The Summer of Impossibilities

by Rachael Allen

  “No.”

  Scarlett gives me her most scathing raised eyebrow.

  My sparkler fizzles out, and I put it in the bucket of water nearby. “What’s killing your night?”

  “Oh. Nothing.” Her eyes snap to the lake, but I follow where she was looking before. Amelia Grace. And Zoe. “Just not feeling it tonight, I guess.”

  Scarlett traces circles around her head, looking entirely too unhappy for someone holding a sparkler. I want to hug her, but she would hate that, so instead I say, “I haven’t seen them hold hands.”

  She almost drops her sparkler. “What?”

  “Zoe. She’s big on the PDA, like with holding Amelia Grace’s hand or finding an excuse to touch her.”

  “Oh,” says Scarlett, flustered. “I mean, I don’t really—”

  “Tonight”—I steamroll over her excuses—“she hasn’t so much as picked fake lint off of Amelia Grace’s shirt.”

  Scarlett’s mouth is still opening and closing like a fish’s, but I just squeeze her shoulder. “You watch. I’m gonna go eat a s’more.”

  There’s a table near the bonfire with marshmallows and sticks and stuff. I try to only look at Skyler a few times as I make a plate with graham crackers and Nutella. (Side note: Whoever thought to put Nutella on s’mores is a genius.) I head over to the bonfire.

  Bennett’s friend Cooper (of the gratuitous flexing) winks at me through the flames. It would be so easy to go over and say hi. To grab his neck and kiss him while the party swirls around us. Except now I’m hesitant. Because Muslim girls aren’t supposed to just go around kissing random boys, and despite all my daydreams, I’m frozen where I stand.

  And then suddenly there’s a girl in a bikini top handing him a beer. And he’s pulling her against him and he is. The. Worst. Kisser. Ever.

  One hundred percent, this is not me being petty. I may have never been kissed, but even I know you’re not supposed to use that much tongue. She has to wipe her face with the back of her hand when he pulls away. Not just her mouth. Her face.

  Whelp. Dodged that bullet.

  Sometimes not getting what you want is the very best thing. Sucks though. I don’t know why, but I have this feeling like tonight was my last chance.

  I spike a marshmallow onto a stick. I should be more excited about these s’mores. I add another marshmallow. Fireworks burst overhead anticlimactically. Scarlett moves past the bonfire in the direction of the s’mores table. A few seconds later, I get a tap on the shoulder.

  “If this is about Zoe and Amelia Grace, I—”

  My brain registers the face in front of me. Mile-long eyelashes. Bright red hair poking out from under a ball cap. Shy grin. (Not Scarlett.)

  “OHMYGOSH, IT’S YOU,” the face is saying.

  I can’t help but giggle. “What?”

  He blushes, and I feel like I have taken a taser directly to the heart. “I’m friends with Bennett? You were talking to our boat on the dock that day, and then I saw you at the sandbar party but Bennett was having some . . . trouble, and then there was that party at Nate’s but a weird thing happened with a bullhorn and was that your mom?”

  It is my turn to blush. “Maybe.” Change the subject, change the subject, change the subject. I notice his shirt, a white tee with a logo that says MARATÓN SAN BLAS. “Is that from a race?”

  “Yeah, it’s a half marathon in Puerto Rico. I ran it last year when I went to visit my dad. I’m a runner.”

  “Cool.” I can’t believe he’s been looking for me. I have been looking for a guy to kiss the whole summer, and this gorgeous boy has been looking for me. It occurs to me that I should probably say something else. “I play tennis.” Smooth, Ellie. Really smooth.

  He only smiles harder and touches his hat nervously.

  “But sometimes I run for cross-training.”

  FFS, he does not want to hear your workout plan. I shove my marshmallows into the fire. The flames dance around them, turning them a light brown color, but I don’t let them catch fire.

  “Maybe we could go running together sometime,” he says.

  “I’d love that!” I say it too eagerly and wish I could pull it back.

  I can feel my face turning red, but he’s blushing too, and I am made of exclamation points, and ohmygosh, is this really going to happen—

  “Ellie!” yells a voice from the dock. Scarlett. “Ellie, we gotta go. We have to be back by two.”

  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

  This is supposed to be my romantic summer fling, first kiss, oops-we-live-seven-hours-apart-and-have-to-write-love-letters relationship, and I am not letting it slip away, dammit.

  “I’m Ellie,” I say, all rushed and breathless.

  “Andres.”

  “Cool. If I’m going to kiss someone, I at least want to know their first name.”

  His eyes goggle. “Kiss, oh. Andres. My name is definitely Andres.”

  “Andres,” I say. My first kiss is going to be with a boy named Andres.

  I lean forward. So does he.

  He closes his eyes, and I wrap my hand around his neck—the hand that’s not holding the marshmallows on a stick. And I press my lips against his, and, oh. There are fireworks, both the real and metaphorical kind. And everything is glitter and magic and heat and fire and smoke. Wait, what’s that smell?

  We jerk apart. His hat is on fire. Well, my marshmallows are on fire, and his hat is smoking. I yelp and drop my marshmallow stick. How. Embarrassing.

  “Ellie!” Scarlett yells again. “We’re gonna miss curfew!”

  Everyone else is already on the boat, including Skyler, who doesn’t appear to be worried at all about leaving me behind. Andres pours a cup of water on the still crackling marshmallows. (In addition to being gorgeous, he is also resourceful.)

  “Um,” I say.

  “You have to go,” he finishes.

  “But—” I say. Passion and longing and extreme mortification all war inside my brain. I can’t let this end. I grab my charred marshmallow stick and scratch my number in the sand because glass slippers are for quitters. “Call me!” I yell as I run to catch the boat.

  He waves. “I most definitely will.”

  Scarlett

  They weren’t talking. Much.

  I try to pretend like this is a mere observation and not the sole thought occupying my brain for the entire Fourth of July party. What exactly Amelia Grace and Zoe were—and weren’t—doing.

  They weren’t kissing.

  Fuck, and now I’m thinking about kissing again.

  “You okay?” asks Amelia Grace, and I jump.

  I didn’t realize she had leaned against the boat railing next to me. Skyler’s crossfaded knight in shining armor is chauffeuring us home in his boat (and is currently sober, which is the only reason I’m letting him).

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Just kind of partied out and ready to get home.”

  I brush pretend dirt off my blue lace dress. (Ellie insisted we glam it up because that’s what Taylor Swift would do.)

  She nods. “Me too.”

  She looks . . . jumpy.

  “Are you okay? You and Zoe hardly talked the whole night.”

  “Oh.” She blushes. I don’t know why her blushing over Zoe bothers me so much. “Zoe and I broke up. Well, I guess we weren’t officially together in the first place, and I think I was liking her for some of the wrong reasons, but now we’re definitely just friends.”

  “Oh, wow, I’m so sorry.” I mean it. I don’t want her to feel bad or hurt or anything like that. There is definitely no part of me that feels like a flower curling toward the sun right now.

  But things do feel different. Now that I know.

  I can feel it in the way she follows me quickly off the boat while Ellie and Skyler are still saying their goodbyes, slipping up the stairs to our bedroom in the carriage house. In the way my breath catches at the thought of us being alone for one fleeting moment. I have to take off my dress, and we’ve been changing in front of each
other all summer, but my heartbeat knows secrets my brain doesn’t, and my hands can’t seem to work the zipper, and I feel suddenly brave.

  “Can you unzip me?” I ask.

  When I was a kid, I remember Mama asking Daddy to unzip her dresses, and I always thought it was so weird, because you can totally do that yourself if you contort your arms enough. Now I get it.

  Amelia Grace says sure and crosses the room. “Sure” is a word that says, “It’s fine. It’s no big deal.” Her voice doesn’t say it’s no big deal. It’s terrified.

  I realize I’m holding my breath. Maybe I’m a little terrified too.

  She pulls down the zipper. Is it weird I’m disappointed that it’s over already? And then she strokes her fingers down my back where the dress is pulled open and there is so very much skin showing. She starts at my neck and goes all the way down my spine.

  I let out the tiniest gasp without meaning to.

  “Sorry,” she says, jerking her hand away like one of us has burned the other.

  “It’s okay.”

  There’s a pause that stretches clear across the room. I don’t move away. Neither does she. Her voice is soft in my ear. “It’s okay I did that just now or it’s okay you want me to do it again?”

  I am dizzy with how much I want things. “The second one.”

  She doesn’t say anything in response, just runs her fingers down my back again, only this time it’s slower and more. I think I might explode. Is that a thing that can happen to people? Because I’m pretty sure it’s about to happen to me right now, and I have no idea what kind of person I might be after the explosion. Maybe the kind of person who is in love with Amelia Grace.

  The door to the carriage house swings open, and Amelia Grace and I jump apart. Ellie comes bounding up the stairs.

  “Was that the most amazing party or what?!” yells Ellie.

  “Yes.” My chest goes up and down as I say it. Can she see it, how difficult breathing is right now?

  I accidentally catch Amelia Grace’s eye from across the room and have to turn around. What in the ever-loving hell just happened? I have only ever dated boys. I’ve never even thought about dating a girl. But when Ames touched my back just now, I couldn’t think of anything else. So, now I’m what? Bi? But I’ve never. I mean, I haven’t ever.

  Oh.

  McCloud Harris. McCloud Harris and her boyfriend and her talking about her boyfriend and the feelings. Oh, the feelings. And it’s not just McCloud. It’s also Sloane, Britney, Layla, Kayleigh. And it’s not like it’s every girl I’ve ever been friends with. More like I can suddenly look back at the history of my life and tell you which girls were my friends and which girls were my friends. And there’s one friend who stands out above all the others.

  “Are you okay?” says Amelia Grace quietly.

  I almost jump out of my skin. “Totally.” I smile brightly for Ellie’s benefit. “I just need to, like, brush my teeth. So, yeah. Gonna get right on that.”

  “Okay,” says Amelia Grace.

  I rush into the bathroom with my dress still halfway off. I hate that it’s my fault she looks so sad, but I’m more scared of what will happen if I stay.

  Amelia Grace

  Scarlett and I still haven’t talked since, you know, The Dress. I mean, we’ve exchanged conversation, but we haven’t talked. I feel like there’s a wall between us.

  The day after the Fourth of July party is especially sunny. We’re sitting on the dock with Ellie and Aunt Seema (because we’re never alone anymore, Scarlett and me, she makes sure of it), when by some stroke of luck or kindness Ellie says she needs a snack and Aunt Seema gets up to follow her. Scarlett’s so into her quilting, she doesn’t notice until they’re halfway to the house.

  “Oh,” she says, jumping up from her chair after she sees the look on my face. “I just remembered I need to—”

  I jump up too. “Scarlett, wait.” I’ll beg if I have to. “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable, and it’s okay if you don’t like me, but please, I need you to be my friend.”

  I stand there, all desperate-like. Wishing/hoping/waiting/needing.

  Scarlett sets down her quilting. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay, I’m your friend. We’re always going to be friends.”

  It would be nice if I could cling to the word “always” and let the word “friend” go sailing past.

  “That’s all I need,” I force myself to say. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.

  There’s the hum of a boat in the distance. Scarlett wraps her arms around herself protectively.

  “I don’t know,” she says. Doesn’t know what? If she likes me? “I’ve never liked a girl before, and I just don’t know.”

  So she does like me! I don’t smile though. This doesn’t feel like the kind of news where you smile. Something about the way her mouth turns down tells me not to hope.

  “It’s just—I can’t—” She looks like she’s holding back something terrible. “What if we kiss each other, and it’s like, Nope, definitely don’t like girls. I would feel like such an asshole.”

  That’s it? She’s worried about kissing. I don’t mean it to sound dismissive. Identity stuff is a lot to figure out. No one knows that better than me. But I got the feeling there was something much bigger/darker/scarier hurricane-ing behind her eyes.

  “Well, there is a pretty easy way to figure out the answer to the kissing part.” I can’t even say it without blushing.

  She blushes back. Accidentally looks at my lips. Blushes harder.

  Holy crap, Scarlett Kaplan-Gable is thinking about kissing me. This is more than I could have ever dared hope for in life. The girl I’ve loved since seventh grade is maybe/finally/hopefully falling in love with me. Or at least is interested in my kissing abilities.

  I take a step closer. Is this really going to happen? Scarlett’s hair gets swept across her face by the wind, and she tucks it behind her ears. I’ve imagined this moment approximately eighty billion times. I reach out my hand to touch hers. Run my thumb across the back of her wrist just to feel the sparks that swirl around us like lightning bugs. Heck, maybe we don’t even need to kiss. Maybe we could just hold hands for the rest of our lives. But then I look at her lips.

  They’re perfect. She’s perfect. And if we could just—

  Scarlett steps away.

  She lets go of my hand, and the lightning bugs fizzle out.

  “I have a lot of things to figure out,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  She runs down the dock and up the hill to the house.

  Only, this time it feels like she’s taking pieces of me with her.

  Skyler

  I sit on a barstool in the carriage house and shoot orange juice the way other people shoot gin. The loft is empty. Again. It’s been over a week since we lit candles and talked about important things. Two days since we were kind of forced to hang out together on Bennett’s boat on the way to and from the Fourth of July party. I’m not going to a meeting. Not after what Ellie put in her journal. Not after my fight with Scarlett. She and Amelia Grace seem to be going through something too, not that I’m getting mixed up in that. But I do climb the ladder and stare forlornly at the candles and papers gathering dust. In a twisted way, it makes me feel better.

  Maybe it’s because I’m in self-destruct mode or maybe it’s that I have nothing else to lose, but I decide I’m finally going to talk to Mama. I am allowed to want these new meds, I tell myself. Talking to my mom about them and about how I want to play softball again might very well destroy life as I know it, but I don’t feel like there’s anything else for me to lose. I search the main house for Mama. Find her in the kitchen holding her cell phone like it’s a poisonous snake.

  “I just got off the phone with Dr. Levy,” she says.

  I don’t say anything back. Can’t. This is the worst possible outcome. Even in my most pessimistic daydreams, I couldn’t have conjured a scenario like this.

  “How could you do this t
o me, Skyler? Especially after that talk we had the night you took the boat.” Mama makes her wounded face. She’s very like Scarlett in that way.

  “My pain has been getting so much worse.”

  She looks genuinely flummoxed. “What are you talking about? You’ve hardly complained about your pain since we’ve been here.”

  “Only because I couldn’t.” You can do this without crying. You can. “You’ve been so upset, and you should be—things are awful. But then Scarlett always seemed right on the edge too, and every time I tried to talk to you about it, you started crying, and I felt like I couldn’t talk to Daddy, and it’s been so hard. The worst it’s ever been.”

  She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Baby, you should have told me that. I want you to tell me things like that.”

  She’s taking it so much better than I imagined. I duck my head. “I couldn’t. I swear I tried really hard.”

  Mama hugs me tight. For a while. Then she lets me go so she can look me in the eye. Calmly.

  “Make me a promise. If you ever can’t get through to me again, write me a letter, get Scarlett to help, anything it takes, but just, make me listen to you. Please don’t ever let yourself be in that much pain again.”

  “Okay.” Is that really it?

  “You promise?”

  “I promise. And, um, now that you mention it. There’s more.”

  “Oh, damn, are you pregnant? Ellie said there’s a boy you’ve been seeing.”

  “What? No!”

  “Oh, good. Is he Jewish?”

  “Mama!”

  “Sorry! Okay, but is he?”

  I roll my eyes. “Every bit as Jewish as Daddy. But, listen. I—I want to play softball again. Try playing softball again.”

  There. It’s out there. I wait for the ground to start crumbling around me.

  But it doesn’t.

  “Well, that’s wonderful news,” says Mama.

  I wait for the other shoe to drop.

  “Baby, why were you so afraid to tell me that?”

  I don’t know how to tell her this without making things worse.

  “Sky?”