Someone Else's Summer

by Rachel Bateman

  Turning back to #11: Go to a dive-in movie, I finger a worn ticket stub glued to the opposite page. Jaws, playing at Carolina Beach Lake Park dive-in theater some August night six years ago. How did she get that? She’d never been to the Carolinas—she’d never even seen the ocean, which was part of why her insistence to study marine biology in college was so odd to everyone. But Storm never cared what anyone else thought. Once she got an idea in her head, there was no stopping her. Just like with the lists.

  The idea hits me so hard I can’t believe it took me this long to realize what I’m holding—the gift Storm left behind. Suddenly, this bed is too small—the room, the whole house, can’t contain me. I hug the notebook to my chest and dart out into the hall and down the stairs. I’m loud. Way too loud, I know, but I can’t help myself. I don’t care. I feel like I’m flying.

  Soft grass tickles my tender feet as I race across the backyard, past the garage and Mom’s garden. My run barely slows when I reach the old tree, and then I’m climbing the worn ladder, the journal tucked into the edge of my robe. When I make it into the tree house, I collapse against the back wall, pulling the journal back out. Moonlight streams through a missing slat of wood, and I try to read the words in the soft light it provides. I want to soak them in, memorize not just the tasks laid out, but the angle of the pen as they were written down, the curve and slope of each letter. A smile, a foreign feeling after all this time, slips onto my face.

  A voice cuts through the silence. “I miss her, too,” Cameron whispers from the other side of the tree house.

  I stifle a scream. “What are you doing here?” I ask in a cracked whisper.

  He shifts closer to me. I can’t really see him, but I can feel him, hear his movements. He’s silent for too long. I’m suddenly hyperaware that I’m only wearing a robe.

  “Cam?”

  “I’m always here,” he says, and I can tell he’s been crying. “This was our spot.”

  “Yours and Storm’s.” It’s not a question.

  “Yeah.” He scoots closer, speaks softly. “We started coming sophomore year, about the time your parents were hovering over us every time I came by, like they were terrified I was going to deflower their precious child.” He manages a weak laugh, and I join him.

  “Well, did you?” I try to keep my voice light, but curiosity pulls at it.

  “Anyway… we’d come out here and do homework or read books or just talk. Whatever we wanted to do, we’d do it up here, away from everything else. Sometimes when I come now, I…” His voice fades away.

  “You?” I prompt.

  “Nothing. It’s stupid.”

  “Humor me.”

  He pulls in a deep breath and lets it back out slowly. In the moonlight, I watch as he turns to face me. “It’s like she’s still here, you know? When I’m up here.”

  Before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m crawling across the tree-house floor and sitting next to Cameron. I drop the book in his lap.

  “What’s this?” he asks, holding it into the faint light.

  I don’t answer right away. Instead, I say, “Remember the summer that Storm made us spend a full week eating only orange foods? Or when we rode our bikes to the library every day searching for information about some old crime she was sure we could solve?”

  His shoulders shake beside me, but whether it’s because of silent laughter or tears, I’m not sure. “She was a weird one, wasn’t she?” he says.

  “Always.” I think of the book, of all the lists of summers past. If anyone would know the answer to the question nagging my brain, it’d be Cameron. “Hey, Cam?”

  He grunts acknowledgment.

  “When did she—did she keep making the lists? After we all stopped doing them, I mean?”

  “She was always writing lists on something, you know that. She would write lists about the tiniest things. If she could find a way to turn anything into numbers and bullet points she would.”

  “But you guys never did a Summer List… without me?”

  “No, we never—once we were in high school, we were just too busy, I guess.”

  He didn’t say it, but I can hear the meaning of his words. It was me who got too busy, and we both know it. As soon as cheer tryouts ended freshman year, my name somehow on the list of new recruits, things weren’t the same. Instead of the three of us hanging around on Friday and Saturday nights, making pizzas and watching obscure horror movies, now I was out with Piper. Hitting up parties, cheering at games. I moved into the High School Fast Lane, and things haven’t slowed since.

  What I never told anyone back then—what I still can’t bring myself to tell Cameron now—is that I didn’t break up our threesome because I became a cheerleader. I became a cheerleader—I set out for something of my own—in order to split apart our trio. Because, really, we hadn’t been a threesome for years by then. Storm and Cameron were a pair, and I was the little sister who tagged along. I spent my whole life running after them, trying to have what they did, but never quite making it. With high school approaching, I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. So when Piper ran up to me that day in the gym, I took my chance. And never looked back.

  Cameron clears his throat, reminding me that I’ve not answered his question yet. I gesture lamely toward the notebook “She left one,” I say.

  “She left one what?”

  “A list. ‘My Perfect Summer.’ That’s what’s in there—a list of all the things she wanted to do this summer. All the things she’ll never…” I can’t finish.

  I hear the rustle of pages and wait as Cameron flips through the book. I close my eyes, imagine him caressing the grooves and ridges on the pages, the same way I did. He takes his time, turning the book over in his hand, holding it into the moonlight.

  “I can’t read any of this. What”—his voice cracks, and he coughs lightly—“what did she put on it?”

  The list’s words swirl in my mind, Storm’s messy calligraphy filling the space behind my eyelids. The memory of her bedroom pulls at me.

  “I can’t remember all of the items, but they were different,” I tell him.

  “Different how?”

  “You know how she always had these really weird things on her lists? Like, ridiculous adventures and stuff?”

  “Yeah,” he whispers.

  “Well, this list is really… normal. I mean, there’re things like crash a wedding and speak in a British accent all day that are completely Storm. But there’s also watch the sunrise and take pictures of everything and get a tattoo. And, I don’t know, it just seems different.”

  “I guess that doesn’t seem so weird to me,” Cameron says. “They seem like pretty normal—”

  “Yes!” I yell. “That’s the thing—they are normal. Like, you’d expect those things to be on a Summer Bucket List for a typical eighteen-year-old girl, wouldn’t you?”

  “I suppose so.” His tone tells me he’s not following my logic.

  “Well, when have you ever known Storm to be a typical girl?”

  “Never.”

  “Exactly.”

  Cameron scoots even closer; our knees are touching now, skin to skin. I adjust my robe. “Anna, do you remember the other stuff she used to have on her lists?” I don’t answer, and he takes my silence as a cue to continue. “Sleep on the trampoline, watch all of the Halloween movies, learn calligraphy—I hated that one.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point”—he leans toward me, close enough that I can finally make out his features in the dim light, his eyes locked on mine—“is that she put normal things on the list back then, too. But she was older when she wrote this list, and her normal was different.”

  When I was six, I was climbing up on the bathroom counter so I could sit next to Mom while she did her makeup. I’d just hoisted my knee over the edge when I slipped and fell, catching my ribs on the counter on the way down. It was the first time I’d experienced knocking my wind out, that helpless feeling of not being able to pull
breath in, and I was sure I was going to suffocate right there on the bathroom floor.

  This realization now hits me that hard, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to breathe again. When did she grow up and stop writing simple childhood lists? How did I miss it?

  Just as jarring is my next realization: this is the last list. The end of growth. Storm will never be older, more mature. I’ll never get to see what the lists look like once she is married and has kids.

  The tears start again in full force, rolling down my cheeks. I knew the truth. Of course I knew. I didn’t spend the past twenty-three days missing her, feeling the hole she left behind, not to know the truth. But that’s the thing about truth—even when you think you know it, it can still sneak up behind you and knock you down.

  “It’s okay,” Cameron whispers.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “You’re right. It’s not okay, and you know what? Her death will never be okay. But we will. Not now, not tomorrow. Probably not for a long time. But we will be.”

  “How do you know?” I sniffle, wiping my nose, then eyes on the sleeve of my robe.

  “Because we have to be,” he says. “This isn’t something you get over, Anna. You will never get over Storm dying. But you’ll figure it out—how to live your life and be happy, even with this. I promise.”

  His words wash over me, settle into my pores. He’s right. Absolutely. For the first time since she’s been gone, I think maybe I can do this. I can figure out how to live my life. Because I don’t have to leave her behind or try to get rid of the pain of missing her. I just have to figure out how to experience the loss but still live. That, I just might be able to do.

  “I want to do it,” I blurt out before I even consider what the words really mean.

  “Do what?”

  “The list. Storm’s list. I want to do it. For her.”

  I hear a deep click as Cameron swallows. He fidgets in place, his knees rubbing against mine. “I think you should,” he says, his voice thick.

  “Do it with me.”

  “Anna, I don’t—”

  “You have to,” I plead. “That’s what she would’ve wanted, and you know it. That’s how it always was. Us, doing her lists. Together.”

  He’s crying now, not trying to hide it anymore. His breath hitches, and his body shakes with the silent sobs. I hadn’t intended to ask Cameron to do the list with me—until I found him up here, I hadn’t even thought to tell him about the list—but now I can’t imagine it any other way. It’s like Storm meant for it to happen like this, as if she left the list just for the two of us to complete together. And in leaving the list, maybe she left us a way to figure out how to live without her.

  Cameron grows still, his tears under control. He doesn’t answer me, but I can feel it. We are doing this, finishing her list.

  Just me and the boy next door.

  Chapter 9

  “What is up with you today?” Dani asks as I flop onto the breakroom couch next to her and spin the top off a bottle of water.

  I take a long drink before answering. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You’re different. I don’t know, happier?”

  I shrug, but she’s right. I was up before my alarm this morning, my whole body buzzing with excitement. The list was sitting on my bedside table, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I brought it with me to the bathroom, where I left it on the counter while I showered. I kept it with me all morning, moving it from room to room as I got dressed, ate breakfast, and watered Mom’s plants for her.

  Just before I left for my shift at the pool, I copied the list onto a piece of paper and shoved it into my shorts pocket. I’ve checked it on and off all day. I don’t know where to start—I have no idea how to start—but it’s kept me motivated. Work has flown by in a haze of whistles, splashes, and daydreams.

  Gillian enters the room and eyes the two of us sitting on the couch. “Which of you got here first today?”

  “I opened,” I say.

  She nods slowly. “Brianne just got here,” she says. “She wrote her schedule down wrong and thought she had to work today instead of tomorrow. She’s begging for the extra hours, but I can’t keep you both on. You want to go home early? I told her it’s up to you.”

  I check the clock: 3:45—still more than two hours of my shift left. But the list is burning a hole in my pocket. I can’t wait to get home, to talk to Cameron and plan things out.

  “Yeah,” I say. “She can have it. Thanks!”

  “Don’t thank me,” Gillian says dryly. “Thank Bri’s inability to copy dates and the pool’s inability to pay every lifeguard in Muscatine to be here today.”

  “Well,” I say, “then, thank you, Bri, and extraspecial thanks to the city of Muscatine for having so very little money in the bank.”

  Gillian tilts her face down and stares at me from over her glasses. “Okay, what is up with you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shooting Dani a grin. “I guess I’m just happy.”

  Sweat tickles the skin between my shoulder blades and drips into my eyes. I pedal harder. I can’t get home fast enough. My lungs are burning and my legs are protesting, but I see the house now and force myself to pedal even more vigorously. When I reach the driveway, I cruise up it, dismount, and prop my bike against the side gate in one movement. Cameron’s truck is parked in his driveway. I pull the list from my back pocket and scan over it again, as if I don’t already have it memorized. But this won’t do; I need the book before I go next door.

  My phone buzzes as I climb the front steps. I stop on the porch to read the message.

  PIPER: taylor’s parents have some big event tonight. left her money for food. pick you up at 6!

  ME: I’m home. Gillian let me leave early.

  PIPER: awesome possum! i’ll come now. mall?

  For some reason, the idea of spending the next few hours at the mall with Piper is more exhausting than my break-neck bike ride home. Piper is a marathon shopper, and normally I’m game to keep up with her, but all I want to do is climb up that tree-house ladder with Cameron and figure out the list.

  ME: Ugh. I can’t. Sick. It’s not pretty.

  PIPER: gross. no more. see you tom!

  There’s nothing that makes Piper stop pushing faster than a hint of any kind of bodily fluid. Guilt tugs at me—I hate lying to my best friend, and it seems I’ve been doing it more and more these days—but stronger than that guilt right now is excitement.

  I push my way through the front door, practically floating across the foyer and into the living room—where I stop dead in my tracks. Mom and Dad are sitting together on the love seat, both looking weepy, and Pastor Willitz is propped on the wingback chair in the corner. I completely missed his car parked out front.

  “Oh, Anna,” Mom says, bursting the growing bubble of hope that they hadn’t seen me, “we didn’t realize you’d be home so early.”

  “Yeah…” I back slowly toward the dining room. “Gillian sent me home early. Slow day.”

  “Come on in,” the pastor calls to me. I groan, hopefully too softly for them to hear. How could I have forgotten? He is here every day at the exact same time. And I walked right into his session. I cross the room and perch on the edge of the couch, my back ramrod straight.

  “How have you been, Anna?” Pastor Willitz asks.

  “I’m fine.”

  “And work? Your father tells me you’re working at the pool, Anna. How’s that going?”

  I dig my fingernails into my palms, remind myself that him being here comforts the parentals. But seriously, does he have to use my name every time he talks to me?

  “It’s good,” I grit out, forcing a smile.

  “So, Jerry,” Dad says, and I smile at him, thanking him silently for taking the attention off me. “How old is this kid?”

  “Seventeen. He’ll go to school with Anna, I believe.”

  “And he’s responsible?”

  Pastor Willitz guffaws. “Well, he’s seventeen,
Roger. But, yeah, I think he’s a good choice. It’s a good family.”

  I can’t help myself. “A good choice for what?” I ask.

  “Sweetie…” Crap. Mom is using her trying-not-to-upset-me voice, soft and too sweet. “We’ve decided it’s time to sell Storm’s car.”

  The room grows cold. My hands shake. “What?” My voice is too loud, echoing in my head.

  “It’s just sitting there,” she says stiffly.

  “I’ll drive it,” I say. “It’s not like I’ll be getting my car back.” There wasn’t much car to get back after they pried it from around the tree.

  “Honey, you don’t know how to drive it,” Dad says.

  “I’ll learn. People learn to drive stick shift every day.”

  “And we think,” Mom starts, talking over my argument, “that it’d be best if you weren’t driving for a while.”

  I stare at her blankly. “You want me to stop driving? What about practice? Games?”

  “One of the other girls can give you a ride. And if not, we’ll work something out.”

  “Besides,” Dad interjects, “you’ve been doing just fine this summer. You don’t need a car.”

  “Dad! The pool is a mile away. Do you really want me to ride my bike the ten miles to school in the middle of winter?”

  “Piper can—”

  “Piper graduated! You were there!” My yell echoes through the house.

  Mom stifles a sob, and I realize what I just said. Graduation was the last happy moment, the last time we saw Storm before… before it happened. Dad stares at me like he doesn’t know who I am.

  “I’m sorry,” I say lamely.

  Pastor Willitz jumps in, trying to smooth things over in his Pastor Willitz way. “Anna, I know this is hard, but think about your mama and daddy. They are understandably nervous to have you driving after what happened. Can you blame them?”

  I’m shaking my head, wanting to agree with him, but I can’t help saying, “I’m not her. She got in an accident, and it sucks, and I wish it never happened. That doesn’t mean the same thing will happen to me.”