One Hot Summer

by Heidi McLaughlin

  Derek didn’t take Camille seriously enough to consider what he did cheating on her. Drew and I both knew that, but she had trouble accepting it.

  “They started speeding through town and making crazy turns, so I guess he knew I was behind them.” She sighed. “I realized it was pointless and he’d just make stupid excuses if I confronted him, so I headed back to the carnival. But by then, they were tearing booths and rides down and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  “My phoned died and I had to go meet Ethan.”

  She nodded. “I know. I’m a shit friend. I’ve got to stop this, whatever this is, with Derek. I promise I’m working on it.”

  She detailed the apologetic messages he’d already sent today, and I could tell she was far from letting go of her Derek drama.

  My mind drifted to Aiden.

  Do you ever want to see me again?

  Did I?

  I still hadn’t figured it out when we arrived at my house. I gave Camille a sympathetic half-hug, reassuring her once more that I wasn’t going to hold a grudge or refuse to hang out with her ever again. We said our goodbyes and I headed into my house.

  I opened the front door and braced myself for my mother’s wrath.

  It was silent.

  I walked to her room as quietly as possible, hoping not to disturb her if she was resting. After using the bathroom, I knocked gently on her door. When there was no answer, I pushed it open a few inches.

  My mother sat in her leather armchair, staring out the window.

  “Mama? You okay?”

  Her head whipped to me and her eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh, don’t pretend you care now.”

  I absorbed the hatred in her voice and sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry about last night. My phone died and I stayed at a friend’s house.” No need to specify it wasn’t a friend she knew.

  She returned her gaze to the window and ignored me. I could explain and apologize until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t matter when she was like this.

  “Can I get you anything? Want me to help you take a bath?”

  She snorted. “I’m not a fucking invalid, Emersyn. I can bathe myself.”

  Then please do.

  I swallowed my own hateful words.

  “Okay. Well I’m here if you need anything. I’m going to head back to the hospital and try to see Drew during the next round of visiting hours. Ethan is staying one more night at the Andersons.”

  Her stare could’ve launched missiles in my direction. “Thanks for updating me on what my children have decided they’re doing without even asking permission.”

  I didn’t have the energy for this. Not today. “I’ll be eighteen next month. Ethan is a good kid and I’ve been looking after him for most of his life. So, if you want to pretend your super-mom and we need written permission to exist, you can save that for another time. I can’t do this right now.”

  She threw something. I ducked just in time.

  A heavy glass hit the wall behind me and rolled onto the floor. It was thick enough not to shatter. She’d been aiming for my head.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. “When dad left you said you were going to try harder. Control your temper and spend more time with Ethan, remember? Those were your words. You’ve done none of that.”

  “Get out of my room, you selfish little bitch.” Her voice was shrill, rusty knives slicing through me.

  “One of these days, I’m going to get out just like you want, Mom. And when that day comes, I will never, ever come back here.”

  “Fine by me, Emersyn. When have you done anything other than exactly what you wanted to?”

  Was she fucking kidding?

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t have it in me to argue.

  I left, closing her door behind me, deciding to take a hot shower to wash the hospital scent and my mother’s venomous words out of my skin.

  When I got out, my phone was vibrating with text notifications. Holding my towel around my body with one hand, I unlocked the home screen with the other.

  Stacy’s name and number popped up. I opened the unread text message from her.

  They took Drew off the sedation early. He’s asking for you.

  9

  Drew

  -THE FUCKING HOSPITAL WITH NO CLUE WHAT DAMN DAY IT IS-

  Everything hurts.

  My head, my back, my rib cage.

  Breathing feels like being stabbed over and over again.

  The hospital is the absolute worst place on earth to get some rest. And you know what they keep telling me? All of them—the police officers, the doctors, the nurses, my own damn mom—

  all do the exact same thing. Every time they come in, they wake me up by flipping on the world’s brightest fucking florescent lights, then ask me a million questions, then tell me to get some rest.

  Yeah, okay.

  It’s happened so many times it would almost be comical if I didn’t feel like I’d been hit by a Mack truck.

  Not a truck.

  A guy. A boy, really. Though he’s the same age as me, I’d recently learned just how juvenile he really was. Beautiful, angry, sad boy.

  If I close my eyes too long, I still see him.

  Crying.

  Kicking.

  Raging.

  I focused on the before instead. Before his brother. Before he lost control. When it was just him and I, in his Range Rover at the park.

  I hadn’t been alone with him since that night at camp. I was nervous about seeing him again. But the minute we were away from the rest of the world, he reminded me what we’d had was real.

  His mouth sliding up and down on my throbbing cock, my hands in his gorgeous golden locks. He looked like a Disney prince giving me the hottest blow job of my life.

  Just like at camp, he’d surprised me in so many ways. Being a tender lover when I’d expected rough. Being a giver, when I’d always seen him as a taker.

  There were two of him. The one everyone saw in public—the version everyone expected him to be. And the one only I knew privately, which I’d believed to be the real version.

  Now I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t think he was either.

  He missed me, he said. He’d been thinking of me constantly.

  But then his brother pulled up, in a car with some chick. Screaming. Cussing. I hid in the back of the Rover, thinking it was safe when his brother finally left.

  It wasn’t.

  “Drew,” my best friend’s voice said softly, pulling me from my thoughts.

  She didn’t turn on the lights, bless her. I still had the small overhead one on.

  “Come in. I’m awake,” I said, my voice sounding like I’d swallowed a mouthful of glass.

  I hadn’t looked in a mirror yet, but I didn’t have to. I could see how bad it was on everyone else’s face. Emersyn was no exception. It was evident that she found it painful to look at me.

  She entered the room looking frail and nervous.

  “What? Am I having a bad hair day?” I teased.

  She moved closer to me. “You’re making jokes right now? Seriously?”

  I threw my hands up, regretting it immediately when the lightning pains struck my ribs. “What else am I supposed to do? Cry? Sit here and feel sorry for myself?”

  Her eyes went round. “Drew…”

  I sighed. She was the last person I wanted to be an asshole to. “Sorry. I’m having a shit day in case you hadn’t heard.”

  She sat on the side of my bed. “Who did this to you? Your mom said you won’t say, but I don’t understand why you’d protect someone who hurt you like this.”

  I swallowed the thick lump in my throat. “Can you hand me that water?”

  When she lifted the cup from my bedside tray to my mouth, I took a sip from the straw. She waited patiently for me to finish.

  “It doesn’t matter who did it. I don’t want to press charges. I just want to move on.” Her forehead creased. “Don’t frown, gorgeous. You’ll get premature wrinkles.”

  S
he tilted her head at me like a wounded puppy.

  “Stop looking at me like that. Come here.”

  I pulled her into my arms, letting her lie alongside me even though it hurt like hell. “So how was your night? My sister said there was a man here with you earlier.” I waggled my eyebrows at her. “Did you fall in love with a carnie after all?”

  She huffed out a breath but said nothing.

  “I got my ass kicked and I’m in the hospital, Em. Give me something to live for.”

  She looked up at me and her eyes clouded over. “It feels wrong to be gushing over some guy while you’re like this.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Stop. I’ll be fine, the doctors said most of my injuries are superficial. I don’t even need surgery.”

  “They don’t look superficial to me. Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “I said superficial, not artificial. The shit hurts, yeah. And a morphine drip only goes so far. So, help take my mind off it.”

  She laid her head on my chest and sighed. “Camille ditched me for Derek at the carnival.”

  “Shocker,” I broke in. Derek was Camille’s kryptonite.

  “He was with some other girl and she lost her mind. Ethan was late meeting me at the gate and my phone died. I ran into this…guy. From my art history class at Southeastern.”

  I could tell by the weight of her words; he wasn’t just some guy.

  “A hot guy?”

  She waited a beat. “Yeah, you could say that. A hot, smart, thoughtful, too sexy for his own good guy.”

  “That’s exciting. Em, I’m proud of you. You needed to go out and have some fun for a change. I hate that my drama ruined it.”

  She pulled back and pinned me with an incredulous look. There was a word people didn’t use enough. Incredulous. I vowed then and there to start using it more.

  “Your drama, as in you getting physically assaulted and nearly beaten to death. I don’t know if it’s the meds or what, but this is serious, Drew. And you need to tell the police who did this to you, so they don’t do it again—to you or to someone else.”

  “Calm down before you get an eye twitch.” I patted her gently, bringing her back to lay beside me. “I’m not going to see him again. Period. Trust me, he’ll leave me alone. He has much more to lose than I do.”

  She peered up at me. “Drew…was it like…a hate crime?”

  I sighed and tried to figure out how to explain. “Look, Em, I know you’re upset, and I know you’re upset because you love me. I love you, too. But trust me when I tell you, this person, the one who did this, he didn’t do it because he hates me. He did it because he hates himself, and all that anger, all that toxic hatred, it’s poisoned him, and he may never get it out of his system. Can you imagine a harsher punishment than hating yourself? I mean, you’re stuck with yourself forever so…it’s a life sentence. Literally.”

  She relaxed a little, the tension in her body easing slowly. “Sounds kind of like my mom in a way.”

  I nodded. “Exactly. You know the hateful things she does aren’t because of you or Ethan. It’s her she’s unhappy with—her life, her illness. Things she feels powerless to control.”

  “She was mad about me leaving. Then I didn’t come home last night. I texted and told her I was staying at Camille’s. She threw a glass at my head when I got home.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry, babe.”

  I gave her a squeeze but then I remembered Camille had come to visit, according to my mom. And Emersyn wasn’t with her.

  “Wait. Did you really stay at Cam’s?”

  She was quiet for so long I checked to make sure she hadn’t dozed off. Her cheeks were pink.

  “Emersyn Elizabeth Tyler! Did you spend the night with mystery carnival man?” She nodded against me and I feigned shock. “Oh my gosh, Geppetto. She’s a real girl now!”

  “I might smack you if you weren’t all busted up,” she said softly. “I didn’t sleep with him, Drew. I mean, yeah, technically we did sleep. We did other stuff, too, but not everything.”

  “Still holding onto that V-card with a white-knuckle grip, huh?” She inhales deeply and I rub her back as much as possible with an IV sticking out of my hand. “I’m just giving you a hard time, Em. Don’t rush it. I hope whoever you decide to give yourself to deserves it.”

  They say you never forget you first time, and I guess it’s true. After what happened in the park, I wish I could though. I think that’s why I didn’t fight back, because I couldn’t intentionally hurt the first person, I’d made love to.

  “Are you going to be okay, Drew?”

  I close my eyes and it’s still there. All of it. Every moment with him. The good, the bad, the horrifying. So, I don’t lie to her.

  “Eventually I will be. I hope.”

  Funny thing was, everyone was worried about the wounds on the outside when it was the ones on the inside that were killing me.

  “Can I give you some advice, young grasshopper?”

  She sits up and eyes me warily. “Sure.”

  I sucked in a breath and said all the things I wished someone had told me. “Love is fleeting, Em. And it varies in degree from one minute to the next. I know you’re waiting on some mystical kind of fairytale love but that’s not what it’s like at all. It’s real and sometimes painful because we aren’t dealing with magical creatures here. Whoever you eventually fall for, he’ll be human. He’ll be flawed. He’ll have a past and weaknesses and triggers and damage because we all do.”

  She bites her bottom lip and pulls her knees up to her chest. “He’s not like anyone I’ve ever known. He made me feel alive and free and…”

  “Wet?” I offer, to lighten the moment.

  “Yeah, that too, perv.” She shrugs. “But he’s twenty-four, Drew. I didn’t tell him I was just taking courses at Southeastern through correspondence with my high school. Pretty sure he’s graduating, and I honestly probably won’t ever see him again anyways.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m in high school and I already have more on my plate than I can handle. He lives in Riverside. I got the impression he doesn’t plan to stick around.”

  “Got the impression how?”

  “Um, he lives in a camper kind of.”

  “Kind of?” I made a face at her. “So, he is a carnie?”

  She moved like she was going to leave. I pulled her shoulders back playfully as much as I could manage without bursting my spleen. “I’m teasing you. Relax. Tell me more.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I break into a quick version of Summer Nights from Grease because I can’t help myself. Em knows this about me and has learned to love it.

  She lets a small smile play on her lips when I finish. “He’s like…the kind of guy that runs to get pizza for a party he isn’t even at so that no one drinks and drives. We went to a convenient store and he got me a bag full of ketchup and condiments so I could paint on the sidewalk. He stayed with me last night, here. Then he held me all night while I fell apart and he never even made a move. Actually, I made most of the moves.”

  She might not know it yet, but I can see it in the way her eyes light up. I can hear it in her voice. The awe, the adoration. She’s falling for this guy, whoever he is.

  After what happened, a part of my soul is deeply bruised and in danger of turning black. That part wants to tell her it’s best to stay away from this guy before he breaks her tiny little tiger heart. Or worse.

  But I won’t let someone else’s behavior change my tiny tiger heart, dammit. So, I tell her the truth.

  “Even if it’s just a fling, Em, it sounds like you had a really amazing time. Minus the hospital part. And if I were you, I’d tell him that. Don’t hide behind me or Ethan or your mom or your hectic life. If he’s the kind of man you say he is, tell him the truth. That you have a lot going on. That you’re almost eighteen, and that he makes you feel alive. If he cares about you, which it sounds like he does an awful lot for someone you just met, he’ll understand.”


  “I can’t stop thinking about him,” she admitted. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing. But when I’m with him, it’s like everything else just—”

  “Floats away? Doesn’t matter as much? Isn’t so terrible after all?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. All of that.”

  “So, tell him. Go. Tell him now. Trust me, you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  After I convince Em to go, a new night shift nurse comes in to take my vitals. Of course, she flips the high beams on to do it.

  “Was that your girlfriend that just left?” she asked while strapping the blood pressure cuff to my arm. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah, she is,” I said, responding to the second part of her comment and not the actual question.

  Emersyn has always been beautiful, inside and out. I remembered of the first day I saw her, in middle school when I hated this town and everyone in it.

  My dad was in the Marine Corps and we moved a lot. In all the schools I’d been to, I’d never seen someone so attractive be an outcast. She was new, too, it turned out, having moved here just a few weeks before me and eventually, Emersyn from Texas and Drew from everywhere became best friends.

  I loved her and she loved me back. So, we let people at school think we were more than friends because it kept my secret safe. Judging from where I am, it obviously didn’t keep me too safe.

  Listening to the machines beeping, I realized this hasn’t been fair to Emersyn. She deserved to have a life and not be saddled with a pretend boyfriend who only wanted her for her mind. Her mom had already caused her to miss out on enough teenage rites of passage. I wouldn’t ask her to miss out on anymore because of me.

  When school starts, I’m going to tell her we need to stage a breakup so guys will start asking her out.

  I close my eyes and silently ask the universe to make whoever this guy she’s going to see a really, really good one.