Second Chance Summer

Lucy narrowed her eyes at me, then turned to Henry. “The only thing Taylor told me about you was that she doesn’t like you. That you just want to spend all your time in the woods. That you’re a huge dork.” She looked back at me, her expression hard. “Isn’t that right, Taylor?”

Henry’s face fell, and he also turned to me, looking more hurt—and confused—than I had ever seen him look. “Taylor?” he asked. He dropped my hand. “What’s she talking about?”

I looked between the two of them, and I realized how much I’d hurt them—both of them. I didn’t see any way that I could make things better, or even start to fix anything. And I was backing away from the table before I even realized I’d made a decision. But by then, it was too late—I just went with it. I turned and ran for the entrance, leaving them both—the two people who meant the most to me, who I had just managed to hurt simultaneously—behind.

I had left all my things back at the pool, but I didn’t care. None of it seemed to matter anymore. I biked home on autopilot, tears blurring my vision. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew I needed to be home. I could figure things out once I got there.

I threw my bike onto the gravel of the driveway and ran toward the house. I had just opened the door when I almost crashed into my father, who was heading out of it, his weekend bag in his hand.

“Taylor?” he asked, looking down at me. “You okay?”

“Are you leaving?” I asked, looking at the bag. Usually my father was up only for the weekends, but he had planned on taking this whole week off, now that it was August, and things usually quieted down at his office. “Now?” I could hear the disappointment in my voice.

“I know,” my dad said with a grimace. “Work has just gotten crazy, and I have to be there. Sorry, kid.”

I nodded, but my mind was suddenly racing ahead with all kinds of possibilities that I knew I really shouldn’t let myself consider. But once the idea was planted, it was all I could think about. I took a deep breath before asking, “What if I went back with you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked. He put down his bag and frowned at me. “You mean go back to Connecticut?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound casual. Lucy’s face flashed into my mind, but I tried to push it away, not wanting to think about Lucy. Certainly not wanting to think about Henry, and what he must be feeling right now. Instead, I made myself smile at my father, as I said in a voice so confident that I almost believed it myself, “Yeah. I’m kind of tired of it all up here, anyway. When should we leave?”

Ten minutes later, I’d thrown my clothes into a bag and we were heading down the driveway. I’d looked at the stuffed penguin for a long moment, wanting so badly to take it with me, to try to hold on to the feeling I’d had when I’d woken up the morning after the carnival. But instead, I left it on my bed, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to take seeing at it every day in Connecticut.

We had reached the end of the driveway when my dad stopped the car. “Isn’t that your friend Henry?” he asked.

I looked up, alarmed, and saw Henry biking up the street, his hair askew, looking out of breath, heading toward our house. “No,” I said, looking away from where Henry was approaching, and at my dad. “We should just go.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We can wait a moment if you want to talk to him.”

“I don’t,” I said as firmly as I could. “Seriously, we should go.”

“Okay,” my dad said in an if-you-say-so kind of a voice. He turned down the street, and we passed right by Henry as we went. I met his eye for just a moment—and saw how confused and unhappy he looked—before looking away, facing forward, and pretending I hadn’t seen anything at all.

The Beginning of a

Beautiful Friendship

Chapter twenty-four

“JERKFACE.” I THREW DOWN MY CARDS ONTO THE COUNTER.

“Jerkface.” Lucy followed suit immediately, causing Elliot to look at us over the top of his remaining cards and sigh.

“Seriously?” he asked, as Lucy nodded, fanning her cards for him.

“Read ’em and weep,” she said in triumph.

“I think it’s the name,” Elliot grumbled as he scooped up the cards and started shuffling them. “I can’t get used to it.”

We were technically playing Asshole, but after Elliot had yelled it a little too loudly in triumph, just as a mother was approaching with her toddlers, we had figured that it might be time to institute some precautionary measures. Lucy was sitting cross-legged on the counter, I had pulled up a high stool, and Elliot was standing, so that he could pace while he considered his strategy.

“Another round?” he asked, clearly hoping that we’d forgotten the stakes of the game.

“Not a chance,” Lucy said with a laugh. “Next three customers are yours.” She hopped off the counter and crossed to the side door, holding it open for me.

“But what if there’s a customer who needs something complicated? Or grilled?” Elliot asked. “What then?”

“Then call for us,” I said, going to join Lucy by the door. “We’ll just be outside.”

Elliot shook his head, grumbling, as he continued to shuffle. Lucy stepped outside into the sunshine and I followed, letting the door bang shut behind me. Though he’d never said anything, I got the feeling that Elliot wasn’t thrilled that Lucy and I were friends again. Not that he was happier when it had been drama-and-tension-filled—he actually told us that he was glad, since before that, working with the two of us had been like being stuck in some terrible reality show in which the main characters, who hate each other, are nonetheless forced to interact. But in the days that followed, it became clear that Lucy and I finding our way back to friendship meant that neither of us was spending as much time hanging out with him.

It wasn’t like it had been a perfectly easy transition. For one thing, we were dealing with a five-year gap, and for both of us, a lot had happened in those five years. So even as we were having fun catching up, there were moments that illustrated just how vast the holes in my knowledge were—like when Lucy was talking about someone named Susannah, and I hadn’t realized that this was the name of her stepmother. And she would occasionally say something, or make a reference to something that Elliot would immediately get, while I would be utterly in the dark. It was a strange combination of making a new friend while simultaneously getting to know an old one. But something had changed that night after she’d come to the slumber party. We had been able to let go of the past, the reasons why we’d stopped being friends, and I’d been reminded just how good a friend Lucy was. Not to mention how much fun we had when we were together. I’d forgotten that when you were around Lucy, there always seemed to be the possibility of something happening. She could somehow make going to the PocoMart to get snacks feel like an adventure. But we could also just gossip and talk for hours, the conversation rarely flagging.