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?”