The Last Summer of Us Read Online Free

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    Whenever. We’re set. Just waiting for you .
    The sound of something being dropped in the kitchen – and Amy swearing – makes me jump. I’d almost forgotten that she was here. Almost forgotten…but not quite. I shove the last of my clothes into my bag – which is probably twice as full as it needs to be – and make my way downstairs. Amy’s listening intently to someone on the other end of the phone line. She holds up a hand asking me to wait, but I just want to be out. I want to go, to get away from here, this house and everything it means. Tapping my watch, I make the international sign for “I’ve got to go,” and she nods. She smiles and points at me, then at her phone, and mouths the words “Call me.” I nod back. As I pass the closed living room door, I think about knocking. But I don’t.
    When I walk out of the door, I can’t stop myself from looking back over my shoulder. I don’t know what I’m expecting, exactly: maybe to see a big black cloud hovering over my house? Whatever. It’s not coming with me. I take a deep breath and set off down the street.
    The sun’s not as hot as yesterday – not yet, anyway – and there are birds singing, and the river’s rushing under the bridge and there are cars on the bypass and everything feels obscenely normal . I guess this is normal now, though. The new normal. Everything that’s happened in the last two weeks has been a kind of limbo: shifting from one normal to another. Now the funeral’s done, it’s all over and it’s time to move on.
    Steffan’s car is parked in the driveway in front of his house, the bonnet open and a pile of bags on the ground next to the boot. There’s no sign of either Steffan or Jared (who, living a hell of a lot closer than I do, must be here already – I’d recognize the tatty red rucksack with graffiti all over it anywhere) but the front door is open, so I dump my bag with the others and head inside to find them, following the sound of a radio.
    They’re in the kitchen and between them on the table is the biggest plate of bacon I’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding: this is Mount Bacon. Explorers could lose themselves on its lower slopes for a month; it must have taken at least fifteen pigs to make this much meat. And Steffan and Jared are cheerfully ploughing their way through it. It’s either impressive or disgusting – I’m not sure which. Could go either way. It’s not exactly a shock, though – I mean these two can eat. Jared’s been banned from the school canteen for repeatedly finishing not only his own lunch but everyone else’s too. In his defence, he did ask first – it’s not like he swiped a handful of fish fingers from some starving Year Nine’s plate – but apparently it’s “inappropriate” from a senior. (If you ask me, I think the flirting with the canteen staff to get a third helping of cake every Friday lunchtime was probably the last straw.) As for Steffan, I’ve seen him put away an eight-egg omelette and still be hungry.
    Sticking your arm into the middle of all that is a bit like sticking it into a bowl of cartoon piranhas: you kind of expect it to come back gnawed to the bone. However, I am brave. And I like bacon. I emerge triumphant, clutching two whole rashers and having my hand slapped at only once by Steffan. Feeling mightily pleased with myself, I perch on the closest worktop.
    â€œSure you want to eat that? You know it had a face once, right?” Steffan sniggers at me.
    He’s referring to my infamous vegetarian period, which happened when I was thirteen and lasted precisely a week and a half (and ended when I realized that almost everything I like to eat had, at some point, eyes, ears and a tail). You’d think by now he’d be bored of bringing it up. You massively underestimate Steffan’s love of taking