Five Summers Read Online Free Page B

someone was shouting something about finding the goddamn lighter. I could feel Adam looking at me, but I was too afraid to look back. My skin felt electrically charged, and every infinitesimal movement he made set off an explosion in my brain that made me want to simultaneously fly and vomit.
    “It’s pretty up here,” I finally squeaked.
    “You’re pretty up here.” I looked over. He was smiling, but he didn’t say it like a joke.
    “Stop it,” I said.
Please don’t stop
,
I thought.
    “I mean it.” He looked at me for a long minute. “Emma—” he paused, like he was trying to figure out what to say next. And then he put his hand on my leg.
    I remember the next few seconds happening in slow motion. I turned to him, trying not to look as scared as I was. He started to lean—so slowly I wasn’t even sure he was really leaning. Maybe I was just having lust-induced vertigo. His lips parted slightly, those warm brown eyes searching my face for permission, like that time I slipped climbing a tree in the north field when we were twelve and he had to take a two-inch splinter out of my shoulder. I knew what I was supposed to do; I was supposed to cock my head, close my eyes, and let go.
    But I couldn’t.
    It was only once I was in the moment that I realized I couldn’t go through with it. My thoughts started spiraling anxiously. Yes, kissing Adam would be amazing, I thought, but then what? The next morning our parents would come and pick us up, and we couldn’t exactly have a tender good-bye. And then he would go north to Maine and I would go south to Boston and we didn’t even know if we would be back the next year as CITs (a.k.a. counselors in training) together. If we kissed, everything would change, five years of friendship reset in a single second. Everything would change even more than it was already going to. I didn’t know if it was worth it. At least the dull ache of my unrequited longing was familiar. I knew what it felt like. I knew I could survive it. But that kiss . . . suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.
    So at the last second, I turned my head. His lips brushed my earlobe, his nose bumped against my cheek.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled.
    “Oh,” he said, pulling back, looking surprised. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I mean, I thought . . . wow. Sorry.” The first fireworks shot through the still night sky like lightning, and Adam shifted away from me. Sparks were literally flying through the air and we had a front row seat, and I was wearing his hoodie, which smelled so much like him I wanted to live in it. I couldn’t have asked for a better moment, and I’d just ruined it, so I muttered an excuse about having to get back to help Jo wrap up the leftover s’mores, gave him a stiff, awkward hug, and jumped down to the sand, barely sticking the landing, I was shaking so hard. As I ran back, cutting through the woods so no one saw me, willing the hot tears to wait until I was safe in my bed or curled in my friends’ arms, I could still hear the fireworks crackling overhead like gunfire, invisible bullets grazing my heart again and again.

    That was the last night I saw Adam. It was also the last time for years that Skylar, Jo, Maddie, and I were all in one place—well, the next morning was, but it was so chaotic and went so fast it barely registered. Our real good-bye had been on the beach, when we sealed the pact, but none of us had known it at the time. If we had, maybe we would have stayed longer, lingered with our toes in the cool sand, listening to each other laugh, letting our candles burn down to our ink-stained fingertips.
    Only Sky and Jo came back the next summer as CITs. So did Adam and Nate, and the twins. Maddie had some family stuff to deal with, she said, so she didn’t come back, and I applied, but—and it’s still hard to say this, three years later—I wasn’t chosen. Mack wrote me a nice note along with my rejection, explaining that he just hadn’t seen enough of my