The Last Summer of Us Read Online Free Page B

wrung out and messed up as I might be. I step between him and the door. “The. Plan.”
    He looks shifty. “Just, you know, driving… The usual places. All that. A couple of nights, like we talked about…”
    â€œAnd the rest of it. Come on.”
    He gives me the same look Amy did. Fragile , it says. Handle with care. Danger: stay back two hundred feet.
    And then he gives up and ruffles his hands through his hair, which he knows makes him look about nine years old, and he meets my gaze and says: “I want to go see Mum. I need to. I just thought, you know, it would be good to do something else too. Go other places on the way. Have some fun. Not make it all about…” He clears his throat again and sticks his hands in his pockets, the way he always does when he’s nervous or uncomfortable. Or both.
    Ah. I see.
    He doesn’t need to finish the rest of his sentence. I already know what he didn’t want to say. It’s not like I can deny him, is it? After all, this is what we do. We hold each other’s hands (metaphorically, not literally – god knows where his hands have been…) and we pick each other up. I never thought that hanging out at our respective mothers’ graves would become an integral part of our friendship, but life has a way of surprising you. So does death.
    He doesn’t visit his mother’s grave often: her birthday, the anniversary of her death… The usual, I guess. Now is neither of those things, but given the circumstances I can’t say it’s a shock he wants to go – and while every single fibre of me hates the thought of it, I can’t let him go alone. Hasn’t he just done the same for me?
    â€œYou don’t want to go with your dad?” I ask.
    â€œNo.” His voice hardens, just for a second. He’s angry about something, even if he’s trying to hide it. There’s something going on here. “No,” he repeats, more softly.
    â€œAre you…is everything okay?”
    â€œ You’re asking me that? After yesterday? Come off it.” He grins at me. “I just… Mothers and stuff. You know?”
    I do.

three
    â€œA tent?”
    â€œWhere’d you think we were going to be sleeping?”
    â€œI don’t do camping.”
    â€œBye, then. See you in a few days.”
    They’re enjoying this far too much.
    To their credit, they have at least managed to scrounge a couple of tents: the kind that just sort of pop up, provided you put the right tube into the right hole. Or something. As you can tell, I’m an expert.
    The last time I went camping, I was five, on holiday with my parents – back in the days when we still did that. Seems like a long time ago. All I can remember is having a plastic baby doll that I liked to bathe in the washing-up bowl. It rained. There was mud. And as we started to drive out of the campsite, my dad (who, thoughtfully, had packed the car the night before and put the inflatable dinghy on the roof rack) tapped the brakes and a tidal wave of rainwater sloshed out of the dinghy and down the windscreen of the car.
    Like I said, I don’t do camping. I know, I know. I should have thought about this more, but I didn’t. I mean, it’s not like I’ve had anything else on my mind, is it…?
    So. Tents. Tents which are currently rolled or folded, or whatever it is you do with tents to make them go small again, and sitting outside the kitchen door. I’m feeling an attack of The Incompetents coming on.
    The Incompetents is that thing you do when you’re faced with something you don’t really want to try. We’ve all done it, just to get out of the stuff you probably could do – like climbing the rope in gym or, say, putting up a tent – but don’t quite have the heart to. And no, before you ask, it’s got nothing to do with being a girl: I’ve seen Arfon Davies come down with a chronic case of