A Midsummer's Nightmare

by Kody Keplinger

  I cringed. Theo was a music major. That night, I’d even said I might consider it. Now I knew I never would.

  “I don’t play anything,” I told Harrison. “Besides, I don’t think you study Nirvana or Blondie or the Ramones in college. I’d get bored with all the classical shit.”

  “Fashion?”

  “UK doesn’t have a fashion school.”

  “Come out to L.A. with me, then,” he said. “Be my roommate, and I’ll dress you every day. You know you want to.”

  That actually didn’t sound too bad. Trace was in Los Angeles. And the whole reason I’d picked UK was because it was Dad’s alma mater. I always thought I wanted to be like him. Not so much anymore.

  “I can’t. UK’s already been paid.”

  Harrison sighed. “Then I don’t know what to tell you. Any ideas what you want to do after college? What makes you happy?”

  That was the million-dollar question. Because I honestly had no idea. Drinking had made me happy, but there wasn’t a major in alcoholism, to the best of my knowledge.

  When I didn’t answer, Harrison changed the subject. “Hey, I’m going out with Wesley and Bianca tonight. Want to join us so I don’t have to be a third wheel?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think his girlfriend likes me too much,” I said.

  “Bianca? Why do you think that?”

  “Because the first time she met me I was trying to seduce her boyfriend. Pretty sure that pissed her off a little.”

  Harrison laughed. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first. But she’ll get over it. Come out with us. Dinner, a movie, maybe a little happy hour at my place afterward? No extra guests this time. Just the four of us.”

  “No, I… I think I’d rather stay in.”

  “Whitley,” he said, frowning. “You’ve stayed in every night since the party at my place. Have you even left the house? Been to the grocery store? Anything?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “What happened with Theo isn’t going to happen again,” he said quietly. “I promise. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

  “It’s not that… not just that. Look, I don’t want to go out, okay? I’m sorry.”

  He studied me for a while longer, his green eyes narrowing, dark eyebrows pulled together just a little. Then, finally, he nodded. “Fine. Okay, let’s see what other majors are listed here…. Oh, sociology?”

  “No.”

  22

  Sylvia had to work the day Gwyneth’s Bridal Boutique called to say I needed to come in and try on my bridesmaid dress. Bailey’s had been done for a while; now it was my turn. It was the first time I’d left the house in two weeks. You’d think I would have been getting cabin fever, but this was a trip I wasn’t looking forward to. Especially once I found out Harrison wasn’t working that day—which meant I’d have to deal with Sexy Lexie. If my dress wasn’t enough to make me self-conscious, having Lexie around certainly did the trick.

  “Come out, Whit.”

  “No.”

  “Whit.”

  “No.”

  Like I said, Sylvia was at work, and Dad had some sort of meeting at the station that afternoon, so Nathan drove me to the fitting.

  “I won’t laugh,” he assured me from outside the dressing room. “I promise.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I really don’t have all day,” I heard Lexie say with exasperation. “There are two others coming in for fittings today.”

  I gritted my teeth, trying to convince myself that my annoyance with her was due to her pushiness and was completely unrelated to the way she’d been flirting with Nathan since the moment we walked into the store. No, I didn’t like her because she was being bossy—that was the only reason.

  I took a deep breath and ran my hands over the dress, smoothing a few tiny wrinkles in the front. There was no mirror behind the curtain, so I could only guess how it looked. The sleeves had already been cut and the hem shortened to knee-length, but nothing could be done to fix the color. I could not believe I would be forced to wear this thing in front of a large crowd in, like, a month and a half.

  Maybe I just wouldn’t show up to the wedding. It wasn’t like I’d be missed.

  “Whit,” Nathan called again teasingly. “You heard the girl. We don’t have all day. Come out.”

  “Fine!” I shouted. “Goddamn it.”

  I shoved open the curtain and stepped into the room where Nathan and Lexie waited. Both their gazes fell upon me. I could feel them examining every inch of the dress, of my frame. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see their reactions.

  “Let’s see,” Lexie said, stepping up behind me. Her hands moved down the length of the dress, tugging at the straps and pulling at the hem. “Not a bad fit. I think we can take it in just a little at the waist. Otherwise, you’re good.”

  I opened my eyes as she stepped away from me.

  “Am I done?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Lexie said, jotting something down on her tiny little notepad. “We’ll make the alteration and the dress will be done in plenty of time. I’ll go save this in your file now.”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  Lexie strutted back into the main part of the shop, leaving Nathan and me alone in the back room. I glanced at him, expecting to find his eyes on her back, watching her perfect little figure move away. Instead, he was staring at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You look—”

  “Like a giant stick of bubble gum. Yeah, I know.”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “Really? What then?”

  “I was going to say you look beautiful.”

  I snorted, but I could feel my cheeks heating up. “Whatever. In this dress? I doubt it.”

  “Seriously,” he said. “Come look.”

  He stepped forward and grabbed my hand, pulling me across the room, toward the full-length mirror that hung on the wall. I rolled my eyes as he positioned me in front of it, his hands on my shoulders.

  Surprisingly, the dress didn’t look half bad. The shade of pink was still kind of obnoxious, but I managed to pull it off. The little flowers around my torso were actually kind of cute, and the dress suited my figure—the hourglass skirt and sweetheart neckline made me look taller, more refined. Definitely not as hideous as I’d thought.

  “See,” Nathan said. The mirror reflected his grin, his face bobbing just over my head. “Beautiful.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. My gaze fell on Nathan’s hands, still curved over my shoulders, then traveled back up to his smiling face. His brown eyes were light and warm. Staring at me as I stared at him. “Beautiful.”

  Once I’d changed, Nathan and I headed back toward the doors of the shop. Lexie was waiting for us there. She didn’t even look at me as we approached.

  “Nathan,” she said, stepping out from behind the register. “Listen, I know you said you’re starting college at the end of the summer, right? Well, if you ever want to get together, to ask me about college… or, you know, just hang out…” She slipped a piece of paper into his hand. “Give me a call.”

  “Whit, wait up,” Nathan said, since I was already halfway out the door. “Thanks, Lexie.” Then he jogged over to me, pushing the door open the rest of the way so I could walk out ahead of him. “In a hurry?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Sure seems like it,” he said. “Are you hungry? We can stop somewhere if you want. It’s past lunchtime.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I could go for a bite to eat.”

  “Cool. Hold on just a second.” He left me standing on the sidewalk while he walked over to the closest Dumpster. I watched as he tossed Lexie’s number into the trash. Then he was next to me again, leading the way to the car. “Red Lobster sound good to you? My aunt gave me a gift card for graduation.”

  I smiled, half at him and half to myself. “That sounds great.”

  23r />
  “You totally have a thing for him.”

  I turned to face Harrison. “What are you talking about?”

  It was a hot afternoon in late July. Harrison was off work, and we were swimming in Dad and Sylvia’s pool. Nathan had just climbed out of the water and walked inside, saying something about a game on ESPN Classic.

  “You watched him walk away like you were fantasizing about his hot little ass. You like him.”

  “How would you know?” I demanded, splashing water in Harrison’s face. “You were watching him, too.”

  “Too!” he cried. “I got you! Ha. You just admitted you were watching him. You love him. You so love him.”

  “I do not,” I said. “That’s just weird, okay? He’s going to be my stepbrother.”

  “I know. It’s all sexy and forbidden—like in Cruel Intentions.”

  “Doesn’t someone die at the end of that movie?” I asked. “Not that it matters. I don’t like him that way. We’re just… I don’t know. Lately we’ve hung out more. He’s not so bad, really. So, I guess we’re friends now.”

  “Friends with benefits,” Harrison teased.

  I tried not to blush or anything dumb like that. Harrison didn’t know about my past with Nathan. I’d never told him about the graduation party or the aloe incident or the almost-hookup in the guest room. I hadn’t breathed a word, and I wasn’t planning to. Because that was all behind me. Harrison could believe what he wanted, but I was done chasing boys. Nathan and I were friends. Just friends. And future stepsiblings. That was all.

  “You’re just dreaming,” I told Harrison. “You can’t have him, so you want to live vicariously through me.”

  “Damn straight I do.”

  “Christ, Harrison, you’re such a loser,” I joked, splashing him again.

  He splashed me back, and soon a war erupted in the water around us. And the issue was dropped.

  Unfortunately, Bailey wasn’t so easily distracted… or convinced.

  “So, what’s going on with you and my brother?” she asked the next day. Her cheerleading tryouts were in a week, and we were out on the front lawn practicing again. I was no expert, but it seemed like she was doing well.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something is up with you and Nathan,” she insisted, sitting down on the porch beside me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, handing her a bottle of water. Christ, I just couldn’t catch a break about this.

  “I’m not stupid.” She unscrewed the cap and downed a few gulps of water, letting some of the clear liquid drip down her chin. “You’re being nice to him. I thought you hated him.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You guys were just so weird around each other.” She handed the bottle back to me. “It was always, like, tense. You were pissed off—”

  “It’s still weird when you say pissed.”

  “Now you hang out and run errands together and smile at each other—”

  “Your mom made him drive me to the bridal shop,” I said. “That doesn’t count as hanging out.”

  “But you watch movies together, too. I told you, I’m not stupid. I can see that something changed. What happened?”

  Goddamn, the kid asked way too many questions.

  “I don’t know,” I said flatly. “Why does it matter?”

  “I’m just curious.”

  “Well, you’re wasting time. You should practice.”

  “I have practiced.”

  “Practice more.”

  “Why are you changing the subject?” She raised a little blond eyebrow at me. “You act like you’re hiding something, Whitley.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re so annoying,” I said, nudging her arm. “If you want me to hate your brother, I will. Would that make you happy?”

  “No, I just—”

  “Then practice and let it go.”

  She frowned at me. “Fine. But I think you’re hiding something.”

  Before I could argue, she skipped across the yard and did two cartwheels in a row. “Go, go, Panthers!” she yelled, finishing with a backflip and a toe touch.

  The kid was lucky I couldn’t get angry with her; even when she was being irritating, I still kind of adored her.

  It seemed like the only one not questioning my relationship with Nathan was, well, Nathan. He had no issue with our sudden friendship. He invited me to go places with him, obviously aware that my social life was lacking due to my self-imposed isolation.

  The next Friday night, while Bailey went to sleep over at Sherri’s, Nathan asked me to have a Back to the Future movie marathon with him. He claimed that I had to join him because it was a travesty that I’d yet to see these movies—which, I might add, came out way before I was born. I didn’t put up much of a fight, though. It was the third Friday night in a row that I’d stayed in, and a little company, even if it was just Nathan, was preferable to lying on the guest bed, listening to my iPod for hours on end.

  He tapped on the guest room door around nine. “Are you ready for the epicness you are about to witness?” he asked.

  “When you say epic, are you describing the movies or your shocking level of nerdiness?”

  “Hey,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, only barely obscuring the image of a hand making the Vulcan salute on his T-shirt. “I thought you were giving this whole being-nice thing a try.”

  “I am,” I told him. “But come on. You want to major in computer science, you’re practically swooning over some ancient movie about a time-traveling car, and you have a freaking Darth Vader bobblehead in your room. I thought jocks beat up geeks, not aspired to be them.”

  “What can I say? I’m a complicated guy.”

  “If that’s what you want to believe…”

  I followed Nathan into the hallway, but instead of heading downstairs, he turned toward his bedroom. When he noticed me staring, he said, “Mom and Greg are watching something in the living room. I figured we could just watch the movies on my laptop—is that cool?”

  I shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  We sat side by side on his bed, our bodies turned toward the desk, where his laptop played the film on its small monitor. I had to admit, Back to the Future wasn’t so bad. I even enjoyed parts of it.

  “But Marty McFly is, like, the worst name ever.”

  “Says the girl whose parents couldn’t spell Whitney. Can you really judge?”

  I jammed my elbow into his ribs. “Whitley is a real name, thank you. Christ—and Bailey thinks I’m the one who’s mean to you?”

  He winked. “The tables have turned, it appears.”

  “And payback is a bitch.”

  “Just like you.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “You’re so mature,” he said. “I’m just blown away by your maturity.”

  “Shut up and watch your movie.”

  By the time Nathan wanted to start the sequel, I was feeling tired. Since I’d had nowhere to go and nothing to do for weeks, I’d gotten into the habit of going to bed kind of early. It was barely eleven now and I was exhausted. But Nathan insisted I had to stay up for the whole thing.

  “This one is my favorite,” he said. “Come on. In bed before midnight? On a weekend? Even my mother isn’t that lame.”

  “I’m not lame,” I snapped, taking the DVD case from him and hopping off the bed. I took out the disc and popped it into the laptop.

  “But you are easily swayed by peer pressure,” he teased.

  I hit play and joined him on the bed again. “I convinced you to give up your virginity within two hours or so of knowing you. Let’s not talk about caving to peer pressure.”

  “Touché.”

  But no matter how I tried—or how many times Nathan poked me in the ribs to keep me awake—I just kept nodding off, my head bobbing up and down as I tried to hold my eyes open.

  I didn’t rea
lize I’d dozed off until hours later when I opened my eyes. The lights were still on in the bedroom, and the menu screen for Back to the Future Part II showed on the monitor. The clock on the desk told me it was just after three in the morning.

  Nathan and I were lying crookedly on his bed, huddled together in a way that, even half-asleep, I knew could only be described as cuddling. My head was propped on his chest, its rise and fall a gentle lull, calling me back toward sleep. My left arm was stretched loosely across his torso. He was snoring softly, with one of his hands resting on my hip. How we’d ended up this way, I wasn’t sure, but somehow, between both of us conking out, we’d managed to twine together like this.

  I sat up, easing myself out of Nathan’s grasp and climbing off his bed. He looked so peaceful sleeping there. I backed toward the door. It had felt good to have him next to me like that.

  I’d liked it—cuddling with Nathan.

  And I wasn’t sure I was supposed to like it.

  I hurried back to the guest room, shutting the door silently behind me so as not to wake anyone. Now I was questioning my relationship with Nathan, too. How did I feel about this guy? Did it cross the line between stepsiblings? Future stepsiblings? Did I want it to?

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I was going to kill Harrison and Bailey for putting these ideas in my head.

  Right when I’d started to like—or at least not hate—Sylvia Caulfield, she decided to go and piss me off again.

  On the last Saturday in July, Dad was ordered to go pick out his wedding tux. And I, for some reason, was required to go with him.

  “You know he has horrible taste. You’re the only one I trust with choosing something this important,” she said.

  She was hoping to make it sound like a privilege or something. Yeah, right. Dad had great taste in clothes. He picked out all of his TV suits. She was just making shit up to persuade me.

  “You’ll be saving the whole family from a world of embarrassment.”

  “Why can’t you go with him?” I whined.

  There were a multitude of reasons why I didn’t want to go shopping with my father. In particular, the overwhelming desire I had to punch him in the face every time I saw him came to mind.

  I’d spent the last two months attempting to talk to my father. The summer was almost over now, and my frustration had morphed into pure anger. He’d cheated on Mom, he’d let me spend the last six years blaming her, and he hadn’t cared enough to confront me about my behavior or let me live with him four years ago, when my world first started falling apart.