Endless Summer

Sean charged past the windshield into the back of the boat, eyes full of tears. “She broke up with me!” he wailed. “She broke up with me because she’s still in love with Adam!”

We all went quiet. Only the clack-clack, clack-clack of cars on the bridge and the lapping of waves against the boat disturbed the silence. e boys weren’t ribbing Sean.

They must have been as shocked as I was that Sean would admit what Rachel had said.

Sean was in love.

He sniffled. “I’m going to her house. Take me back to shore.” When Cameron didn’t immediately slip into the driver’s seat, Sean took a step toward the steering wheel himself.

“Sean,” Cameron said, standing in his way. “You haven’t landed a good trick the whole week and a half we’ve been coming out. We only have today, tomorrow, and Friday to practice for the Crappy Festival. Take your turn first and then go to her house.” Sean cursed, and cursed, and cursed, and dove into the lake. We all rushed to the side of the boat and watched him glide to the surface twenty feet away, already swimming. We weren’t so far from the Foshees’ yard that we needed to fish him out for his own safety. He swam until he could touch bottom, sloshed the rest of the way to land, and hit the grass ru

Adam said quietly, “I’m the biggest.”

“Adam,” I scolded him.

Cameron and my brother looked from me to Adam and back to me, wondering what was going on between us. Frankly, I wondered the same thing. I wasn’t sure what I’d wanted or expected Adam to say when we finally got our wish for Sean and Rachel to break up. But I’m the biggest wasn’t it.

We drove back to the wharf still in silence—except, of course, for the deafening motor. Adam and I sat across the aisle from each other without glancing at each other.

Something was about to happen.

And everyone sensed it. Cameron and McGillicuddy took more than their share of equipment into the warehouse, leaving Adam and me alone in the boat. As they came back out, Cameron looked down at us from the wharf and said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”—which made me wish I hadn’t confessed to Adam that Cameron and I had kissed. After five years of hiding this from everyone, he had to hint about it now? Whatever was coming for Adam and me, it was going to be hard enough already.

McGillicuddy asked me, “Do you want me to tell Dad you’ll be late for di

“No,” I said. “I won’t be long.”

We watched McGillicuddy and Cameron walk toward the houses. ey stopped to talk. Cameron took a swipe at McGillicuddy. McGillicuddy shoved Cameron. ey went their separate ways. Friends to the end, the simplest relationship possible.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Adam snapped into the silence. “You won’t be long?”

“It’s dusk in the summer. Mosquitos,” I said, slapping at a bug. While my mouth spouted this drivel, my mind worked on what I really wanted to say to Adam. But I had no more idea than I’d had out on the lake.

You know what didn’t help? When he reached behind his neck and worked at the knot in the leather string. I knew what was coming. It took him a few seconds to get through that knot. Even though the whole time I was thinking about what to say when he asked me to turn around, I was speechless when the moment came. I turned around on my seat. He tied the skull and crossbones around my neck. e metal was hot against my breastbone. I pressed the skull between the eyes with my fingertips.

Turning back to him, I murmured, “You’re giving me a piece of you.”

He looked over at me. We were together for real, and he was so hot. I should have been giggling with delight and dorkiness. e angry look in his blue eyes broke my heart.

“Rachel told Sean she likes you better,” I said, “but you don’t want her back. You’ve never wanted her back. All you’ve wanted was to get revenge on Sean. You’re giving me this to show him you don’t even want what he can’t have.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed at me. I made an effort not to shrink back against the side of the boat. He said evenly, “I’m giving it to you because I want to give it to you.”

“Your timing is odd. Usually a boy wouldn’t laugh at his brother hitting rock bottom, then show his love for his girlfriend practically in the same breath.” Now he was shrinking against his side of the boat, which made me brave enough to throw in still more sarcasm. “I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but that’s my theory.” He closed his eyes and said in a rush, “I’m in love with you.”

I took a breath to tell him if he really meant it, he wouldn’t have to say it with his eyes closed. But he didn’t just have his eyes closed. ose worry lines had appeared between his brows. He was in pain, concentrating hard to make it go away, like the second time he broke his collarbone wakeboarding, and lay still as death in the floorboard of the boat and wouldn’t let anyone touch him but me.

He opened his eyes but remained plastered against the boat. He looked small, if this was possible. “at’s my plot. You were right, I had a plot, and that’s my whole plot. I’m in love with you. e last nine months with McGillicuddy away at college have been freaking torture for me, because I didn’t have an excuse to come to your house. If I came over without McGillicuddy there, you’d know. I hardly saw you the whole school year. I thought I might finally have a chance with you since I was about to get my license, and you were about to get your license. We could go places together, alone. I could get you away from Sean. But the more I hinted we should go out, the more you talked about hooking up with Sean. When I heard Rachel liked me, I asked her out, and I kept asking her out. To make you jealous. And at the te

“You don’t love me,” I said. “You’re competing with Sean. Maybe you’ve even convinced yourself you love me, but it all comes back to Sean.” His expression changed from hurt back to anger. “Last Friday night in the lake didn’t mean anything to you.” Friday night had been the best night of my life. He was picking up each thing I loved about my life, grinding it to a point, and pushing it through my heart. I’d thought only Sean knew how to do that.

“The past week and a half hasn’t meant anything to you,” he went on. “The past sixteen years—”

“Sixteen years!” I howled.

“You told me you’re stuck on Sean,” he shouted. His voice made the metal wall of the warehouse hum. “You think your mother chose him for you—”

“No, I don’t!” Well, maybe I did. And maybe I didn’t care so much anymore, but this was hard to explain while yelling. “Look, Adam. Let’s say you had been in love with me all our lives, which, by the way, I don’t believe for a second.” Because why would any boy fall in love with a girl like me? “What you loved about me would have been exactly what I hate about myself. To stay the person you wanted, I’d have to stay the same. I want to change.”

“You think your mother wants you to change,” he corrected me. “Lori, when your mother said that, she was kidding.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know. Your mother didn’t laugh.”

“My mother never laughs. It’s called a dry wit. You’re basing your whole life on one conversation you overheard when you were four years old that you don’t even remember right.”

I felt like I’d been slapped. When I’d shared my deepest secret with him, it never once occurred to me that he’d throw it back in my face. Adam, of all people, had betrayed me. I stepped out of the boat, onto the wharf. “Let’s end this now before we ruin our friendship.”