Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

she loves every single character’s wardrobe and jewelry, oblivious to how badly I want to lean over and kiss her bare shoulder that’s inches away. I’m too foggy-brained to even think about how weird it is that I want to. The couple of times we’ve made out have somehow felt like the simplest, most obvious moves, but in reality, they’re so much more complicated.

But what I want right now isn’t complicated. What I want is very, very simple.

I wish people would just admit what they want when they want it.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m resting my chin on her shoulder. Leaving the lightest of kisses behind on her skin. Glancing at her for a reaction.

Her eyelids flutter shut.

Okay then.

I kiss her smooth shoulder very deliberately this time. Again, a trace of my tongue. Again, a nip of my teeth. She inhales sharply, stops reaching for popcorn, stops saying a word about jeweled rings and couture dresses. I push her hair to the side and kiss my way to the top of her spine, bracing myself on her bare thigh. And then her hand covers mine, helps it slide over her skin, no doubt leaving peach-scented traces on my palm. It’s so much. Everything smells and tastes and feels so good and it’s making me dizzy.

I move in closer, my breasts brushing her back, and we fall on our sides on the couch, me still kissing her shoulder, her throat while she slides my hand higher, over her cotton shorts, up to her smooth, flat belly. My fingers have the easiest access to her waistband, but her grip isn’t as strong, her desires less pointed and clear, and I’m not sure how far to go or how far I want to go. I settle for grazing my fingertips over the front of her shorts. She must be as wired as I am because it seems like enough.

It’s growing unbearably hot under the blanket, but one rule neither of us says aloud is that it can’t come off. As long as there’s a blanket, as long as there isn’t anything out in the open, it’s easy to imagine there’s nothing at all. And we need to imagine there’s nothing at all, because if this is something—if the fact that I desperately want to slide my hand down her shorts is real—then what are we?

What am I?

It’s one summer.

You can’t change into a different person over a summer.

Chapter Thirteen

THEN

Maybe you can’t become a different person in one summer, but you can definitely look like one. I can’t stop checking myself out in the mirror with this wig on. “Holy cow.”

“I knew that was the one.” Jasmine comes up behind me, momentarily pulling my gaze away from myself with her flame-blue blunt-cut bangs. “That color is perfect.”

It is. It’s strange because it isn’t mine, but it feels like me. Even in this short, curly wig, this is a look I could get used to, a look I’d love to keep seeing in the mirror. But it’s a big change, and my palms keep itching to send a selfie to my friends for their approval.

Instead, I change the subject. “Have you ever colored your hair?”

“Nah, not for real.” She takes off her wig and replaces it with a shaggy lavender one. “My friend Laila—the only other Syrian at my school—used to love putting chalk in our hair before shows, but our moms would’ve killed us if we did more than that.” She affects a melodious, lightly accented tone that’s even lower than hers. “Y’haram, Jasmine! What did you do to your beautiful hair?! Steta would be rolling in her grave!”

“I thought your mom was super into fashion.”

“She is, but pastel hair isn’t exactly her idea of it. My mom is Gucci and Chanel, not Manic Panic. Her idea of letting loose is wearing sunglasses with blue-tinted lenses. She’s very classic. All earth tones and whatnot.”

“Hmm, I can see that with your dad.”

Jasmine snorts. “She dresses classy, but she’s the loudest human you will ever meet. My dad used to wear literal earplugs when her family was visiting. Honestly, I can’t believe they lasted six years.”

“You weren’t exactly shocked by the divorce, huh?” I tug on the wig’s curls a little to see how it’d look a tiny bit longer, but it ruins the effect.

“Not at all. They fought about evvvverything. And my mom’s parents hated that she married a gentile while my dad’s parents hated that he married a Jew, and it was not great. My mom kept the house, my dad moved his business up to the city and got that huge-ass house in Stratford while keeping this one for the summer, and by the time my bat mitzvah hit I had nothing left to ask for because I was already spoiled to death.”

“That explains so much.”

She grins. “Doesn’t it? How about you? What’s your single mom story?”

“Not much of a story,” I say with a shrug. “My mom was waiting tables to put herself through college. My dad picked her up. A few dates later, I happened. My mom wanted to keep me, my dad didn’t, and they compromised on him paying child support and otherwise disappearing. Ta-da! You have the beautiful, well-adjusted teenager you see before you today.”

“You are pretty well-adjusted for someone who knows her dad didn’t want her to exist.”

I smile into the mirror, poking dimples into my cheeks. I learned a long time ago that it was entirely his loss, and my mom is enough awesome for three parents. “Why yes, I suppose I am.”

“I could never.”

“Please. She who laughs in the face of divorce.” I turn to face Jasmine, who’s pulled the wig from her head and is slumped against the wall, letting the lavender strands dangle. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” A slight, forced smile drifts across her face as quickly as the ocean breeze. “But are you? For real? Because yeah, maybe I was cool with them getting divorced, but not so much