Summer Girl (Summer Girl #1)

by S. Love

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask in plain-faced disbelief.

  “Because you know what it’s like. Your dad’s gone, but I’m losing more of the woman who’s supposed to be my mother every day. Soon, there won’t be anything of her left, and I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do about it.”

  He snatches my elbow in his tight grip, and I whirl around and release the valve on the pressure.

  “Don’t you dare stand there and say I know how that feels. I’m not you. I never had to worry about walking into the house and finding one of my parents unconscious, so I have absolutely zero idea what you’re going through or the stress you have to live with.” I yank my arm free, almost stretching it from its socket. “And my dad isn’t dead, you insensitive piece of shit. He just doesn’t know who the hell I am!”

  I slam a hand over my mouth, as though it isn’t too late to push the words back in from where they hang in the open. He did this, he dragged it out of me. I hadn’t meant to say any of that, and now tears are streaming down my face, the ragged lump in my throat like a knife edge when I try and swallow over it.

  Ozzie approaches me how you would a wild, scared animal, his expression open and clear, but his footsteps are deliberate and determined.

  My tears fall, rivulets of salty memories striping my cheeks and snaking over my wrist. I don’t know where it’s all coming from, or how long I’ve held it in, but it’s out now and the release button’s stuck. I’ve lost any control I had over myself.

  I hiccup a sob, my shoulders heaving with my clipped breathing. “I feel so stupid,” I blurt, my voice thick and uneven. Ozzie swims in a sea of midnight blue and shadowy blacks in front of me. “I can’t go back home like this.”

  “You don’t have to,” Ozzie says, his voice calming in all my chaos.

  I grab handfuls of white and navy cotton when he sweeps me into his arms, his athletic T-shirt soaking up my tears as I sob into his chest.

  All that’s left of my outburst is the headache sporadically pulsing behind my eyes, and the swelling on my face. “He’s thirty-six today.”

  “You share the same birthday,” Ozzie says, mainly to himself.

  I give him a sidelong look, then nod my head with a dull smile. “Yeah.”

  There’s no traffic on the road beyond the playground, the world fallen silent if not for the buzz of cicadas humming in the dark, hidden crevices of the tree roots.

  Lying side by side on the slanted roof of the crumbling, graffitied witch’s house, the sky stretches out above us, all silver stars on a smooth canvas. It’s so clear tonight, I wish I could reach up and touch it, grab one of those fire-y balls for myself and hold it in the palm of my hand. Because when you feel like your world’s ending, a few minutes beneath the bright, fathomless sky, and you realize you’re just a small, insignificant piece of something so much bigger and important. My world stopped spinning, but the rest of it carried on without any awareness of what me, my mom, and my sister had lost and would never get back.

  Ozzie’s voice washes over me like a smooth, breaking wave.

  “What happened?”

  I’d asked myself that same question nearly every night after he was taken into permanent nursing care, and I still don’t really believe I know the answer.

  “Roadside explosive. That guy you met earlier, Sean, he was badly concussed, and he broke his leg in two places when the handmade blast went off. My dad suffered a serious head injury and multiple fractures all over his body. But there was another guy, Robert, and he was pretty much blown limb from limb.” I’m aware of how cold and unsympathetic I’m probably coming across, but that’s how it happened. There’s no sugarcoating his death. Robert didn’t just die, he was destroyed.

  “I don’t know the man who came home to us, but he wasn’t the same dad that had been deployed six months earlier. It was like something in him had literally snapped and broken, and none of us could fix it. He was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia caused by his brain injuries, and now he needs round-the-clock care.” His diagnosis runs deeper than his amnesia, but I’m not going there tonight. I was never meant to bring him up at all.

  “Where’s he at now? Don’t you visit him?” Ozzie asks.

  I focus on the maze of stars. “St. Mary’s sister hospital. It’s a long-term care facility, and if you’re in there, it’s unlikely you’re ever getting out. We tried visiting at first, but he’d get really distressed and upset when he saw us, even trying to hurt himself. Mom checks in with the nurses now through daily phone calls.” I get rid of the tear that slips from the outside corner of my eye, wiping the back of my hand over it.

  Never being able to tell my dad how much I love him terrifies me most. I would give anything for the chance to have him hear me just one final time. To look at me the way he used to. When he looks at me now, there’s no recognition, just an intense fear that guts me.

  “I hate that he’s alone, you know? And we’re all still here, moving forward while he stays lost in his own torment. He doesn’t deserve this.”

  I turn my head to Look at Ozzie. He stares at the sky, but there are no answers or guidance up there, doesn’t matter how hard he looks, he won’t find it. “You have to be there for her, Ozzie, while you still can. Don’t let her go through this alone.”

  “She’s doing it to herself.” There isn’t a flicker of emotion in his voice.

  “Is she, though? What your dad did sucks, but Mariah’s here, and you should be thankful you have her. I know I would be.” Mariah’s lost in her own way, but all she needs is enough people who care to find her. Ozzie could be one of those people if he chooses to be.

  He sits up, bends one knee and stands. “I should get you back before your mom comes looking for you.”

  There’s no use in arguing. He’s right. We’ve been out here for what feels like hours, and maybe that’s how long it has been. Time’s lost all meaning to me.

  I stand up, too, but I’d rather stay out here all night than go back to my ‘party’. “Ozzie,” I say, as he walks up to the roof edge.

  His eyes rise and land on me, head turned slightly to see over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “You weren’t supposed to know that, so don’t bring this up again or feel sorry for me.”

  Something I’m not sure what to make of crosses his face. Then he actually scoffs, like he’d sprout extra toes before ever feeling sorry for me.

  He crouches down, sails over the side of the roof to the ground, and I know, even if he gives me hell every day until summer’s over, he’ll at least do this one thing I’ve asked for.

  My mom levels me with a look that surpasses indifference, and I can tell she’s jumped straight to the conclusion that something’s up with me. Still, if she sees I’m upset about today, she won’t press it. She’s no stranger to the pain that now comes with my birthdays. We try to take every day as it comes, but so far, all those days end the same way.

  When you’ve bottled up every single emotion and screwed the lid on as tight as it will fit, strangely enough, life does go on. The pain’s still there, festering… growing. There are days I miss my dad so much it feels like I can’t breathe. Then there are days I don’t even think about him, the shock when he bursts into my conscious mind ramming into me and taking me out in one pulverizing punch to the gut.

  The times I forget about him, for even a minute, are the worst. Because when I remember, I think terrible things. Things like: I wish he were dead so he wouldn’t be alone anymore. I wish, like Robert, he’d just died in Iraq.

  I slip gradually into a state of automation, replying when spoken to, and smiling when required. I send two heart emojis to Talia when she texts: Hang in there, Ly. And know that I love you. Then I put my phone away, too drained to sink any lower into myself.

  I act like it doesn’t bother me when Remi Hunt, from next door, swipes the free seat next to Ozzie and turns her body into his, staring into his eyes while hanging off his every humdrum word, as if anything he’s sayi
ng is even remotely interesting.

  She’s had her eyes on him all night, only now seizing her chance to get closer. It’s not that I blame her for being drawn to him, I just don’t understand why it’s affecting me, or why I want the legs on her chair to collapse and send her flying to the ground.

  I look down at my hands, paying fraudulent attention to my pastel fingernails. I don’t really want that. I like Remi, and she’s never been as mean to me as the thoughts I’m having about her. Ozzie can talk and sit next to whoever he chooses to. In a perfect world, all these people would go home, and I could go to bed and put this day behind me along with all the others.

  “What’s up with you?” Ozzie turns to me and asks. Remi looks put out, her eyes bouncing between us while Ozzie’s attention’s elsewhere.

  “There’s nothing up with me,” I say abrasively.

  One eyebrow inclines, and I tell Ozzie to shut up as a smirk manifests on his smug face.

  “Are you sure about that? That pinched expression is making me think you’ve sat on something sharp, and now it’s stuck. Anything bothering you? Trapped gas, maybe?”

  I contrast a smile for his benefit. “The only thing bothering me right now is you.”

  “Lyla,” My mom says, leaning around Sean. He’s taken off his camo jacket, his army-issued T-shirt underneath clinging to his pectorals for dear life. “Did you say Ozzie surfs?”

  I lock eyes with Ozzie in perfect time to see that smirk leak into a flicker of uncertainty before my discussing him with my mom designs the conceited smile he floors me with.

  My mom doesn’t wait on my answering. “Is that right, Ozzie. Do you surf?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ozzie says politely, sounding so far detached from the Ozzie I know and despise.

  “Which breaks?” Sean looks interested now. He was in the water every time he came home, me and Talia usually right behind him, hoping for a go on his board. Me because I genuinely wanted to learn, and Talia for the opportunity of his hands on her while he patiently showed her to stand up or paddle out.

  “Mostly the sand bar at the pier, but I’ll go anywhere. Mooseneck, when I can get out there.”

  “You compete?” Sean asks.

  “Sometimes.”

  “You just went all the way to the South Beach Open semi-finals,” I say to Ozzie on his behalf. And if the rumors are true, he could be making himself a pro career.

  Sean smiles “You’re on the qualifying circuit. So, you’re good?” It’s as though he knows Ozzie’s downplaying his talent.

  Ozzie shrugs off the question like it was never asked. “I only entered because it was local. It’s the big wave surfing I really want to get into.”

  Sean nods, a seriousness shading his expression. “Maverick chaser. You surfed any?”

  “I’ve surfed on the West Coast. Hawaii.”

  “Pipe?” Sean asks, brows steadily rising.

  Casually, Ozzie says, “I’ve surfed Pipe a couple times.”

  “Wow.” A glimmer of respect widens Sean’s eyes for a swift second. “You must be itching to get out to Teahupoo, then. That’s always been a dream of mine.”

  “It’s on my bucket list. I want to hit all those big-name spots.”

  The surf talk flows deeper into the sport and the World Surf League, and I’m completely stuck on Ozzie surfing those monster, life-destroying waves in the most exotic corners of the world. You’re lucky if the waves get to eight feet in Cape Pearl, or anywhere on South Beach. I see Ozzie catching air, not shooting out from the barrel of watery beasts twenty or thirty times the size of him.

  “You never told me you surf big waves,” I say to him when Sean grabs another beer from the cooler, my tone dripping in accusation.

  Ozzie shrugs, not really committing to it. “You never asked.”

  “I love surfing,” Remi butts in, inserting herself into our conversation without an invitation.

  “I never knew you surfed.” I school my expression when I hear how passive aggressive that came out. Ozzie eases me a probing look. “You just never mentioned it before,” I say, less hostile.

  “I don’t,” Remi says, “but have you looked at the guys who do? Julian Wilson? Yes please and thank you very much. I’ll take some of him any day of the week.”

  After that comment, I remove myself from the three-way, leaving Ozzie to take on Remi on his own. My ears perk with every flirty comment from his lips, like wants me to hear, and he’s deliberately pushing for a reaction.

  Remi’s lapping it up, giggling and playing with her hair. It’s not her fault, Ozzie’s good looks could reel anyone in with a vagina, and this fake charm he’s pulled out the bag? Sickening. But Remi doesn’t know any different, never having the displeasure of coming face-to-face with the Ozzie who didn’t show up tonight.

  “Could you teach me to surf?” I hear her ask.

  “Do you want me to teach you?” Ozzie replies smoothly.

  “Uh… duh!” Remi gapes. “I would love it.”

  She never gets an answer on whether or not he’ll teach her, and not soon enough, I’m saying bye to my neighbors as they leave my house and go back to their own. Remi takes her time, dragging out a pointlessly long goodbye with Ozzie, hinting for that surf lesson he’s still evading committing to.

  “He knows where you live,” I say, giving her a gentle push out the door with my hand at the top her back. I close it when she’s crossed the threshold, not giving her the chance to say her fiftieth goodbye.

  Maneuvering my body around Ozzie’s, I walk into the kitchen and hunt down the plastic wrap to cover my half-eaten birthday cake. My mom’s still in the yard with Sean, and I leave them to talk alone until they’re ready to come inside. The fire pit still burns orange, and the music’s turned to barely audible, just loud enough to mask their conversation. It’s probably about my dad. It always is.

  My phone pings to life on the cluttered counter. I glance at the screen and Falcon’s name. The message below his name reads: Happy Birthday.

  “He remembered”, I say to myself.

  I don’t hear Ozzie creep up behind me, and he snatches my phone from the counter and reads the message.

  I turn around and pry it from his wicked fingers, fumbling for the lock button and darkening the screen. It’s too late, though, he’s already seen who it’s from.

  “You’ve got no idea who you’re playing with, Lyla,” he warns for the millionth time, glancing over his shoulder as though I’ve embarrassed him. There’s nobody here but us.

  “You’re unstable,” I grit through my teeth, getting in his face. He doesn’t scare me now as much as he thinks he does.

  He steps forward, backing me against the counter and into my cake. “You’re about to find out just how fucking true that is. Keep pushing me.” His face is carved stone, the turbulent look gathering in his eyes deeply unsettling.

  My mom chooses that precise moment to walk into the kitchen, hesitating a moment before saying cautiously, “Is everything okay in here?”

  “Fine,” I say in a rush, glaring at Ozzie before turning around and picking up the cake to put in the fridge. I have no idea what she thought was going on between us, but she smiles without concern, joining me at the fridge and brushing my hair back to kiss the side of my head.

  “Did you have a good time tonight? It was nice to see you and Remi getting along so well. Reminds me when you guys were kids, before you grew apart.”

  I ignore that last part, and say, “Yeah, Mom, the party was great. Did you know Sean was coming?”

  She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “He just turned up. I was as surprised as you were. What a great gift, huh?”

  “He was a nice touch. I’ve missed him. I wish he would come around more often.” Especially if it’ll mean my mom smiling as much as she did tonight. There isn’t anything in this world I wouldn’t give to see more of that. She puts on a good show, but that’s mostly all it is. I’d like for some of it to be real again.

 
“Lyla’s sister’s room’s free for you to sleep in,” she says to Ozzie, to my absolute dismay. “Bed’s made and the sheets are clean. Lyla can show you where to go.”

  “Mom,” I say bluntly, easing her a warning look to let her know she’s overstepping. “He can drive home. He has a car and it’s parked right outside.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Mom smiles like I’m an adorable puppy who just did its first tiny shit on the floor. “There’s a bed here for him.” She looks at Ozzie, her expression expectant of him siding with her, a two against one situation. “You don’t want to drive all that way at this time of night, do you? It’s far too late.”

  “There are no time restrictions on the roads,” I point out.

  Ozzie’s eyes dip to me, delivering a snide backhander my mom doesn’t catch on to. “It is late,” he says. “I can stay. If that’s cool with both of you.”

  Oh my God, I want to scream at my mom, can you not see how he’s manipulating you in your own home?

  “But I can sleep on the couch,” he says.

  My mom opens her mouth, armed with a protest on why the couch won’t do, when Ozzie says firmly, “Really. The couch is fine. I insist.”

  If only you’d insisted on going home, you big jerk.

  Chapter 31

  I wash up in the bathroom after changing into one of my dad’s old band T-shirt’s that I stole when Mom threatened it with the trash, pre-Iraq. It’s loose to my knees, the Pink Floyd iron-on faded in the front.

  Rubbing moisturizer into my hands as I pad across my carpet to my bed, voices float from outside through my open window. I prop one knee on the bed, keeping back from the window while craning my neck to see down into the yard.

  The fire’s burned down, and plastic scrapes concrete. Sean stands up, and my mom does the same. She steps into him. His hands remain by his sides, but their gazes dissolve into one. I break down the scene action by action when he cups the back of her neck with one hand, bends his head and kisses her.