The Day That Saved Us Read Online Free Page A

entire summer.”
    “I just don’t understand how you could have missed that much skin.” I can’t stop laughing, picturing his brown and white striped back—a much easier image to visualize.
    “You’ll never let me live that down,” he says before gulping down the rest of his orange juice.
    “Never,” I pledge, grinning.
     

     
    HARPER DAY SHOWS up at the beach house around three o’clock, squealing and pumping her fists in the air. “The party’s here!”
    I get her for two weeks before she has to go back home, and there won’t be a single dull moment. After I help her put her bags in my bedroom, we lean against the white railing of the back deck overlooking the beach—our own private solace. I breathe in deep. The air feeds my soul. With the ocean at our fingertips every day, nothing could put a damper on this summer.
    “I can’t believe this is where you guys come every year, and I’ve never been before.” Harper takes a deep breath, inhaling the sea breeze.
    I don’t know why I’ve never invited Harper.
    Well, yes I do.
    Hatteras belongs to Brodee and me. It’s the only place where I get to have him all to myself, and our real lives can’t intervene. When Brodee invited Harper and Skylar, I was excited, but a little annoyed, and I know that’s selfish and immature. But Skylar, Harper, and I will have USC. We’re going to be spending every day together for the next however many years. After this summer, Brodee and I will go in different directions, and we’ll never have this again. Who knows where we’ll be a year from now. When we do come back to The Cape, it may not be the same, but I get that Brodee won’t have USC with them, so I don’t say anything.
    “Yeah, relaxing, isn’t it?” I finally say.
    “This summer is going to be perfection.” The wind whips her long hair around. She ties the strands back to tame them.
    “When’s Skylar coming up?”
    “He’ll be here next week. Tuesday probably. He had to take care of some stuff for his grandparents.”
    I nod. “All right, all right. So we get some girl time before he gets here.”
    “If you want to consider Brodee a girl for the next few days. Yes.”
    I laugh. “I doubt he’ll mind.”
    “Well, let’s get this party started!” Harper throws off her shirt, exposing her white bikini top, then runs down the boardwalk toward the waves. I copy her, my tank top and shorts joining hers on the deck.
    We play in the ocean for a couple hours, bobbing up and down with the tide, basking in the summer sunlight. I can’t remember the last time I felt this carefree. Hatteras has that effect. Brodee eventually makes a splashing entrance. He flings his dark, wet hair to the side and smiles brightly at us.
    “Ladies,” he greets. His toned, freckled shoulders speckled with water float above the waves. After a couple hours in the water, the three of us watch the sunset from the shore. The colors reflect onto the water as they tint the sky with orange and pink. I hear the bell ring in the distance. Brodee and I share a look and go running.
    “What was that?” Harper asks, jogging closely behind us.
    “The bell,” I tell her over my shoulder.
    With Brodee and I spending the majority of our summers in the water, the bell is the only form of communication we have with the landers. The landers being our parents—they rarely go in the water. One time we didn’t listen to the bell. It was so quiet in the distance we pretended we couldn’t hear it. The surf was too good. We didn’t want to miss a single wave. I’ll never forget it. We got lectured for an hour about the hazards of the ocean and how they’d thought we drowned. We never missed the bell again.
    “This time of night it can only mean one thing,” I say.
    “Dinner,” Brodee answers with a hungry smile. “And I’m starving.”
    Tatum’s salmon is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. When I saw her seasoning it this morning before they left, I wanted it to be