That Summer(31)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Nope. That’s her,” he said, pointing at me as he turned to walk away. “I know. Take it easy, Haven. Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Casey called after him, waggling her fingers. She waited for him to get lost in the crowd and then said, “Why didn’t you tell me about him? He’s so cute.”

“He’s just Sumner,” I said. “He dated Ashley forever.”

“Well, he’s fine as hell,” she said, using another expression she’d picked up at camp. “All this time you’re after some guy at the mall and you didn’t even tell me.”

“It’s not like that,” I said.

“Why not? You should be after him, big time. He seems to like you already. Can you imagine, you dating a college boy? That would be so cool!”

“He’s my friend,” I said, amazed that Casey could take Sumner away from me and twist him into something else, something almost dirty. That wasn’t what he was to me.

“Whatever,” she said, still smacking her gum. “If it was me, I’d be after him.”

“You don’t understand,” I said quietly, not wanting to talk about it anymore. Me and Sumner—that was ridiculous. He was Ashley’s old boyfriend, for godsakes. And Casey didn’t understand because she couldn’t. She hadn’t seen her whole life change in the last few years, hadn’t had everything taken away. His reappearing was proof that the time I looked back to had actually happened. This summer, Sumner was just what I needed.

Chapter Ten

The wedding countdown, suddenly reduced to single digits, continued. With eight days to go to The Big Day, Ashley had her bachelorette party, which allowed her a full week to recover from the night of drinking, giggling, and general secret activity that her friends had been planning since the engagement. I’d overheard my mother saying something to Lydia Catrell about strippers and tequila, but since I was underage I went along for dinner and then was dropped off unceremoniously on my front lawn while the rest of the group sped off to places unknown. I watched television until late and fell asleep on the couch, remote still in my hand, then woke up when I heard scratching at the front door. The doorbell rang, a few times, among an explosion of giggling, the slamming of car doors, and a beeping horn. I opened the front door and found my sister splayed out on the porch, missing a shoe, wearing what appeared to be underwear around her neck, and mumbling.

“Ashley?” I wasn’t quite sure what to do. “Are you okay?”

“Mmmhpgh.” She rolled over so that she was flat on her back; her face was red. “Haven.”

I leaned over her, smelled her breath, and then took a few steps back. Across the street, Duckdog started barking. “Yes?”

“Help me inside.” She reached up, waving her arm at me crookedly. I grabbed it and pulled her over the threshold, bumping her head on the door. “Ouch,” she whined. “That hurts.”

“Sorry.” We were inside now, so I dropped her arm and kicked the door shut. I felt sorry for her, lying on the floor with her head by the umbrella stand, so I pulled her a little farther to the base of the stairs and arranged her in a half-upright position. It was underwear around her neck, a pink pair. Not a girl’s, either. She also had a collection of swizzle sticks poking out of her hair, all different colors. She tried to wipe her hand across her face, hit her nose, then left her hand there and whimpered softly.

It had been a long time since I’d seen Ashley drunk. In her wilder years, back in high school, she was always getting busted coming in past curfew with a mouthful of Certs and her speech slurred. My mother was never taken in. The next morning Ashley would be grounded with a hangover, and my mother would vacuum outside the bedroom door bright and early, making a point of banging the vacuum against the wall in an effort to get those hard-to-reach spots. I’d woken up more than once to the sound of Ashley getting sick in the bathroom at two A.M., which she thought she was so cleverly hiding by running the shower and the exhaust fan. My parents were never fooled, not even for a minute. They locked their liquor cabinet and did a sniff test every night and eventually Ashley grew out of it, just like she did football players and short shorts and Sumner, not necessarily in that order. Lewis wasn’t a drinker, or a druggie, or even bad tempered. Lewis was viceless, and Ashley gave up everything to become bland, just like him. At least, until tonight. Maybe her friends had known that this was her last gasp, her last chance at the wildness she’d once been famous for. Now I looked at my sister, prone at the bottom of the stairs, and thought how I would miss her when she was gone.

“Ashley.” She still had her hand over her face, her eyes shut now. I reached down and shook her shoulder. “Come on, at least get on the couch.” I crouched beside her, my tiny sister, and put an arm around her shoulders, helping her to her feet. We stumbled together into the living room, where I directed her to the couch and covered her with a blanket, taking off her one shoe and removing the swizzle sticks from her hair one by one. I left the underwear, just out of spite for all the times she’d been nasty to me in the last few months. Some things are deserved, between sisters.

I went to the kitchen and got a trash can, which I put by her head in case things got nasty later, and just as I was leaving to go upstairs she mumbled something, then said louder, “Hey.”

“What?” She was just a blob on the couch now, in the dark. On the coffee table, by the swizzle sticks, I could see a pile of my mother’s lists, all on yellow sticky paper, lying in the one slant of light that was coming in through the curtains.

“Come talk to me,” she said, and I heard the couch creak as she slowly rolled over. “Haven.”

I sat down on the chair beside the couch, pulling my legs up to my chest. I could remember when I’d fit in it perfectly, sinking into its deep cushions, when my feet didn’t even touch the ground. Now I contorted myself, linking an elbow around a knee, just to fit in its small space. I didn’t say anything.

“I’m gonna miss you, you know,” she said suddenly, her voice clearer than before. “I know you don’t believe that.”

“I figured you couldn’t wait to leave,” I said.

She laughed, a long, lazy laugh. “Oh, yeah, I can’t. I mean, I love Lewis. I love him, Haven. He’s the only one who ever really cared about me.”

This was old news. I nodded, knowing she couldn’t see me in the dark.