The Square Root of Summer(62)

“What happened, anyway?” asks Jason.

“Did you all go skinny dipping?” asks Meg dreamily. “Everyone’s wet.”

“With my little sister? Gross,” says Ned.

“Yes, we’re wet,” says Sof patiently.

“Did you know Gottie and Jason skinny-dipped?” says Meg, not listening. Too late I see she’s stoned, really stoned. In the glow from Jason’s cigarette, her eyes are tennis balls. “Jason told me they swam together in the canal. Like mermaids…”

Ned is staring at Jason. Sof bites her lip, glancing between me and Thomas—guessing he doesn’t know the half of it. He tight-smiles at me, like he’s not thrilled by this revelation, but he’s not quite allowed to be annoyed either. I can’t find my tongue; I think I left it in the kitchen.

“Mermaids,” Meg giggles, staring at her fingers like they’re brand-new. Then she looks up at us all, wide-eyed and full of wonder, and I know what she’s going to say before she says it. I can’t stop her. Here’s where my tiny white lie, a misunderstanding I could have cleared up days ago, comes back and destroys me. “They had sex.”

“Fuck,” says Jason. He stubs his cigarette out on the grass, then looks at me across the circle. We stare at each other for a long moment, in it together. But not, I suppose, anymore.

“Come on,” he says to Meg, starting to help her up. “Time to go home.”

“Jason.” Ned glowers at him, his hair crackling and huge. “Piss off, would you?”

“Ned,” Sof says softly, putting a hand on his arm.

Jason looks around at us all, staring up at him in a circle. In slow motion, he mouths a “sorry” at me, and ambles off into the darkness. Meg wobbles and Sof scrambles to stand up. We all do. I can’t look at Thomas. My head throbs.

Meg shakes Sof off and stumbles across to me. She leans right in, looking at my face. “You’re pretty,” she says, trailing her finger down my cheek. “Isn’t she so pretty, Thomas?”

“Come on,” says Sof, taking her arm. “Bed.”

She starts leading her away, Ned lumbering after them. Sof glances back over her shoulder at me, concerned. Then Thomas and I are alone under the apple tree. I can’t not look at him any longer.

“You lied to me?” he asks, his face barely visible in the dark.

“You lied too,” I say, and even though it’s true, I immediately want to chop off my tongue. I should be pointing out that me and Jason makes no difference—it doesn’t make me and Thomas a lie. In the grass, clumsy and new. How we were in the tree, when we held elbows. In the attic in the Book Barn, making promises to each other a long time ago. We can have all that, and I can have my summer with Jason too.

“Seriously? It’s hardly the same thing,” Thomas scoffs. “And I suppose everyone knows except me and, I’m guessing, Ned?”

“No one knew, that’s the point—”

“Then what? I don’t get it. You didn’t have to lie to me. It’s f*cked up.” He runs his hands through his hair, then finger-quotes at me. “‘First everything.’”

“That’s not even what I meant!”

“Whatever,” Thomas says, not listening to me. “You know, I saw you with him earlier at the party? Before I came and found you, you were whispering together, and I knew—”

“Knew what?” I hurl my hands in the air, an imitation bat grab of frustration. “I’m allowed to talk to him! I’m allowed to keep it a secret, if I want. And you’re right; it’s not the same thing—running off to Manchester without telling me? That’s actually my business. Me and Jason is none of yours.”

I’m picking up steam, ready for a fight—I think I’m in the right here, I think I deserve one—but Thomas interrupts me.

“And when you kissed me earlier—in your grandpa’s room,” he emphasizes, full of scorn. “When you tried to do more, was it my business then?”

“I didn’t lie,” I say calmly, thinking back to the kitchen on Thomas’s first morning, weeks ago. How I’d tried to pick a fight, and he hadn’t let me. “At least, not how you mean. When I said first everything, I meant I’d never been in love before. Except that’s not actually true. And I don’t even think you’re angry I lied. I think you’re jealous that I’ve been in love and you haven’t.”

When I say that, he turns and disappears into the night.

Ned’s right. I am selfish. That’s what stops me from running after him.

I go to my room to wait. I know what’s coming next. Minus three, minus two, minus one. I strip off my wet clothes, dropping them onto the floor, not bothering with the laundry basket.

Exhaustion sweeps over me as I climb into bed and pull up the covers. I’ve lived ten lifetimes in one summer. But sleep doesn’t come. All the secrets and all the revelations and all the anger—me and Thomas, Ned and Sof—it all crashes over me in waves, smashing me onto the sand again and again. Drowning me.

“Umlaut?” I pat the duvet. Nothing. Even my cat wants nothing to do with me.

When I turn off the lamp, the light of the day, pooled in corners and hiding under the bed, slides out the door. There’s just the glow from the ceiling, the fluorescent stars Thomas sticky-taped there for me, that match no constellation at all.