Every Summer After(65)

I ignore the phone vibrating in my purse and take a glass of wine from the young server behind the bar, trying to find a friendly face to pass an acceptable amount of time chatting with before I can skulk back to the motel. Charlie is holding court with the smokers who congregate outside on the patio. Sam and Taylor are nowhere to be seen, and Julien has been either hiding in the kitchen or refilling the chafing dishes on the buffet table. I head back to help him, but the space is empty, the back door propped open. I step toward it to see if he’s out back smoking but hesitate when I hear voices.

“You’re nuts, man,” says a deep voice. “Are you sure you want to go down this road again?”

“No,” I hear Sam reply. “I don’t know.” He sounds confused, frustrated. “Maybe I do.”

“Do you need us to remind you what a mess you were last time?” a third voice asks. I know I should leave. But I don’t. My feet are stuck to the floor while my phone starts buzzing again.

“No, of course not. I was there. But we were just kids.” And now I know it’s me they’re talking about. I stand there in my dress, damp with perspiration, holding still for the firing squad.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. I was there, too,” the first guy spits. “Just kids? You were pretty fucked up for just being a kid.” I don’t want to hear the rest. I don’t want to hear about how badly I broke Sam.

“Sam,” the other voice says more gently, “it took years, remember?”

I am going to be sick.

I turn and dart through the swinging doors into the dining room and run right into Charlie.

“Whoa! Got somewhere better to be?”

Charlie’s dimples fade once his eyes focus on my face. “You look pale and kind of sticky, Pers. Is everything okay?”

I can’t seem to find enough air to reply, and my heart is beating so rapidly I can feel it pulse against every inch of skin. Maybe this time it actually is a heart attack. I might die. Right now. I try to breathe, but the edges of the room are going fuzzy. Charlie leads me back into the kitchen before I can tell him not to. I hear an awful wheezing gasp and realize it’s coming from me. I bend over, trying to catch my breath, then crumple onto my hands and knees. I hear muffled voices, but they sound far away, like I’m swimming beneath mud and they’re up on the shore. I squeeze my eyes shut.

There’s a featherlight pressure on my shoulders. Through the mud, I can hear a voice counting slowly. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. One. Two. Three . . . It keeps going, and after a little while, I start to adjust my breathing to its pace. Four. Five. Six. Seven . . .

“What’s happening?” someone asks.

“Panic attack,” the voice replies, then it continues counting. Eight. Nine. Ten.

“Good, Percy,” it says. “Keep breathing.” I do. I keep breathing. My heart starts to slow down. I take a deep, long breath and open my eyes. Sam is crouched in front of me, his hand on my shoulder.

“Do you want to stand up?”

“Not yet,” I say, embarrassment replacing the impending-death feeling. I take a few more breaths, then open my eyes again, and Sam is still there. I slowly kneel upright and Sam helps me off the floor, his hands clutching my elbows and his forehead wrinkled with concern. Behind him stand two men, an extremely handsome Black man, and a stretched-out pale guy with inky hair and glasses.

“Percy, do you remember my friends, Jordie and Finn?” Sam asks.

I start to apologize to them, but then I notice Charlie off to the side. He’s looking at me closely like he’s worked something out, connected dots that didn’t quite fit together before.

“It was a panic attack?” he asks, and I know he doesn’t mean what’s just happened.

I reply with a slight nod.

“Do you get them a lot?” Sam asks, brows pulled together.

“Not in a long time,” I tell him.

“When did they start, Percy?”

I blink at him. “Um . . .” My eyes flash to Charlie for a split second. “About twelve years ago.”





14



Fall, Thirteen Years Ago

Delilah and I were sitting in the cafeteria the first week of our senior year, and I was smiling so hard a snow plow couldn’t have scraped the grin off my face. I had just bought a used Toyota that weekend, and freedom was pulling up the corners of my lips like marionette strings. Dad had agreed to split the cost of a secondhand car with me, stunned I had managed to save $4,000 in tips alone.

“Don’t be one of those girls,” Delilah said, waving a french fry in my face. I had just mentioned the idea of quitting the swim team. Practice was during the week but races were mostly on weekends, and I had big plans to spend every weekend in Barry’s Bay with Sam.

“What girls?” I asked, my mouth half-full with a bite of tuna sandwich, as a cute red-haired boy sat down across from Delilah, holding out his hand.

“Seriously?” she asked, pointing another fry in his direction, before he could get a word out.

“I’m new here,” he stammered and pulled his hand away. “I thought I’d say hi.”

Delilah gave me a look that said, Can you even imagine? and glared at him.

“What, you think because we’re both gingers we should get together and have little carrot-topped brats together? Not gonna happen.” She shooed at him. “Buh-bye.”