It’s like a vacation for my soul.
I sit up to take a drink of water and see that Kayla has moved apart from the other girls. She’s sitting on the end of the dock, her legs dangling in the water, peeling red licorice strands one by one as she looks out across the water.
I walk over and take a seat on the damp wood beside her. “Thanks for inviting me. I really needed to get out.”
She looks up, startled, as if she was lost in thought. “Oh, no problem.”
I ease my feet into the water. “It’s cold!” I yelp, surprised.
She grins. “Wimp. You get used to it. Or, you know, your skin just goes numb.”
I laugh. “Anyway, thanks for thinking of me. This is fun.”
“Sure.” Kayla pauses. “I’ve thought about asking you to do stuff before, but I wasn’t sure. . . . I mean, you’re always off somewhere with Garrett.” She turns to me with an awkward smile. “I didn’t know if you would even want to hang.”
“Oh.” Thrown, I splash the water with my toes. “I never thought . . . I mean, you’re always with Blake.”
“Not always.” She rolls her eyes. “Not like you and Garrett. I swear, you guys are glued together.”
“Were,” I correct her quietly.
“Right.” She’s quiet for a moment. “So what changed? Did something happen with you guys, to make you want to move on?”
I shrug, tracing the rough wooden planks of the dock. “I guess I just woke up to something that was true all along. He doesn’t feel the same way about me, and no matter how much I hope, and wait . . . well, it’s not going to happen.”
Saying it out loud, to someone else, makes it truer somehow. Real. Done.
“That must have been tough.” Kayla’s voice is soft, and when I look over, there’s genuine sympathy on her face.
“Not nearly as tough as trying to do something about it,” I reply, rueful. “As you probably figured from my performance yesterday.”
“It’ll get easier,” Kayla reassures me, and suddenly I want so desperately for her to be right. Out here, in the bright sunshine, it seems like a new world: shiny and fresh, where maybe getting over him isn’t the insurmountable obstacle I’ve been thinking it is.
I return her smile. “I hope so.”
We’re silent for a moment, listening to the distant yells of kids playing and the murmurs of the Laurens deliberating about some star’s new hairstyle. I breathe slowly, feeling the sun seep all the way to my soul and the tension ease right out. This is what I needed, to be out, away from everything.
Kayla splashes the water some more. “So, this plan of yours . . . You start with avoiding him?”
“Yup. Detox. And then I have to start focusing on his flaws — to think about him as a regular person, and not Garrett,” I explain.
She smirks. “That should be easy. Don’t get me wrong,” she adds quickly, “I’m sorry you’re hurting, but, well . . . to be honest, I always thought he was kind of a jerk.”
My mouth drops open, and she hurries to explain. “I mean, he always acts like he’s so much better than everyone.”
“He does not!” I protest.
“Seriously?” She laughs, peeling off another strand of licorice. “Come on. I know he totally looks down on me, just because I don’t read all those stuffy books or watch boring foreign films.”
“That’s not true.”
Kayla fixes me with a look.
“Well . . .” I trail off. The truth is, Garrett is kind of dismissive about Kayla — with her blond ponytail and perpetual cheer and the way she always wears school colors on game days. “Suburban” he called her, as if that was the worst kind of insult — doomed to marry by twenty, pop out three kids, and never live more than ten blocks away from her parents.
And I laughed right along with him.
“Don’t worry about it.” Kayla must have seen my expression, because she smiles, seemingly unconcerned by his-slash-my judgment. “Besides, it can go on the list, right? ‘Stuffy and judgmental.’”
“I guess. . . .” Even though it’s part of the plan, it still feels disloyal to be talking like this.
“Come on,” she encourages me. “Your turn.”
“Um . . .” I shift, uncomfortable — and not just because of the splinters sticking into my thighs. “I guess he has this thing where he interrupts a lot. Only because he’s so enthusiastic about stuff,” I add quickly.
“‘Talks over you’!” Kayla cries, then hands me a strip of licorice like a reward. “Next?”
I think. “That beat-up military coat he always wears,” I offer, still hesitant.
“Yes!” Kayla agrees. “What’s with that? Like he’s some Russian general.”
I giggle. “And, he shows up late. All the time. I mean, it’s not a big deal, but —”
“Sure, it is,” Kayla argues. “You can’t settle for that stuff. Blake used to do it when we started dating, so I just stopped waiting. If he didn’t send me a message or something, I’d leave after fifteen minutes.”
I blink. “Wow, that’s . . . brave. Weren’t you worried he would just stop asking?”
She shrugs. “It would have been his loss. But it worked. He’s always on time now, because he knows I won’t wait around.”
There’s a whoop from the middle of the lake, and we look over to where Blake is wrestling TJ for control of an inflatable raft.
“Last one out to the buoy buys Popsicles!” Kayla cries, then suddenly pushes off the dock and slides into the water with a splash.
“No fair!” I cry, and jump in after her. I let out another shriek as the water hits me, sharp and icy cold. “You got a head start!”
We play around in the water, racing to the far side of the lake and then fighting the boys for control of the floats, until our fingertips begin to shrivel.
“We’re only letting you win,” Blake announces, finally ceding possession of a lurid green raft to Kayla.
“Aww.” She leans over the side and kisses him lightly on the lips. “There’s room for two!”
He hauls himself aboard, while I try to get comfortable on the inner tube without flashing anything compromising to the guys. But they’ve already lost interest and are racing back to shore, yelling threats and promises to the girls on the dock about just what — and who — they’re going to throw in the lake.