Last Chance Summer

by Shannon Klare

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t—”

  “Because we hadn’t talked about it,” Grant said. “But that’s part of why we’re on a date. You get to know me. I get to know you. That’s how this works.”

  “Right.” I returned my attention to the phone, my hands growing clammy as I pretended to focus on the locations Grant had marked under his favorites. Why hadn’t he said anything?

  “But that doesn’t mean you have to get all awkward,” he said, slowing in the drive-through. “Please don’t get awkward.”

  “I’m not getting awkward,” I said.

  “I’ve been around you enough to read you,” Grant said. He shifted, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “I’ve just learned it’s easier to get it out of the way. Before you go on thinking he’s alive.”

  “I get it,” I said, making a concerted effort to stare at the screen. “You don’t have to explain.”

  Except I was single-handedly responsible for someone dying in a drinking and driving–related accident.

  My arms shook and anxiety snaked its way up my spine as any appetite I’d had quickly disappeared. Any emotions I’d had were replaced by guilt and remorse, and the carnal urge to flee the situation. I needed to get out of here. I had to.

  “What do you want to drink?” Grant said.

  “Um, water.”

  He arched a brow, his hands becoming stock-still on the steering-wheel. “You want a water? After all those lively conversations about your love for Starbucks and their amazing iced coconut milk caramel macchiato?”

  He let out a long sigh, staring at the menu again. “I have officially killed this date.”

  “You didn’t,” I said.

  “Look me in the eye and say that again.”

  I lifted my gaze from the phone, meeting his unreadable expression. I was lying. He knew it. What was the point in pretending it wasn’t true?

  “You might be a master of sarcasm, but you’re a terrible liar,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Yeah? Well, most people aren’t as good at reading me as you seem to be.”

  The frown on his face and disappointment in his slumped shoulders tugged at my heartstrings. He couldn’t know how one simple truth about his life would affect me, how it pulled memories of that night with Nikki to the forefront and flooded my mind with guilt.

  I should’ve taken the keys, but I was too worried about getting caught by my dad to do the right thing. This was the consequence. It would always be the consequence.

  “You haven’t ruined the date,” I said, lying to us both. “I just … I know someone who died in kind of the same way and it just caught me off guard. It’s easier to ignore those emotions.”

  “Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get you?” someone asked through the speaker.

  Grant immediately shifted his attention to the menu, and I sat back in my chair heaving heavy breaths as he ordered my very specific coffee and a plain café Americano with an extra shot for him.

  I’d dodged a bullet, but the sinking feeling in my gut told me I couldn’t avoid the conversation forever. Somehow, someway, he’d find out about my involvement in Nikki’s wreck. When and if he did, he’d never see me the same.

  A few minutes later, amid an unexpected and unwanted tension, Grant pulled the car into a vacant Hobby Lobby parking lot. He stared out the window for a moment, silent.

  “You can be totally honest with me and not hurt my feelings,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Do you want me to take you back to camp and chalk this date up to an epic failure on my part?”

  “This date isn’t an epic failure, and if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be,” I said, looking at him.

  “I brought up my dead dad in the Starbucks parking lot. I think that ranks up there with most horrible dates in the history of dating.”

  “You get brownie points for coffee,” I said, forcing a sympathetic smile. “But, real talk, if you’re wanting normal Alex, I need to focus on these geocaches and less on the serious stuff. I can’t process it on my end, okay?”

  “Are you at camp to process it?”

  “I’m at camp to get away,” I said. I handed him back his phone. “So help me do that. Tell me what a geocache is and walk me through how to find it.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I really do.”

  Despite my completely unnerved stomach, I grabbed the coffee he ordered me and forced myself to take a sip. The liquid was sweet on my tongue, the extra caramel drizzle counteracting the bitterness of the cold brew.

  “All right,” he said, showing me the screen. “First things first, a geocache is a tiny little capsule people hide in random places.”

  “Like buried treasure?”

  “Like pointless trinkets they happen to have on hand,” he said. “There’s supposed to be one in this parking lot called the Magic 8 Ball. It’s described as a small tub with a Magic 8 Ball key chain in it, but we have to find the tub.”

  “Ideas on where to look?”

  “I have a map,” he said, flashing me the screen. “Well, the coordinates anyway, and a clue that makes zero sense.”

  I nodded, unbuckling my seat belt as he turned off the car and pulled the key from the ignition. On the feeder road, a handful of cars passed slowly. Goose bumps spread across my arms, the breeze chilling my skin more than the eeriness of being here after close.

  “Something about this feels like we’re breaking the law,” I said, the parking lot crunching beneath my sandals.

  “I would never take you on a date and expect you to break the law,” Grant said, grinning at me as he extended his hand. “I’m pretty sure that would be a one-way ticket to pissing off your dad, and an even bigger way to piss off my mom. The governor’s kid is supposed to be a law-abiding picture of perfection, not some recently redeemed delinquent who went and got himself arrested again.”

  I paused, pulling him back when he decided to continue walking. “I’m sorry. Did you say your mom is the governor?”

  “Yes. And before you ask, no I can’t get you out of a speeding ticket.”

  I studied him for a moment, quiet building between us.

  “What?” he said, shifting his weight. “Were you really wanting me to get you out of a speeding ticket?”

  “My dad’s a cop. I don’t need help getting out of them,” I said. “I’m just wondering why you haven’t said anything about your mom. That’s a pretty important job to just leave out of a conversation.”

  “We haven’t had a conversation where I needed to mention it.”

  His fingers brushed my cheek, the touch of his skin lighting my nerves. A guy with a family name to uphold was the furthest thing from what I needed to be around. For that matter, I was the furthest thing from what he needed too.

  “You’re being awkward again,” he said. “And you’re going to have to talk to me because I can’t read your mind. What’s going on in there?”

  “A million different things, including but not limited to how I’m probably the bad influence in this relationship.”

  “Um, I’m the bad influence,” he said. “I snuck us out tonight, remember?”

  “Risking your pro-counselor status for a date with a girl you barely even know,” I said. “Let’s be real for a second. Okay? What would your mom say if she knew you were geocaching in Lufkin with me, when you were supposed to be monitoring a group of campers?”

  “She’d applaud me for catching such an amazing girl,” Grant said.

  “I’m being serious.”

  “Fine. She’d probably ask me what I traded to get the night off, then she’d commend me for my expert negotiating skills. Why? What would your dad say?”

  “How irresponsible it is that I willingly snuck out of camp when I’m supposed to be here fixing myself,” I said.

  “You’re fine the way you are.”

  “You don’t know me,” I said.

  “I know you well enough.” Grant tucked a piece o
f hair behind my ear, kissing me lightly. “And I happen to like the girl you are,” he muttered against my lips. “Bad decisions and everything.”

  “What happens when these bad decisions get both of us in trouble?” I said, pulling pulled his lip between my teeth.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we won’t have to find out.”

  He kissed me again, his body shielding us from the rest of the world as he backed me against the car. His hands, strong and calloused, cradled my face while his mouth slanted over mine and kissed me with an intensity that could’ve melted me into the metal.

  My body was on fire, my hands sliding up his shoulder blades while the intoxicating smell of his body wash wound its way through my senses. Every piece of attraction I couldn’t show at camp was free for the taking. Whoever he was, or whoever he wasn’t, didn’t matter. He was Grant. I was Alex.

  In that moment, that’s all that mattered.

  15

  Honest

  “Well, someone seems happy,” Madeline said, catching me the next morning.

  After one hell of a date with Grant, followed by one sleepless night thinking up every reason why the pair of us couldn’t work, Loraine’s stupid therapy schedule would swoop in and wreck my day. Figures.

  “It’s my cabin’s day to sweep out the pavilion and squeegee the floors,” I said, glancing at Madeline. “How about we skip today’s round of therapy and pretend like we had it?”

  “Except Loraine gets a copy of all my notes,” Madeline said. “If we skip, she’ll wonder where all my assessment pages have disappeared to.”

  “Hold up,” I said, the words spurring immediate annoyance. “I thought if you shared what we talked about in these sessions it was a violation of client privilege. Is that an actual law, or is it just something my parents made up to keep me plugging away at therapy back home?”

  “Back home it’s different. Here, you’re in a gray area where you’re not legally considered a client. It’s in the welcome manual.”

  “I didn’t get a damn welcome manual,” I said, rolling my eyes. I kicked a rock, bypassing my cabin for the gazebo. If we had to do this, we needed to get it out of the way before my girls realized I was gone.

  We found our usual therapy setting a few minutes later, the lack of campers around it typical of morning time.

  “You’ve got all of twenty minutes,” I said, tapping my wrist with my finger. “I’m out of here after that. You can just write in your notes how I said f-you and walked my happy little butt out of here.”

  “Still hostile,” Madeline said.

  “Still annoying.”

  She took a seat on the bench, flipping through her notebook with a smile. “All right,” she said, clicking her pen. “The last time we chatted, you were explaining to me how your at-home therapist is, and I quote, ‘the most boring human on the face of the earth.’ Would you like to continue with that conversation, or do you have something else you’d like to talk about?”

  I weighed the decision, my hands drumming absently against the gazebo’s wooden backing. In a plain green tee and blue-jean shorts, Madeline’s casual clothing and persistent smile made her way more welcoming than Dr. Heichman could ever hope to be. Maybe she could be the one to let me word vomit all the issues spiraling around my head.

  As it stood, mine and Grant’s situation would end one of two ways: Either I would tell Grant the truth about Nikki and he’d judge me, confirming that everyone I let in always eventually left. Or his mom would get wind of my rap sheet and judge me hard enough I wouldn’t be comfortable staying with him anyway. What respectable politician would okay their son being with someone like me? None.

  There was no happy ending. At least not one I could see.

  “Alex,” Madeline said, tilting her head into view. “I can’t start our session time until you answer my first question. You’re obligated for at least thirty minutes.”

  “That’s a stupid rule.”

  “It’s Loraine’s rule, and as her employee I have to abide by it,” Madeline said. “So, what would you like to talk about? Dr. Heichman? How bored you are at camp? How the mosquitoes are tiny little raptors?”

  I paused for a minute, picking at a loose string on my shorts. “Is there any way we could talk off the record?” I said. “Like, you could just start the timer and I could talk to you about whatever, without you relaying the information to Loraine?”

  “I have to turn in my notes,” Madeline said.

  “Why?”

  “Rules.”

  I pulled my lip between my teeth as an overwhelming sense of anxiety flooded my vision. I would work this out on my own before I let Loraine catch wind of it. She’d turn around and report everything to my parents. Then they’d take it and leverage it against the college fund I was already trying to prove I deserved. I didn’t need them sticking their noses in a complicated situation they had no part of, and I definitely didn’t need Loraine doing it.

  Things were hard as it was.

  Madeline tapped her pen against her notebook, her eyes hidden behind large retro-style sunglasses. From my vantage point, she seemed to be analyzing me with a magnifying glass, mentally surveying my responses before she summarized them and crammed them in her notebook.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It was a stupid question.”

  I crossed my arms and relaxed into my seat, my position firmly cemented on this side of silence.

  Madeline frowned, her pen stopping. “You’re more than welcome to tell me whatever it is you wanted to say.”

  Silence.

  “I don’t have to jot down every piece of our conversation,” she said.

  Silence.

  This brick wall of resolve wouldn’t budge from now until the time I walked out of this camp. Had I realized everything was getting reported to Loraine in the first place, I would’ve shut up sooner and left both of them in the dark.

  Madeline sighed and put her pen down, closing the notebook on her lap. “You can speak to me openly,” she said. “It’s my decision to choose what I do and don’t see fit to disclose to your aunt.”

  “Just like it’s my decision to choose what I do and don’t disclose to you,” I said.

  “Do you always push back when people are honest with you, or is this another one of the masks you use to hide disappointment and confliction?”

  “You’re the therapist. You tell me.”

  “I feel like it’s your go-to for deflection of emotion,” Madeline said. “You create an unmovable wall between others and yourself, hoping they’ll give up and surrender to your inability to compromise.”

  “I was willing to compromise and talk to you, under the agreement you wouldn’t take notes. You weren’t willing to meet me halfway, so I’m not talking. How is that deflecting my emotions?”

  “You tell me,” she said.

  My brow furrowed as the stranger in front of me grew more frustrating by the second. She didn’t know me. She knew absolutely nothing about me. Unless …

  “You said you give your notes to my aunt after each session,” I said. “Why?”

  “So she can keep a running record of your progress while you’re here.”

  “What for?”

  “I think you know,” Madeline said. She pulled her glasses from her face, her dark brown eyes surveying me from where she sat. Accusation sat within them, mixed with a tinge of sympathy that left me on edge.

  “Ask yourself what the primary reason for Loraine scheduling these sessions would be, then apply it to yourself. What is it you need to work on most? What issue or issues have driven you to a point in life where you find yourself here?”

  “I’m here because my parents forced me to be here,” I said. “Because if I didn’t agree to come either here or to boarding school, they’d withhold a college fund that is rightfully mine.”

  “Why would they withhold it?”

  “I don’t know, Madeline. Why don’t you call them and ask?”

  She shook her head, a small smil
e playing at her lips. “You’re back to deflection, Alex. Take a moment and recognize that behavior. Based on the tone in your voice, I believe what you’re feeling lies somewhere between anger and annoyance.”

  “This is stupid,” I groaned.

  “Answer my question and we’ll proceed.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, my attention shifting to a tiny trail of ants making their way across the gazebo’s concrete floor. It must be a requirement for therapists to take a crash course in how to piss people off. Both Madeline and Dr. Heichman were experts at it.

  “Why would they withhold a college fund that is rightfully yours?” she said.

  “Because I failed my last year of high school, so now they think I can’t make good decisions,” I said, glaring at her. “There. Happy?”

  “Have you made poor decisions before?”

  “Have you made poor decisions before?” I snapped.

  She paused, an emotionless mask pasted to her face. She wasn’t giving me anything in regard to response. At least Dr. Heichman got frazzled from time to time. This woman was a stone-wall. My inability to get a rise out of her frustrated me more.

  “Based on what your aunt has disclosed, I would assume you’ve—”

  “I’ve made one or two bad decisions,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m human. I never claimed to be perfect. I never wanted to be perfect.”

  “No one is perfect, Alex.”

  I pulled my lip between my teeth, my heart pounding as my conversation with Grant replayed through my mind. No. No one was perfect. Especially someone who would allow something so heinous to happen to someone she cared about.

  “In your lifetime, you’re allowed to make the wrong choice. That’s what living is. It’s a series of complicated decisions and our ability to weave through them, doing the best we can to pick the right path along the way. But I think where you’re getting hung up on your progress is in thinking that people want perfection from you, when in reality they just want you to be okay. Your aunt, and I’m sure your parents, are just legitimately concerned for your well-being.”