Endless Summer

But that was last night. Now the sun peeked over the highway bridge in the distance and reflected in the smooth lake.

“What time is it?” I looked toward the clock in the dashboard of my truck, which hadn’t worked since probably 1995.

“I don’t know,” she said. “My cell phone went in the lake with me a couple of nights ago. I’d say five thirty or six.” I pulled my own cell phone from my pocket. “It’s five fifty-three, and my mother’s called me eleven times.”

“Why didn’t it ring?” Lori wailed.

“My brothers kept texting me about hooking up with you. I turned off the sound.” Which was shooting myself in the foot. My brothers were good at making me do that. I turned the key in the ignition and threw the truck into reverse. We backed through the cloud of our own dust, which billowed through the open windows and glinted in the sunlight. As soon as I hit a clearing with more room, I jerked the truck around in a hasty three-point turn and hit the gas.

“Stupid,” I muttered. I would get in trouble for staying out late. She would get in more trouble because she was a girl, and her dad was kind of high-strung. Plus, we’d slept all night on that abandoned point with the windows open. I should have protected her better. Maybe I’d watched snippets of too many action movies, but it seemed to me that falling asleep with a woman was just asking for snakes.

Lori crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down her skin, warming herself. e air was heavy with humidity, and chilly. is was the coldest part of a summer day in Alabama. “Faster,” she said.

In the three weeks I’d had my license, I’d driven as fast as I could every chance I got. Most people, Lori included, thought this was not a good idea. It was a rush for her to tell me to go faster. I pressed the gas harder. “Are you sure you want me to take you home? We could run away together.” I felt her looking at me across the cab. I met her gaze and held it for one second, two seconds, three seconds longer than I should have been keeping my eyes off the road.

The truck hit gravel. I swung the steering wheel to point the truck back onto the pavement.

She laughed. “Better not.”

“You thought about it, though.” I gri

“I did.” She slid her hand onto my thigh, which was bare below my shorts. “Go faster.”

I put more pressure on the gas. The engine revved higher, echoing weirdly against the dense woods flashing past the open windows on both sides.

“No, wait, stop, stop, stop!”

I stomped on the brake and threw my arm in front of her to keep her from going through the windshield before I realized she had put on her seat belt. (I had not.) e truck screeched to a halt. I expected to see the huge body of a deer I’d just missed as it crashed into the woods and escaped—but outside the truck, the morning was pink and still. “What is it?”

“Sorry,” she sighed. “I just realized we need to pick up where we left off last night and enjoy it for a few minutes. I have a feeling we won’t get to do it again for a while.” Her eyes were sad as she said this. I should have bear-hugged her and comforted her. But when the girl of your dreams, who you’ve been chasing for years and have finally caught, tells you to make out with her, are you going to tell her you’d rather just hold each other for a while? Why, hell no. I put the truck in park.

en I put my hands on her face and kissed her. She opened her mouth. Fu

She kissed me again. “Mmm,” she said. I thought she was telling me how much she enjoyed it. I agreed completely. When her shoulders shook, I figured out she was crying.

I kissed her cheek. “Hey. Don’t cry.” I couldn’t stand to see her cry. She’d already bawled in the boat when we got together. I’d gotten a little watery-eyed myself, which my brothers loved. It had been such a relief to call her mine after wanting her so long. For the happiest day of my life, the one I’d dreamed about forever, we sure were crying a lot.

As it turned out, we would have good reason.

But then, in the truck, I didn’t know this. I wiped her tears away with my thumb. “What are you crying about?”

“We’re finally together,” she sobbed, “and now we won’t go out for the rest of the summer. My dad will ground me until Labor Day!”

“You don’t know that.” I ran my fingers through her hair. Now it was dark blonde, but as the summer went on, it would turn lighter until the front was almost white, just like every year. “We’ll explain what happened. It was an honest mistake. Don’t cry. Not yet.” She was making me antsier than I let on, though. I pulled away from her, put the truck back in drive, and sped down the road.

“What did happen?” she asked. “Clearly we don’t find each other as exciting as we thought.” I laughed. “I remember you were biting my earlobe—”

“I remember biting your earlobe,” she said dreamily.

“—but sleep finally caught up with me.”

“Me too.” She scooted closer to me on the seat and put her head on my shoulder.

I drove with my left hand and slipped my right arm around her waist. For thirty more seconds, she was my girlfriend.

Finally I parked in her driveway. “I’ll walk you to the d—”

She slammed the passenger door and dashed through the trees to her house. One of her pink flip-flops flew into an azalea and she never slowed down. I don’t know why she was in such a hurry. Seemed to me that 6:01 a.m. was just as grounded as 6:02.

Her father was already yelling at her when he opened the door. His voice faded and the bright rectangle of light shrank as he swung the door closed behind her.

I murmured, “Happy sweet sixteen, Lori.”

I backed down her driveway, drove a few feet, and pulled into my own driveway. My mom must have heard my truck. She was waiting in our own open doorway in her bathrobe with her arms crossed.

Up until the moment I saw her, I’d pla

But there was something about seeing my mother there, arms folded, ready for a fight, that pissed me off. Instead of standing on the porch and apologizing to her, I squeezed past her into the house like nothing was wrong. And I said, “You’re up early.”

She grabbed the back of my neck and pointed me toward the kitchen. “Sssssssit. Down.”

I huffed out a sigh and walked into the kitchen. It was a little early for everyone to be up and getting ready to go to work at the marina down the hill. My dad sat at the table, drinking coffee. He didn’t share Mom’s frazzled appearance, though. I doubt he’d lost much sleep over my status as a missing person. My oldest brother, Cameron, must have been asleep too—he never got up until the very last second—but my other brother, Sean, lounged at the head of the table, smirking at me. I gathered he was still mad at me for nearly breaking his nose when he jumped on me a few nights ago. e swelling had gone down and it seemed to be healing nicely, so I didn’t know what his problem was.

“Sit down,” Mom repeated.

I pulled out a chair and sat. I wanted some of that coffee first, but something told me I should not ask for this right now.

Mom sat directly across from me, where she could vaporize my brain with her stare. “Where were you?”

e fact that I was only two minutes away from home and could see the house the entire time I was gone might have helped me. But I had pla