Every Summer After(30)

“Percy.” Sam grabs my arm, and I close my eyes for a brief moment to steady myself. “You can’t drive.” I turn back to him, and he’s got this look on his face like he feels sorry for me. I hate it.

“It’s okay,” I start. “No, I mean, I know I can’t drive. But it’s okay because I didn’t drive. I walked here.”

“Walked? Where are you staying? We’ll give you a ride,” Sam offers.

We.

We.

We.

I look at Taylor, who is not doing a very good job at hiding her annoyance. Then again, if I found my hot doctor boyfriend drunk with a strange, clumsy woman who thought I was his cousin, I would be annoyed, too. And if that boyfriend were Sam, annoyance wouldn’t cover it. I would be murderous.

“Clearly you both need a drive,” Taylor says. “Let’s go. My car’s out back.”

I follow Taylor and Sam. I can picture them together on a date—both tall and fit and stupid good-looking. She could be a ballet dancer, with her willowy limbs and her hair pulled back in that neat bun. He’s built like a swimmer—broad through the shoulders, narrow at the hips, with legs that are muscular but not bulky. His calves look cut from marble. He probably still runs. They probably run together. They probably run together and then have the kind of sweaty, post-run sex that fit, happy people have.

Taylor leads the way out the kitchen door, and Sam holds it open for me to pass through. I wait for him to lock up while Taylor slides into her white BMW. I notice that her handbag and loafers are also white. This woman probably shits white.

“You okay?” he says quietly.

I’m too drunk to think about how to answer his question with a convincing lie, so I smile at him weakly before walking to the car.

I sit in the back, feeling like a child and a third wheel and also very dizzy.

“So how did you two meet?” I ask even though I really do not want to know the answer.

What is wrong with me?

“At a bar, of all places,” says Taylor, giving me a look in the rearview mirror that tells me she doesn’t spend a lot of time picking up guys over a few beers. The idea of Sam just being out in the world, out in bars, looking for women to meet, is so horrifying that I need a moment to collect myself. “It was, what, two and a half years ago, Sam?”

Two years. Two years is serious.

“Mmm,” Sam offers by way of a reply.

“And what do you do, Taylor?” I ask, quickly changing the subject. Sam looks over his shoulder, sending me a funny look, which I take to mean, What are you up to? I choose to ignore it.

“I’m a lawyer. Prosecutor.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I squeak. I don’t know if it’s Sam or the alcohol that has so thoroughly removed my filter. “A lawyer and doctor? That should be illegal. You two are, like, taking all the rich, hot people away from the rest of us.”

Oh, I am so very, very drunk.

Sam erupts with a big, booming laugh. But Taylor, who clearly doesn’t appreciate my inebriated sense of humor, remains quiet, giving me a puzzled look in the mirror.

The drive is short, and we’re at the motel in under five minutes. I point out room 106, and Taylor pulls up in front of it. I thank her for the drive in a cheery (possibly demented-sounding) voice and, with zero grace, tumble out of the car and shuffle to the door, getting my key from my bag.

“Percy!” Sam calls from behind me, and I close my eyes briefly before I turn around, the full weight of my humiliation pressing down on my shoulders. I want to crawl into bed and never wake up. He’s rolled down the window and is leaning over his muscular forearm that’s resting on the edge. We look at each other for a second.

“What?” I say, my voice flat. I’m done pretending to be perky Percy.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Sure,” I reply and turn back to the door. Once I’ve got it unlocked, the headlights move, but I don’t look back to see the car pull away. Instead, I run to the bathroom and throw my head into the toilet bowl.



* * *





I LIE IN bed blinking up at the ceiling. I know it must be well into the morning because the sun is already high. I haven’t turned my head to look at the clock because I don’t want to wake the beast of a headache that lurks in my temples. My mouth tastes like I spent the night licking the floor of a roadhouse pub. Yet I smile to myself.

I found Sam.

And I felt it. The pull between us. The one that had been there since we were thirteen, the one that only got stronger as we got older, the one I tried to deny twelve years ago.

I didn’t break it. I broke us. I can fix it.

And then she emerges through the fog of my hangover in a white pantsuit: Taylor. Blech. I find a small petty pleasure in her name. Taylor is one of those used-to-be-trendy names that now sound dated and pedestrian. My mother would find it vile.

We met, what, two and a half years ago, Sam?

I scrunch my nose at the memory of Taylor’s forced casualness. I would be shocked if she didn’t know how long they’ve been together down to the second.

Sam has a girlfriend. A beautiful, successful, presumably intelligent girlfriend. Someone whom I’d probably like under different circumstances.

I need a distraction.

I chance tilting my head toward the clock and am relieved that the pounding doesn’t get worse. I spot two purple chocolate bar wrappers on the bed beside me and remember taking them from the mini bar after I puked. It’s ten twenty-three. I groan. I should get up. I booked today off, so I don’t need to work, but I need to shower. Even I can smell me. Taylor probably wakes up in a pressed pantsuit. She probably keeps a bar of 75 percent fair-trade dark chocolate in her kitchen drawer and eats a single square on special occasions. As much as I can mix with pretentious interior designers and architects, or recommend a trendy new restaurant that actually has good food and service, or spend the evening in heels without showing pain on my face, I’ll always be messy underneath.