The Unexpected Everything

We still went to the Orchard and other people’s parties, and movies when Bri could sneak us in for free, and there had been a week when Palmer had been determined to try out all the mini golf courses in a fifty-mile radius, and Wyatt had hit a hole in one into the clown’s mouth and we’d all gotten free ice cream. But most nights, no matter what we did, we ended up back here, hanging out in the pool, watching movies on the couch, or lying on the lounge chairs under the stars. We’d even spent the Fourth of July there, everyone lying on floats in the pool and watching the fireworks we could see overhead from the official town celebration. Well—everyone else had watched the fireworks. Clark and I had taken turns sitting with Bertie in the laundry room, since Bertie hadn’t realized all the explosions were just for pretend and had spent the night trembling and whimpering.

“Hey.” I looked down and saw that Bri had floated up to the edge of the hot tub in her pretzel. She nodded over to where Toby was, and I could see in her expression that she was worried.

“She’s fine,” I said, though without a ton of conviction in my voice. Toby was wearing a new bathing suit, and she’d gotten her hair blown out straight, which was why she’d avoided getting in the water all night. She was wearing much more makeup than you normally did if you were going to be hanging out and swimming, and there was a kind of fixed desperation in her smile as she watched Wyatt in the pool.

“I don’t know,” Bri said as she pushed off the wall and steered her pretzel closer to Toby.

“So, Wyatt,” Toby called in what I’m sure she intended to be a casual voice, but just came out strangled. “Wyatt,” she repeated when he still didn’t look over at her.

“Sorry,” he said, giving her a quick smile, but not making a move to go any closer. “What’s up?”

“So,” she said, her voice coming out too fast and rehearsed, as she smoothed her hair down with one hand, “I was thinking about how you were saying you needed a new band name? And I came up with—”

“That’s okay,” he said with a shrug as he started to swim into the deep end. “We decided it might be better to just be unnamed. More mysterious, you know?” He ducked under the water, and I watched Toby’s smile falter.

It didn’t get any better over the next hour—Toby moving around the pool, clearly trying to be closer to wherever Wyatt was and Wyatt either not noticing or avoiding her on purpose, but either way, barely talking to her. Palmer had won the last three Ping-Pong games and decided to quit while she was ahead, and we’d been lying on loungers next to each other while Tom and Clark tried to dive through the hole of the donut raft, often with disastrous results.

“I’ve got this,” Tom said as Bri steadied the donut in the water for him. “I’m just visualizing my victory. And—”

Clark didn’t let him finish, just pushed him in, and Tom belly flopped spectacularly, sending water flying.

“My hair!” Toby yelled, scrambling to her feet—and I could see she’d been squarely in the splash zone.

“Hey!” Tom said as he resurfaced, sputtering. “Not cool, man. I could have died.”

“Did you have to do that?” Toby snapped, glaring at Tom. “Really? I was trying to keep my hair dry—it’s the one thing I wanted, and you guys just—you just . . .” Toby’s voice broke, and as I watched in horror, she started to cry.

Bri was out of the pool lightning-fast, putting her arm around Toby’s shoulders and steering her toward the house. I looked at Palmer, who nodded and helped pull me to my feet.

“Um . . . I’m sorry,” Tom called, sounding baffled as to what was happening.

Palmer and I found them in the kitchen, where Toby was sobbing into a paper towel and Bri was rubbing her back. “Sorry about your hair,” I said, even though I knew it wasn’t about the hair.

Toby started to smile, but then gave up the attempt partway through and shook her head. “It’s so stupid.”

“It’s not,” Bri said immediately.

“I just keep thinking that one of these days he’ll look over and really see me, you know?” She wiped under her eyes, where mascara had started to streak down.

“I know,” Bri murmured, pulling her in for a hug. I mouthed She okay? to Bri, who gave me a small smile and nodded. I’ve got this, she mouthed back.

An hour later, things had calmed down somewhat. Toby had pulled herself together and had done a spectacular swan dive into the water, clearly giving up on her hair for the night. After a serious game of sharks and minnows earlier that had ended with Palmer doing victory hand stands in the shallow end, I was on a lounge chair with Clark. He was sitting behind me, and we were wrapped up in the same towel. Bri and Toby were sitting on the edge of the deep end together, feet dangling in the water, laughing. Palmer was floating on her back while Tom treaded water next to her, saying something that made her smile.

“Did I tell you?” I asked, shaking my head as I leaned back against Clark.

“You told me,” he said, leaning down and kissing a spot that I’d never even thought about before, but drove me crazy whenever he came near it, right on the edge of my shoulder. Over the course of many hours of making out, my formerly rigid boundaries—just kissing, and nothing more—had gotten a little fuzzier. Clark wasn’t the one pushing me—though he seemed thrilled every time we ventured just a little further from my self-imposed limits. It was mostly me—everything was just feeling so good and so right that I was having more and more trouble remembering why I’d decided that was all I could do.