It's Not Summer without You Read Online Free

were gleaming, and I hated how smug she looked, like everything was going according to plan.
    “I said I had to pee,” I told her.
    “Belly! Get your butt back over to that trampoline and make out with him!”
    “Taylor, would you stop? I told you I wasn’t interested in Cory. I saw you talking to him earlier. Did you make him ask me out?”
    She gave a little shrug. “Well . . . he’s been into you all year and he’s been taking his sweet time asking you out. I might have gently pushed him in the right direction. You guys looked so cute on the trampoline together.”
    I shook my head. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”
    “I was just trying to take your mind off things!”
    “Well, I don’t need you to do that,” I said.
    “Yes, you do so.”
    We stared at each other for a minute. Some days, days like this, I wanted to wring her neck. She was just so bossy all the time. I was getting pretty sick of Taylor pushing me in this direction and that direction, dressing me up like one of her shabbier, less fortunate dolls. It had always been like this with us.
    But the thing was, I finally had a real excuse to leave, and I was relieved. I said, “I think I’m gonna go home.”
    “What are you talking about? We just got here.”
    “I’m just not in the mood to be here, okay?”
    I guess she was getting sick of me too, because she said, “This is starting to get old, Belly. You’ve been moping around for months. It’s not healthy. . . . My mom thinks you should see someone.”
    “What? You’ve been talking to your mom about me?” I glared at her. “Tell your mom to save her psychiatric advice for Ellen.”
    Taylor gasped. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
    Their cat, Ellen, had seasonal affective disorder, according to Taylor’s mother. They had her on antidepressants all winter, and when she was still moody in the spring, they sent Ellen to a cat whisperer. It didn’t do any good. In my opinion, Ellen was just plain mean.
    I took a breath. “I listened to you cry about Ellen for months, and then Susannah dies and you want me to just make out with Cory and play beer pong and forget about her? Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
    Taylor looked around quickly before she leaned closer and said, “Don’t act like Susannah’s the only thing you’re sad about, Belly. You’re sad about Conrad, too, and you know it.”
    I couldn’t believe she said that to me. It stung. It stung because it was true. But it was still a low blow. My father used to call Taylor indomitable. She was. But for better or for worse, Taylor Jewel was a part of me, and I was a part of her.
    Not altogether meanly, I said. “We can’t all be like you, Taylor.”
    “You can try,” she suggested, smiling a little. “Listen, I’m sorry about the Cory thing. I just want you to be happy.”
    “I know.”
    She put her arm around me, and I let her. “It’s going to be an amazing summer, you’ll see.”
    “Amazing,” I echoed. I wasn’t looking for amazing. I just wanted to get by. To keep moving. If I made it through this summer, the next one would be easier. It had to be.
    So I stayed a little while longer. I sat on the porch with Davis and Taylor and I watched Cory flirt with a sophomore girl. I ate a hot dog. Then I went home.
    At home the sandwich was still on the counter, still wrapped in plastic. I put it in the fridge and I headed upstairs. My mother’s bedroom light was on, but I didn’t go in to say good night. I went straight to my room and got back into my big Cousins T-shirt and undid my braid, brushed my teeth, and washed my face. Then I got under the covers and lay in bed, just thinking. I thought, So this is what life is like now . Without Susannah, without the boys.
    It had been two months. I’d survived June. I thought to myself, I can do this . I can go to the movies with Taylor and Davis, I can swim in Marcy’s pool, maybe I can even go out with Cory Wheeler. If I do those things, it