One Last Time

by Beth Reekles

  “Acceptance?” Lee asked, chest heaving with a sigh. “You’re not going to Berkeley, are you?”

  Why did this feel so awful? I’d made my decision.

  “Since when were you interested in going to Harvard?” Lee asked, and then he sighed again and took half a step back, running a hand over his face and then up through his hair. “Nope, don’t answer that. Obviously since Noah went there.”

  “You were applying to Brown,” I said meekly. “And—”

  “Yeah, but my dad went to Brown. It wasn’t just about Rachel.”

  No, but it was maybe 90 percent about Rachel.

  “I got wait-listed,” I told him, backtracking. “I didn’t expect to get in. I never expected to even get wait-listed! I think I applied because I knew it’d never happen, but…now it has, and…and I had to make a choice.”

  “And you chose him,” Lee mumbled. “Again.”

  I was still holding one of his hands, and I gripped it tighter, desperation seeping into my voice. I leaned into him. “It wasn’t about that, Lee.”

  Except it was.

  It was maybe 50 percent about that.

  But how could I explain that while I’d actually looked into classes at Harvard, the campus, everything, I’d never really done that with Berkeley? Sure, I’d mostly done that because Noah was there, but…Well, I’d liked what I’d seen enough to want to apply, hadn’t I? I’d only picked Berkeley because Lee and I had picked it together. And how could I tell him that if I chose to go there, it would’ve felt like I was choosing it only because of Lee? I just knew he’d feel even more hurt and rejected if I told him that.

  To my utter shock, Lee squeezed my hand back and gave me another one of those small smiles that I really did not deserve. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s Harvard. You have to go. Same way Noah did. You don’t turn something like that down, right?”

  I wanted to cry and bury my face in Lee’s shoulder. I wanted to grab his face and scream at him in relief. I wanted to shove him back and tell him to stop being nice to me, stop being so sweet and understanding, because I’d hate me, too, if I were him.

  All I could do, though, was sit there with my mouth clamped shut and stare down at our hands.

  “And I bet your dad was crazy proud,” Lee said, a little too brightly. I glanced up to find his smile bordering on manic, his jaw clenched tight. “There you were, panicking about getting into any college and spending all that time stressing over getting your application essay written, forcing me to get involved in school council and spend all those lunch breaks planning dances and charity events and…you did it! It all paid off! And now…now you…” He cleared his throat, shuffling in his seat. “And now you get to go to Harvard, Shelly.”

  His use of my old childhood nickname, the one only Lee (and, more recently, Noah) was allowed to use, somehow made it infinitely worse.

  Please stop being nice to me.

  But wasn’t this what I’d wanted? Wasn’t this how I’d prayed he’d react?

  “Yeah,” I managed to mumble, “Dad’s crazy proud. And it’s not like I won’t see you or anything. We’ll have weekends and holidays and spring break. Hey, we could even do another road trip! And we can video chat and…and nothing has to change, you know? We can hang out every holiday.”

  Lee’s face twitched. Flatly, he told me, “I’ll be with Rachel over the holidays. I made us a schedule and everything.”

  “Well…well, that’s okay, because Brown’s not that far from Boston.”

  “So I get to go to the East Coast and see you and Noah and Rachel. Great.”

  Okay. This was what I’d been expecting.

  Weirdly, it was almost a relief to see him losing his cool—even just a little. I hated the idea of Lee resenting me for this but not telling me. The thought that he would, and would go talk to Rachel about it but not me, brought that queasy feeling right back again. I couldn’t have him start pushing me away already.

  “Sure,” he went on, striding across the kitchen and grabbing a carton of juice out of the refrigerator. “Yeah, the four of us can spend every holiday or long weekend together, and I don’t get to spend quality time with you or Rachel. Or Noah!”

  He tore open a cupboard, snatched out a glass, hammered it down on the counter, and slammed the door shut again.

  “You’ll get to spend quality time with us, Lee.”

  “I saw what long-distance did to you and Noah. Before Thanksgiving it screwed everything up for you guys. And yeah, I know, you worked it out, and you guys are good now, but I’m not gonna let that happen to me and Rachel.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Lee, I don’t mean to make you feel like you have to choose between me and Rachel. We’ll…we’ll figure it out, right? We always do. We can make a schedule for the time we’ll spend together, like you’ve got with Rachel.”

  Lee gave me a long, stern look, but I could tell it wasn’t completely serious. I still found myself wishing he’d yell at me, that he’d really just lose it, the way he did when he discovered I was dating Noah behind his back. I could see it, bubbling away under the surface.

  But Lee wasn’t an angry guy. He never had been. Which was why he was narrowing his eyes at me now, tilting his head and telling me in a cool, offhand voice, “Rachel gets Labor Day. But I guess…I guess I can give you National Cupcake Day.”

  “I promise I will make you the best, most incredible, most unforgettable cupcakes you have ever dreamed of.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me, and we suddenly both cracked a smile. I’ve always been the worst at baking. Notably, one disastrous Home Ec class a few years ago.

  “I promise I will get Levi to make you the best, most incredible, most unforgettable cupcakes you have ever dreamed of,” I corrected myself. Levi loved baking so much that he’d actually gotten a job in a bakery, in addition to his shifts at 7-Eleven. If National Cupcake Day was Lee’s and my new thing, I would absolutely be counting on Levi to make it killer. (Especially since there was a solid chance I might make it quite literally killer by accidentally giving us food poisoning.)

  Lee’s smile faded too quickly, but he still didn’t shout, or even pull so much as a puppy-dog face. He fidgeted and paced a little, and I knew he was stewing over all of this and how much it changed everything.

  “Say something, Lee,” I mumbled. His silence was killing me.

  “This was supposed to be our year, Elle, remember? We were going to take senior year by storm, have the best time ever before we went to college and everything started changing. But it’s already changing, isn’t it? And we did. And now this was going to be our best summer ever, our last summer. It’s barely started and it’s already ruined. It’s not just our college plans. Mom and Dad are selling the beach house and…Nothing’s turning out the way it was supposed to, you know?”

  He flopped down again on the stool next to me. I snaked my arms around him, grateful when he didn’t push me away. Lee smooshed his face into my shoulder.

  “I promise I’m pleased for you about Harvard,” he said into my sweater.

  “I know.” I did. “I haven’t…I mean, I haven’t accepted my place yet. Or turned down Berkeley.”

  Lee drew back suddenly, shaking his head. “No. Elle, come on. Don’t make me that guy. You’re right, it’s a great opportunity. How could you turn it down? And if it’s what you want, I’m happy for you. Really! Even if I don’t look it right now.”

  I bit my lip, feeling a little guilty.

  I’d wanted to come and talk to him about it before I officially turned down Berkeley. It was my decision to make, but Lee meant the absolute world to me. He always had. If it had really broken his heart, if he’d asked, I knew I would’ve rethought it.

  I felt guilty, because I knew he wouldn’t ask me to do that. And Lee knew it, too. I was giving him an out we both knew he would n
ever take, not in a million years.

  Not sure how to apologize for that, I told him, “I promise I wasn’t trying to keep secrets from you again. It wasn’t like that. I just got the letter a couple days ago, and…I needed to decide. You know, everything was happening with the beach house, and I didn’t want to make you more upset if I didn’t need to, if I’d decided on Berkeley, but—”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What about Brad, though?”

  That was something that I couldn’t talk my way around or do anything about. But now I’d come clean about the college stuff, I told him, “About that. My dad’s got a fancy lady.”

  Lee made a choking sound and pulled back to gawp at me, his face scrunched up and one eye squinting. “He’s got a what?”

  I explained about Linda, who Dad had been on a not-first date with last night, only just stopping myself from off-loading on him about how bizarre I found it all and how it felt like a lot to get my head around.

  Lee gave a low whistle. “Mr. Evans, you sly dog. Who’da thunk it?”

  “Ew. Don’t call my dad a sly dog. That’s gross.”

  “Do you know what this Linda looks like?”

  “No.”

  “Last name?”

  “I’d have looked her up online if I had a last name.”

  “At least someone’s having fun this summer,” Lee muttered, his dark mood from a few moments ago returning in the blink of an eye. I could practically see the storm clouds gathering around his head again.

  It was obvious that he wasn’t going to argue with me about this, though. He was obviously going to make every effort to be happy for me, be proud of me, and I loved him for that.

  I had to make it up to him somehow.

  And as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew exactly what to do. He was devastated about the beach house and about me turning down Berkeley—even if he wouldn’t show that quite so much. Lee wanted this to be our final hurrah, an amazing, unforgettable last summer before everything changed and we had to start growing up. And I was damn sure going to make that happen.

  Years ago, when we were kids, Lee and I had dreamed of all the wonderful and wacky things we would spend our summers doing.

  If he wanted things to stay the way they’d always been, even just for a few more weeks, well, I could give him that.

  “Lee, I swear to you, on our friendship, we are going to have the best summer ever. This is still our year. Plus, if it’s our last summer with the beach house before your parents sell it, we have to make the most of it.”

  “Yeah?” He gave me a half-hearted smile, his head tipping to one side as he looked at me. “You better have a foolproof plan, Shelly.”

  “Think about it,” I blurted, trying to keep up with the way my mind was already racing ahead, spiraling out of control before I had a chance to second-guess anything. “We’ve scored the beach house for the entire summer. Yeah, we’ve gotta help out and do a little work on it, but so what? We’re gonna be living there by ourselves—with Noah and Rachel, I mean—and no adult supervision! Talk about the makings of a great summer! How many people would kill for that? We have the key ingredients right there waiting for us, just a short drive away.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “And,” I pressed on, “our younger selves have already written up the recipe for us.”

  I watched it register with Lee.

  “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

  “I absolutely am saying what you think I’m saying. Lee, back at that beach house, we have a bucket list that tells us exactly how we can make this the ultimate summer. Everything we always wanted to do before college, every fun and crazy thing we dreamed of when we were kids. And now we have the chance to do them!”

  In a slow, measured voice, like he hardly dared believe it, Lee said, “You mean do the whole list, this summer?”

  “I mean do the whole list, this summer.”

  His blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. They twinkled with that impish look I knew so well; he was fighting hard not to crack even the barest of smiles now, too. I knew right then that I’d won him over and that this might just be enough to bury any fight he wanted to put up about college. How could he ever resent me, after I made this dream summer come true? How could he ever be mad at me or say I picked my relationship with Noah over our friendship, when I’d do all of this for him?

  “Even race day?”

  I laughed, a smile spreading across my face. “Especially race day! So what do you say, buddy? You in?”

  He had to say yes. He had to. And I knew he would, because I knew Lee almost better than I knew myself, and he would never be able to resist. But I still held my breath, apprehension prickling across my skin like a million tiny needles.

  Ditching Berkeley was my choice. Ditching Lee after all our plans for years to go to college together was my choice. But this summer, I would make it up to him. I would do everything I could to give him this last perfect summer before everything had to change and we had to start the next chapter and grow up some more. He deserved that.

  Lee stood up from the stool and peered down at me. “The best summer we’ve ever had. You promise?”

  I echoed him one last time: “The best summer we’ve ever had. I promise.”

  Chapter Ten

  I thought that talking through the whole college thing with Lee would make me feel better. I thought that once I’d clicked those buttons on the websites, officially declining Berkeley and accepting my spot at Harvard, I would feel better. I thought that packing for our summer at the beach house would make me feel better.

  I was so, so wrong.

  I felt kinda sick when I turned down Berkeley—even if it was pretty exciting to be sitting at my desk with my dad hovering behind me, beaming, as I accepted Harvard, realizing just how much all my hard work at school had paid off.

  Lee did a great job at not laying into me for ruining the college plans we’d had since we were kids. He was the one to tell his parents about it when I stayed over for dinner that night, but he was still a little too happy for me.

  If he could pretend to be okay with it, I could pretend, too.

  It always took me forever to pack for the beach house, but this time it seemed to be even harder than usual. My brain was stuck on worrying about how upset Lee was and how badly I needed to make it up to him this summer, making it impossible to work my way through my mental checklist for packing.

  And I really did need to make it up to him. I’d need to pull out all the stops. The bucket list would be fun—it would be amazing, if we could make it happen—but it’d also involve a lot of planning and preparations.

  And money.

  Great, I thought, one more thing to have to figure out.

  I hadn’t even thought about how I’d afford to do all those bucket-list items when I’d suggested it to Lee. I mean, race day alone…I’d spent so much time last summer and during senior year applying for jobs and not getting any of them—mostly because I didn’t have the “experience.” Something told me this summer wouldn’t be any different. Maybe we could set up some kind of crowd funder? Was that even legal?

  I tossed a few pieces of makeup from my dresser into my open suitcase, then ran my hands over my face. It’d be fine. It’d have to be. College was sorted, so now I just had to pull off the bucket list, find some way to pay for it, help fix up the beach house per June and Matthew’s instructions, come back to babysit Brad while my dad went on dates with the oh-so-perfect, oh-so-wonderful Linda….

  “Get it together,” I muttered to myself.

  One thing at a time. I could stress over babysitting whenever that came up, and the bucket list could wait a little while. Right now I just had to make it through packing—and I was already running late.

 
Eventually, though, it was done. I hauled my suitcase downstairs and said my goodbyes to Dad and Brad, who complained to me yet again about not spending summer with us at the beach house. He’d bickered with me over it pretty much nonstop for the last few days since I’d mentioned it, and I was sure, if we gave him the chance, he’d smuggle himself into the back of one of our cars.

  But even that was done soon enough. I loaded my bag into the trunk of my car and headed over to Lee and Noah’s—where I quickly discovered neither of them were actually ready to leave.

  “I thought you guys were packed?”

  Noah bit his lip for a moment, a slightly guilty look on his face as I appeared in his bedroom doorway. He caved quickly, though, and said, “We thought if we told you we weren’t planning to leave until lunch, you’d still be packing.”

  I let out a scandalized gasp, swiping playfully at his arm as he laughed. I climbed onto an empty spot on his bed, around his bag and the piles of clothes he was packing, and crossed my legs. “You’re a pair of dirty liars. Give me some credit. I’m ready now, aren’t I?”

  “Are you?”

  He had a point. It was about two hours until we were due to leave, as I had just found out, and chances were I’d remember something I’d forgotten to pack. Which was stupid, I knew, because I’d be back home every couple of days to help look after Brad, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t pick anything up, but—

  “Aw, crap.” I smacked a palm against my forehead. “I didn’t pack any bras.”

  Noah shot me a smirk, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn’t sound like a problem to me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Keep it in your pants, you. You’ve got packing to do.”

  We sat quietly for a minute while Noah pulled a shirt out of his closet to fold and I went through a mental checklist of what else I might have forgotten to pack.