When Summer Ends

by Jessica Pennington

  “You know we’re not leaving the state for the weekend, right?”

  She rolls her eyes and pretends to look annoyed. “I don’t, actually. I don’t know anything about what we’re doing.” She picks the bag up by a strap and sets it in my open trunk, next to the box. “I assume we’re driving?”

  “We are.”

  She smiles. “Great, now I know something.”

  I’m a little nervous she actually did pack thinking I was taking her somewhere that required multiple changes of clothes, and shampoo, and whatever else is now in my trunk. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Let’s see.” She looks up, like she can see the list in her head. “My bathing suit, flip-flops, sneakers, a sweatshirt, yoga pants…”

  “You thought we might do yoga?”

  “I thought maybe we’d do something … athletic? So far, you seem to be into things that are … new to me. So I just came prepared.”

  “You could have just asked me.”

  “You could have just told me.” She’s smiling, like nothing I say can make her regret her packing decision. “And I actually don’t have your number.”

  I hold my hand out and she hands me her phone. I type in my ten digits and a few words, and then hand the phone back to her. Mine buzzes, and I pull it out of my pocket. I type a reply and put it back just as Olivia pulls hers out. A smile spreads across her face as she reads what I wrote:

  Olivia:

  Excited for tonight. Can’t wait!

  Aiden:

  You should be, it’s going to be awesome.

  I hope you brought something you don’t mind getting paint on. Or burning?

  Her eyes go wide. “Burning?”

  I really should have told her what to bring. Get your head in the game, Emerson. “Scratch that. Let’s focus on the paint.”

  She’s looking at me like she thinks there’s a chance I’m taking her somewhere to burn her clothes in some sort of strange ritual, but she’s not running yet. Probably because she’s wearing sandals, and her running shoes are in the bag. “I can make something work,” she says.

  “Excellent.” I toss my car keys at her and she catches them clumsily. “You can hold on to these from now on.”

  “Your parents won’t think it’s weird I have your car?”

  I hadn’t even thought about it. My grandpa bought it for me when I turned sixteen, and until recently, my parents never really policed it. It is mine, and my responsibility. If I trash it, no one is buying me a new one. “They won’t even notice. It just sits in the garage.” Even as I say it, I’m only ninety percent sure it’s true. It’s in its own stall, but that doesn’t mean Dad’s never going to go in there to get out something random like the lawn chairs that hang on the west wall, or one of our old beach coolers.

  “Well, my aunt—and my mom—would ask me a million questions.”

  “Gotcha. No keys.”

  Olivia smiles, and shakes the offending pieces of metal. “Are we ready?” She glances at the open trunk, and I slam it shut as I walk to the passenger seat.

  “Let’s do this.”

  “Whatever this is,” she says with a smile.

  OLIVIA

  I didn’t expect that my first time out with Aiden Emerson I’d end up at the old football field behind the middle school. The junior varsity team and the marching band use it, since the high school doesn’t have room for a practice field since putting in tennis courts a few years ago. It’s tucked behind the red brick school, and you wouldn’t even know it was here from the road.

  “Just pull right up to the grass,” Aiden directs as I drive down the little road that runs behind the building and dead-ends at what used to be a playground, but is now just a sidewalk that leads to an open field.

  I do what he says, and drive off of the concrete and right up to the edge of the grass, next to the one set of metal bleachers that runs along the sidelines.

  “I didn’t bring any cleats,” I joke, hoping Aiden will tell me what the hell we’re doing here. I wasn’t serious about the yoga pants; I did bring them, but didn’t actually think he was going to take me out to run sprints or something. At least I remembered my inhaler this time.

  AIDEN

  “We’re going to make this easy, and go by yards.”

  Olivia nods, ready for more instructions. I love that she hasn’t asked me for details yet, even though it’s clear that she’s dying to know what we’re doing. We’re standing along the sidelines, her with a giant spool of string looped over her arm and me with a handful of wooden dowel rods. There’s a hammer tucked into my pocket, which is the only thing that feels familiar right now.

  “I’ll put the stakes out, and you’re going to run the string.” I show her the sketch I’ve made of a giant grid, with a line running between each yardline, and another set of lines running every five yards crossways. “We’ll do the perimeter first, and then we’ll work our way from end to end.”

  She nods again, like she’s ready to be sent to war.

  I smile—or maybe it’s a smirk. I’m pretty amused by myself right now. “Have you figured it out yet?”

  “Honestly?” She looks at me blankly. “The longer we’re here, the more confused I am. Running wind-sprints made more sense than this.”

  I laugh. “You thought my idea of a date was wind-sprints?” I wait for some sort of reaction to me dropping the d-word, and am relieved when she just smiles. I did need help with this, but I wanted her help. And if she just broke up with Zander a few weeks ago, I figure we probably need to ease into this whole dating thing anyway. Because I have enough problems with all of the guys on the team without dating Zander’s ex being added to the mix. I’m in no rush to parade Olivia around Riverton.

  I stick the first stake in the ground and jog to the next corner. Olivia ties the string around the first dowel rod, and then follows behind me. “I also considered some sort of crazy hike up a dune that almost kills me,” she yells as I run to the next corner. I’m glad it’s a cool afternoon so I’m not covered in sweat. This isn’t the fun part though, and I want to do this as quickly as possible. I run from spot to spot, shoving the dowels down into the soft ground. I’ve finished two rows when I hear Olivia laughing behind me. She’s running string down a row and watching me, an amused smile on her face.

  “What?” I shout downfield.

  Olivia laughs as she comes up the next row. “Nothing,” she yells back. “I’m just glad you’re the only one doing sprints on this date.”

  I smile. Because I somehow proved her crazy theory right, and because it turns out I am, officially, on my first date.

  OLIVIA

  This is not a date.

  I mean, it is, but also there should be another word for something as complicated as this. And something as strangely entertaining as this. I guess an epic art adventure was an accurate description after all. It took us over an hour to run string around a section of the field. An hour of Aiden running, and me watching. It’s fun, being involved in something Aiden loves so much, and trying something new. This is so unlike the dates Zander and I went on.

  Emma was right, we never really did anything together. We were always in his house or his car, or we were at the movies. It’s not like Zander didn’t want to be seen with me or anything. We went to football games, and his sister’s college track meets. We went to dances. But we never had these kinds of days together, when he tried really hard to do something fun with me and show me how cool he was.

  And Zander never taught me anything. On vacation, he would leave early in the morning to go fishing with his dad, and I wouldn’t even know he was gone until I woke hours later for breakfast. I’ve never fished. Why did he never invite me? Or take me out later, and show me how to cast a line like he could, in one smooth motion, the line flying over his shoulder, out into the water.

  But Aiden is running across a field while telling me funny stories, and he’s been so patient with me—with my wheeze-filled hiking, and my beginner-level canoeing;
even my string skills aren’t that great, but he’s not stressing about the way some of my lines are slanting toward the sidelines.

  After he finished the stakes he took over with the string, running that back and forth too. It was hundreds of feet of him asking me about my Aunt Sarah, as he ran one direction, and telling me embarrassing stories about Ellis as he ran the other. And as he ran, I barked out questions like a coach would. A coach on TV, at least. The kind that rides on the sleds barking things like Do you want to win or not? Is this as fast as you can go? while the players shove it across the football field.

  “When’s your birthday?” I shouted as he ran from the ten-yard line to the thirty with the length of string.

  “March twenty-fifth,” he replied, not even winded.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  “Two,” he told me. Both sisters—one in college and the other already graduated and working as a kindergarten teacher in Tennessee. He talked about them for a while, telling me about what they liked and that one was probably going to be engaged soon. Once he’s done, the grass is covered in a giant grid of string. We’re sitting on the bleachers, looking down at the spidery web we’ve woven across a third of the football field.

  “Have you figured it out yet?” he asks.

  I take a drink from the bottle of water I pulled out of my bag-of-preparedness a few minutes ago. “It reminds me of weaving. Do you remember all the weaving we did in Ms. Wilson’s class?” Middle school was the last time I took art, back when everyone had to.

  I tip my bottle toward Aiden and he smiles and takes it from me, taking a giant drink that wipes out half of the bottle.

  I grab at it. “Oh my gosh, you’re a fish!”

  He laughs and hands it back to me. “It’s all the wind-sprints! Is this the only bottle you have in your gigantic bag?”

  It’s not. But I’m not telling him that, and getting teased about my over-packing again.

  “Ms. Wilson was obsessed with that stupid loom. I swear when we weren’t there she was weaving those dogs’ hair into creepy blankets or something.” Aiden scrunches up his nose.

  Ms. Wilson had these two horrible poodles that the school let her bring in constantly. All we did in seventh grade art was use her gigantic loom, and draw pictures of those dogs. “It always smelled like ugly poodle in there too.”

  “Totally.” Aiden shakes his head. “Not it though. No weaving.”

  I shrug. “Then I give up.”

  Aiden stands up and reaches into his back pocket. His hair is a little sweaty and tousled, and his tan cheeks have pinked up. It reminds me of seeing him on the baseball field. He pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket before sitting back down. He unfolds it and hands it to me. There’s a black-and-white sketch of a bird—a phoenix—with a long tail and outstretched wings. It’s simple, just an outline in black pen. And covering the page there’s a grid of pencil lines, stretching from edge to edge. I look out at the football field, and back to the paper. “No way.”

  “Doing it on grass is kind of lame, but I need to practice before anyone lets me near a wall.”

  “I didn’t realize this was the kind of art you did.”

  Aiden stands up and steps down from the bleacher before reaching his hand back. “Neither did I, but I’m going to give it a shot.”

  I smile and take his hand, following him down to the grass. Aiden retrieves a box from the trunk and pulls out two cans of spray paint. He holds one out to me. My eyes go wide. “No way. You don’t want me near this.” I look down at the drawing in my hands and back at him. “This is way too complicated for me.”

  “You’re not drawing the whole thing,” Aiden says, and then points to the paper. “You’re just drawing one box at a time.” His finger is on a section of the bird’s wing. Inside the box there are only three lines. “We’ll just take it one box at a time.” He shakes his can and a smile spreads across his face. I can’t help but smile in return. “Ready?”

  I let out a long breath and shake my can, my voice teasing. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  * * *

  It turns out I don’t suck at drawing lines. It really was as easy as Aiden made it sound. We worked from box to box, each of us taking a row and working side by side from top to bottom so we were never stepping on the wet paint we left behind. It started out slow and with some shaky lines, until I got the hang of using the spray paint; but as I gained confidence I got faster, and even though I’m pretty sure Aiden was hanging back for me, I kept pace with him. When I get to a particularly difficult box, filled with the intersecting lines of the bird’s tail feathers, I offer the can back to Aiden, but he waves it off.

  “Our fingers are going to be white forever.” I look at his solid white fingertip and then hold up my own.

  “Probably should have brought gloves,” he says apologetically.

  “Nah, it’s kind of cool. I’ll look mysterious, walking around town with one white fingertip.”

  “They’ll think you’re a vandal,” he says.

  “You think?”

  Aiden laughs. “No, I don’t.”

  I smack his arm, and the line he’s drawing curves off to the side. “Oops!”

  Aiden doesn’t move his paint can, and I think maybe he’s upset, but then he just adds another line and connects everything together. “Fixed it,” he says. Then he turns on me and sprays paint across my forearm in one quick movement. “Now you look like a vandal.”

  I gasp, and then lunge at Aiden with my paint-covered finger. Before he can stop me, I wipe it across his cheek. He grabs my wrist and holds it away from his face. “I like it,” I say, admiring the white streak that runs across his cheekbone. “It really brightens up your face,” I joke.

  “I bet it does.” He’s still holding my wrist and he pulls me closer to him. I’m in front of him, just my arm separating us, the paint can dangling in my other. I look up at him and he smiles. I’m thinking about his lips, and wondering when he’s going to kiss me again, when I hear the sound of the spray paint, and feel it tickle my neck. I gasp.

  “You didn’t,” I say, grabbing at my ponytail. The very ends are dusted white. I shake my can at my side and Aiden’s hand goes to mine, stopping me.

  “Truce.”

  “You can’t call a truce when you’re winning.” I meet his eyes and he smiles.

  “Fine.” He drops his spray can and raises his hands like he’s surrendering. “You get one more. Then, truce.”

  I reach for his face. “I’m not a monster.” I spread a matching streak across his other cheekbone and take a half-step back to admire my work. “There … symmetry.” Aiden turns his head from side to side, like he’s letting me get a good look at my paint job. “Yeah, I like it.”

  Aiden drops his head to mine and kisses me. Not like our other kisses, feverish and a little desperate. This isn’t the kiss of a one-time thing, it’s soft and sweet, and holds a promise of more like it to come.

  And I probably like it more than I should.

  AIDEN

  Two hours later, we’re standing at the top of the bleachers looking down at our work. It isn’t half bad. Standing on the field, I worried our inconsistency with the paint cans would be obvious, but from up here the mistakes aren’t noticeable. Next to me, Olivia has her hands on her hips like she’s looking down at the world’s greatest mural, and not a rough outline.

  “This is so cool,” she says.

  “Wait until it’s done.”

  “It’s not?”

  “I’ll have to come back and fill in color. That part will be a little harder, but now that the outline is done, it should be doable.”

  “Can I come watch?”

  I’m caught off guard that she would want to just sit and watch me do this. It fills a little hole inside of me, knowing someone wants to witness this new thing I’m throwing myself into. That anyone cares about it as much as I do. And I wouldn’t have asked her to sit here while I paint, but I’m excited she wants to. Ev
en if it’s just out of curiosity.

  “Yes,” I say, and I pluck the can out of her hand. “You can actually watch me make something tonight, if you want. If you don’t have plans.” I give her an out, because we’ve been out here for hours already. And maybe she’s not as into this as I am. The art or me. I don’t know what the time limit is on first dates. “Fair warning though, we’re going to be playing with fire.”

  She claps her hands together like I just told her tomorrow was her birthday or something, then her face gets serious. “Wait. We’re not doing any actual vandalism, right?”

  I laugh. “No, Olivia.”

  Her face lights up as a smile spreads across her face. “Then I’m in.”

  I look at the girl standing next to me, her shoulders a little pink from being out in the sun all day, a white streak of paint in her hair, and it’s hard to believe that only a few weeks ago so much felt like it was ending this summer. But this is a beginning I can get behind.

  I’m in too.

  * * *

  If we hadn’t been in the same car when her mom called, I would have thought Olivia was just trying to get away from me. But even hearing half of the conversation, I can tell that she’s doing everything she can to avoid whatever it is her mother wants. Until finally, with a grunt, she tells her she’ll be home in ten minutes. And I shouldn’t feel as disappointed as I do—because I’ve already spent most of the day with her—but I can’t help but be disappointed that the day is ending sooner than planned.

  Olivia sighs as she puts her phone back in the cup holder between us. “I have to go home, my mom is apparently losing her mind,” she says. “She took a bunch of stuff off of the walls but now there are holes everywhere.” She sighs. “How am I supposed to fix that?”