Shipwrecked Summer Read Online Free

wrong. This wasn’t going to be the best party I’d ever been to. No, it wouldn’t even come close.
        And the worst part about it was that I couldn’t even tell you why I cared.
        I shouldn’t have cared.   
      But there, just off to the left of the warm, inviting bonfire, inexplicably hovered my perfect summer and I was standing there, watching it shatter in front of me, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.
       I stood there, rooted to my spot, wishing that I hadn’t come to the bonfire, hadn’t decided that I needed this party to kick-off my amazing summer the right way. Because then I would still believe that I had a chance.
       Why I wanted one, I can’t begin to tell you. But my heart hurt as my stomach sank to my toes and I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to push away the rapidly rising tears.
      But there, just off to the left of the warm, inviting bonfire, illuminated by the soft glow of the flames, stood a tall, tanned boy with chiseled soccer player calves and a mop of blonde hair that I’d recognize anywhere.
    He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t waiting to see if I’d show up so he could apologize for this afternoon.
      Jeff the Lifeguard was dancing—if you could even call it dancing—with a tall, beautiful girl that I decided right then and there that I couldn’t stand. She had long, wavy blonde hair, which I didn’t. She was tall and graceful, which I definitely wasn’t. She was skinny, which I was, but she looked elegant and regal like a fancy foreign supermodel with curves in all the right places on her slender frame. She probably had pretty bright blue eyes, which I didn’t, and she clearly knew what to say to a guy like Jeff to keep him interested for longer than three seconds, which was obviously something I couldn’t do.
       With the way my eyes burned with hot, prickling tears, I was in trouble and I knew it. The way that they moved together was so sensual and passionate that I thought my tears would spill over on the spot, the green-eyed monster in me awake and wanting what they had. As I watched them move, the lump in my throat became harder and harder to ignore.
        This was, of course, absolutely ridiculous. Had I forgotten every rude word that he uttered to me only a few hours ago?
    Yes.
      Was I really going to let his seemingly sincere ‘nice to meet you’ comment at the end of our brief interaction on the beach change my entire opinion of him?
        Yes.
       And was I going to keep on crushing on this rude, arrogant, confusing lifeguard even after this very public display that should have been kept very private?
        I hoped not, but was pretty sure I would.
       After what felt like hours but was just seconds, Joey walked back to my side, offering me a red plastic cup filled to the brim with light yellow beer. I took it from him and downed half of it.
       Immediately, I wanted to stick my tongue out and flinch, but Joey was there and I felt stupid, so I suppressed the urge to throw the rest of the beer into the sand below.
       As I stood there, unsure of what to do with the rest of my cup that I definitely wouldn’t be drinking, I glanced over at Jeff the Lifeguard and almost jumped out of my skin when I saw him staring straight back at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I quickly looked away.
        “Where’d Pia go?”
        I shrugged. “She went to find the bathroom a few minutes ago. Maybe she ran into Tack or one of his friends or something.”
        Joey nodded. “Cool. Wanna dance?” He set his cup on the railing and looked over at me expectantly.
       All of my instincts told me to say no, but I looked back at Jeff only to see that he was no longer watching me. He had his head buried somewhere in the blonde’s hair and I suddenly felt the urge to make all of it disappear.
        “Okay, sure.”
       Joey looked somewhat surprised, but nodded and walked over to where most of