
“I’m not so sure it has worked.” Her eyes dart over my shoulder and I’m sure it’s one of them. I take a deep breath and turn.
It’s not one of the guys.
It’s Mason, standing at the bottom of the deck stairs in the same jeans and wrinkled shirt from this morning. His beard has grown shaggier, the circles under his red eyes darker.
He bounds on the steps and starts yelling before I get a chance to do a thing. “I knew it. You’re not staying down here for long lost family or helping your mother with one of her trashy-grocery store novels. It’s about whatever guy is in that bar that you’re fucking. I knew from the start that you were a filthy whore. You teased and taunted me for months with that innocent act.” He clutches his head. “‘Oh, Mr. Lowery, I need help with this assignment. Oh, Mr. Lowery, you’re so smart.’ You got so inside my brain—so up on my jock—that I was willing to risk everything. My relationship. My career, just to get a taste of you.”
The truth, his truth, comes rushing out and I’m frozen by the onslaught.
Anita pushes past me. “What the hell did you just say?”
“I said Summer is a whore. A trashy, filthy, spread-legged whore.” He looks inside where the four guys and Bobby have now turned our way. “Which one is it? Which one are you fucking?”
In a blink, the deck is full of hot-headed men carrying pool sticks, with blazing eyes. I’m still frozen but Anita has jumped between the men and Mason.
“Absolutely no fighting,” her eyes level with each man. “This is under control.”
“He just called Summer a whore,” Nick argues. Whit paces behind him like a caged animal. Ivy and Maggie appear from inside the bar. Maggie approaches Whit and talks to him quietly.
“Which one of you is trying to steal my girl?” Mason says, his words are slurred. I realize he’s drunk.
I look pleadingly at the guys, at Anita. I just want this to stop.
“She’s not your girl,” Pete says calmly. “And it’s time for you to leave.”
“So it’s you,” he says. He looks like a fool.
Justin steps forward and says, “Hey man, looks like we got off to the wrong start. I’m Justin. This is my brother, Bobby, and my best friends, Nick, Pete, and Whit. Anita is my sister-in-law and Summer’s cousin. This is our bar, in our town. We’re happy for you to join us for a drink, but Summer is one of us and if you disrespect her, you disrespect us, so watch your goddamned mouth.”
“I saw her with you the other night,” he says, pointing at Pete. “And I saw her go with you in that cottage.” He eyes Whit. “And leave with you. So, who is it? Who is she with?”
“Stop!” I shout, snapping out of my fog. “Mason, stop. You’re embarrassing yourself. Go home.”
He spins on wobbly feet. “I’m not leaving until you tell me who you’re fucking.”
His words are mean. His expression meaner, and I feel my throat closing up. The truth is that I’m with all of them but how do I say that without being what he’s calling me? How do I explain what I have with these men without cheapening it? The walls I’d loosened since arriving in Ocean Beach start to build up again, taking the air and light with it. I take a deep breath and say, “If you shut up, I’ll go with you back home. I’ll go on the trip. If you leave here and never come back again.”
“What?” Nick shouts. Pete steps forward but Anita holds him back and says, “Summer…you can’t go with him.”
Mason looks surprised at my comment but smiles widely. “You mean it?”
“What the hell—” Whit charges forward. Maggie grabs his shoulder but he shoves her off. “You’re not going with this drunk asshole, Summer. No fucking way.”
“Stop,” I say, grabbing his arm. “You don’t get to make decisions for me. None of you do.” I eye Mason before saying, “Let me talk to him for a minute.”
“Summer, don’t…” Pete says.
“Look,” I say in a calm voice, “I had a life before I came here. I made stupid decisions, had a complicated relationship with a ton of regrets. You guys helped me work through that and it’s time for me to deal with the fallout. I’ve been running since my mom and I hit the road. I’m still running and I thought maybe I’d find peace here but I can’t, not until I deal with my baggage.”
“You do not have to go with him to fix your life, Summer,” Nick says in a low voice. “We can help you with whatever went wrong. Just don’t go with him.”
Warmth spreads through my chest, bubbling around my heart. These guys are so good and Mason is just proof that everything I touch turns to shit. If I stay around here, things will get fucked up. I feel the Pact crumbling. I see their focus drifting. They wanted out of this place for a bigger world and every second I stay here, their lives get smaller.
“Thank you for treating me like family. I’ve always wanted more than just me and my mom, and for a brief moment you gave that to me. I’ll never forget it.”
I start down the steps and Mason follows me. Once we get close enough I see a couple of boats tied to the side of the dock. “Where’s your car and keys?”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you’ve been screwing. Is it the muscle head? The surfer? The skinny townie or the college boy?”
“You won, Mason. And you were sleeping with your fiancé the whole time we were together. I don’t think you should judge who I’ve been seeing while we were apart.” Although it’s dark down here, the only light comes from small lamps surrounding the dock; I can see the anguish on his face switch to a revelation.
“Oh, I get it. You were rebounding and slumming it with the townies. The exact opposite of me. Once we get to France, you’ll forget about them.”
“We?”
“You,” he corrects, grabbing my arm. “When you get to France.”
“Wait, you never planned on backing out of the trip, did you?” I attempt to jerk my arm away but he holds tight, grinning sheepishly.
“Once we get to France this will all be a silly memory, just a summer fling. You’ll forget about these red-necks and we’ll eat croissants and drink wine and it will just be the two of us again.”
His words, his actions are like a boomerang, ricocheting around my heart and mind.
Footsteps rumble down the stairs and Mason looks at the expression on my face, the guys coming and pulls me to him, grinning with a nasty smile.
“You want her?” he asks. I can smell the alcohol on his breath and I decided then I kind of do want one of them to punch him. Justin is close enough now to do it but just before he reaches us, Mason says, “You can have her,” and releases me.
The problem is, I’m too near the edge of the dock and he doesn’t just let go of my arm—he pushes me off the edge and into the water.
“No!” I shout, panic replacing all anger. I sink like a stone between the boats. My feet search for the sandy bottom, but the water is deep--dark--and fear grips me. It intensifies when something brushes my foot. I yelp. “Help!”
I can swim, I can, but the fear of the dark ocean water sends me into a panic. There are sounds of a tussle on the dock, shouts a
nd punches. I’m too close to the boats and feel my back bang against the hull of a large craft. I reach out but feel nothing but slippery fiberglass. A splash rocks the water more and I bang against the boat. My name drifts over the water, “Summer?”
“Over here,” I call, but it’s dark and shadowy and all I can see is dark, limitless ocean. My breath catches and I twist, looking to make sure nothing is near me. It’s too dark to tell.
“Stop moving!” Justin yells. His voice bounces off the boat.
“I’m not moving!”
You’d think I would calm down the minute he reaches me, but I don’t. Instead I start crying. Tears of fear and anger. “I’m sorry,” I sob, accidentally taking in a gulp of sea water. I cough and sputter, choking as he drags me to the dock.
“Grab on to the edge,” he tells me. I do as I’m told but I don’t have the upper-body strength to pull myself up. “Okay, I’m going to push you up but you have to try to get on the dock, though.”
It takes a minute and Justin’s hands are all over my butt, heaving me out of the water, but Pete peers over the side with a relieved expression and yanks me out. Eventually we’re both lying on the dock. I’m soaked and the thin fabric of my dress clings to every inch of my body. Justin’s clothes are heavy and wet. We’ve both lost our shoes.
“You okay?” he asks.
“No.” My teeth chatter and I search for everyone else. They’re gone. All of them. Anita, Whit, Nick, and Mason. “Where are they?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Pete says with a dark look. “Everyone’s fine. Let’s get you dry.”
“Come on.” Justin stands and helps me off the dock. I follow him and Pete throws his arm around my shoulder as we walk around the side of the building, instead of back inside. There’s no sign of Mason or the others anywhere and I ignore the look we get from some people in the parking lot. When we get to the Jeep, he rummages around the back and hands me a dry, Ocean Beach Marina T-shirt. “Change into this.”
We’re in a dark part of the parking lot, near the trees. Pete turns around and guards me while I peel off my dress and toss it with a soggy thud over the edge of the Jeep and into the back.
I wait in the front seat as Justin does the same, stripping off his shirt and jeans. He’s slides in next to me only wearing boxer shorts. Pete leans in the window. “I’m going to catch up with the others. You two okay?”
“Just cold, thank you,” I say.
Justin nods and cranks the engine. We must look ridiculous, leaving the bar like two drowned rats. I say a quick prayer that we don’t get pulled over.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into all that,” I say on the way down the road.
“You didn’t drag me into anything,” he says over the wind. “You sure you’re okay?”
I’m still cold, shaking from the open-top Jeep, but my nerves from being in the water have finally settled. “The water scares me. It’s irrational. Plus it was dark and I couldn’t see anything.”
“I’m not just talking about the water, Summer.”
“Yes.” I stare into the dark, thinking over the entire night. The whole summer. Truths had been spoken on that deck.
We ride the rest of the way in tense silence. Something has shifted between us but I’m not sure what. Justin keeps to his side of the Jeep, his hands never coming to my side like they did on the way to the bar. The crease never leaves the center of his forehead.
He pulls into the campground, slowing the car into the gravel drive at out lot. The moment is heavy between us. I know he has a million questions. I owe him a few answers before I do what I know I have to.
“Mason was my teacher—an assistant in my class. We started seeing each other last fall—totally secret, incredibly risky.” I spill it all, revealing every moment from the notes passed in class to our first kiss in the supply closet. Justin’s hands clench on the wheel, tightening as the story unfolds, his knuckles white. His anger doesn’t stop me. He needs to understand so he can tell the others.
“I made a lot of mistakes. Mason was just one of them. You guys…you were not a mistake, but I can see clearer now. I’m not the girl you want in your life right now. A girl that carries baggage and drama in her past. A girl that is leaving in a few weeks, regardless. You guys have school. Careers. You’ve carefully planned your whole lives to get out of this place and I’m not going to be the one that holds you back.” His jaw tightens. “I feel myself falling for you, all of you, and that wasn’t the deal.”
“Summer…” he says, breaking his silence, but I don’t want to hear him. Not now. I can’t.
“I’m leaving and fixing the mess I made back home. I need to figure out how to proceed with Mason. I need to decide for good about France. I need closure and I can’t get that here.”
I open the door and he grabs my arm before I can get out. He drags me over the seat and kisses me; an intense one that I feel in every molecule of my body. When we part, he opens his mouth to say something but words fail him. I ease out of the car and walk to the door. If I thought leaving Mason was hard, this was worse. So much worse.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he says as I reach the door. I’m standing in his T-shirt and nothing else. “And the guys are going to lose their minds when they find out, but what you just spilled…that’s a lot to absorb.” His gaze is hard and his words slow, as if he’s pushing them out one by one. “The Boys of Ocean Beach will never forget you, and when you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you.”
I quickly open the door before I change my mind. It doesn’t matter, Justin backs up and peels out of the driveway, widening the distance between us. I creep past my mother and crawl into bed and cry.
Chapter 18
Twenty-four hours later, my phone vibrates under my pillow. Half asleep, I roll on my back and check the screen. It’s a text from Irene, a picture really, with the caption, “Mason won’t tell us anything.”
I stare at the photo.
“Holy crap,” I say aloud.
“What?”
I roll over and see my mother at the hotel table she’s using as a desk. She’s got her hair back and her glasses perched on her nose. To be honest, it’s weird not waking up in the camper, but when I told my mom that I was ready to go back home and face reality, she said she wanted to come with me. I promised her she could be back for the Fourth. I have little doubt she has a certain Hawkins man she wants to spend it with.
Our schedule is tight, but right now we’re in Charlotte, North Carolina on the way back to Nashville.
“Irene just sent me this picture of Mason.” I crawl out of the bed and hand her the phone. She squints and looks at the picture.
“Someone gave him a black eye, huh?”
“Looks like it.”
She looks over the phone and at me sitting on the edge of my bed. With a raised eyebrow she asks, “Any idea who?”
“I’ve got a couple suspects in mind.” I think of which boys had vanished off that dock when Pete and Justin got me out of the water. I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of either Nick or Whit’s fists. I look at the photo again.
“Do you think he’ll press charges?” I ask.
My mother stares at me for a brief moment. “Not if he doesn’t want to explain why he followed an eighteen-year-old student to South Carolina in the first place.” I get out of the bed, searching for my clothes for the long car ride ahead. My mother busies herself with her work but pauses to add, “I know you think you’re running to fix your past, but are you sure you’re not just running away again?”
“From who?”
She stares at me. “Whoever gave Mason that shiner. Whoever cares about you back in that little beach town?”
“This is something I need to do,” I tell her, heading for the bathroom. We’re still sharing tight quarters but at least my elbows don’t hit the walls in the shower. “And those guys on the beach…they’ll be okay. They’ve got plans.”
Again, I feel my mother’s eyes on me, but I’ve ma
de my decision. I’m dealing with my past so I can face my future. A future I know good and well doesn’t involve four guys from the beach.
* * *
Headmaster Yancey blinks from across the desk. I’ve just told him about Mason and our relationship. His bald head shines from the overhead lighting and his lips purse in a thin line. My mother holds my hand and I feel her nails dig into my palm. He thinks I’m lying. He’ll take Mason’s side. He’ll—
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Happened to me.
Happened. Not you were involved. Or you participated in, which are words more familiar to my truth, but I knew the minute I walked in here one of two things would happen. They would believe me, or they wouldn’t.
I breathed out a sobbing sigh of relief.
He believed me, not only that he’d recently become aware of some other issues concerning Mason. “This information, along with his recent arrest, will not be tolerated at our school. I can fire him for the arrest, that’s a direct violation of his employee contract, but don’t worry. We’ll follow up on this allegation and see it through.”
“Arrest?”
He looks down at a piece of paper on his desk. “Down in Ocean Beach, South Carolina. Disorderly conduct. Public intoxication.”
Mom and I glance at one another but say nothing. I think this may finally be over. For real this time, and I’m okay with that. I just want to move on. Move forward.
Taking a deep breath, I say, “I do have one question.”
“Go ahead?” Mr. Yancy’s voice is kind. His eyes hold sympathy. I don’t want it, but it is what it is.
“I was supposed to go on the trip to France but when everything imploded with me and Mas—Mr. Lowery—I backed out because he was a chaperone.”
“I see.” He leans back in his seat. “Obviously he will not be going on the trip but if you’d like to go, I’m fine with that.”
The trip is in forty-eight hours. If I rush, I think I can pull it off. “Can I let you know tomorrow?”
“You can let me know until the students meet at the gate. It’s your decision to make, Summer.”