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

mom was selling their house and moving up near family, so they figured it’d make more sense for her to be at the same school all year. It was a little weird that her mom wouldn’t just wait until after graduation, but Jas seemed cool about it. Anyway, you’d know better than I would.”

You’d think. So many secrets. So many questions.

I sidestep that. I don’t want her to know that I don’t know, that my closeness with Jasmine this past summer was some sort of temporary thing, tied to the tide or whatever. “Well, I assume that since we’re both up here, that means we can get you up for a visit.”

Keisha laughs. “You know I had this conversation with Jasmine like two hours ago, right? Y’all coordinate this coercion or what?”

“You know we did,” I lie, because I don’t know how to explain why we wouldn’t have. “Does that mean you’re thinking about it?”

“I am. Trying to work a few things out, but I’ll let y’all know.”

I’m surprised to find that the idea of Keisha coming to visit dislodges something in my chest and makes it a little easier to breathe. Seeing Keisha again would be like getting a piece of my summer back, connecting that part of me to current me in a way that seeing Jasmine only tears apart.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like myself, I realize. Maybe seeing Keisha will bring that back.

Maybe it’ll bring me and Jasmine back to normal too.

Whatever that is.

Chapter Sixteen

It’s an unusually slow morning at the Book and Bean, and I can’t drink any more failed latte art, so I do something I’ve been both itching to do and dreading.

I pick up the book I started writing this summer.

I’d tried to sit at my laptop in the beach house but typing on a computer made the attempt too real, so I’d bought a flamingo-patterned spiral notebook at some cheesy tourist shop, planted myself in a chaise by the pool, and wrote. But I didn’t get far. It was a silly, rambling story about a guy named Oliver and a girl named Jillian who meet on the beach in—where else—the Outer Banks and hit it off, only to learn they’re living in the same house for the summer. Unfortunately, after that initial “Oh no!” moment, I completely ran out of plot, so I put the notebook away and forgot about it.

But after talking to Keisha last night, it hits me—Oliver and Jillian aren’t alone in the house. They have roommates. At least two of them. As soon as that comes to me, those characters start to draw themselves in my brain, and I introduce Andrew, a lifeguard who has his pick of the ladies, and Nadia, because of course I had to write a Russian girl. Nadia’s working as a waitress and perpetually smells like fried shrimp, so much so that Jillian has to look twice to realize that with her impossibly long legs and white-blond hair, Nadia’s stunning.

My pen pauses on the page. Why would it matter that Nadia’s stunning when Oliver’s the love interest? Hmm, maybe Jillian’s jealous, nervous that Oliver will gravitate toward her instead? No, I don’t see Jillian as insecure, and I definitely don’t want some girl-hate scenario … I make sure they have a friendly encounter, and grin as I write Nadia breaking out into some Russian swears as she drops her coffee mug.

“You might want to work on those skills before you start your job,” Jillian warns her, voice filled with teasing warmth. “I don’t think that’s how customers generally prefer to get free refills.”

My phone beeps, and I tear myself from my notebook to look at the screen.

Spoke to Keisha last night. Says she spoke to you about coming to visit.

It’s the first text I’ve received from Jasmine since she replied with a heart emoji to the goodbye text I sent her from the airport in Norfolk. It’s still visible in the chain. I could scroll up and see pages and pages of proof that we were more than we feel like now.

But I don’t.

My entire body goes cold at the sight of her name, at the taunting red heart. What the fuck was that song last night? I’m the one with a boyfriend. I’ve clearly moved on. Why the hell does she need to sing to me in front of an entire room of my friends—my friends, no matter what sort of bond is happening between her and Shannon—that it was only a stupid summer game? I know. I have a boyfriend.

And neither she nor my boyfriend ever needs to know how I felt hearing that song, or how I felt watching her onstage, or how I ran out to call Keisha because I wanted to hear from someone who once upon a time thought we looked like two people who liked each other. I fucking went down on Chase last night. I’m doing everything right. I’m doing all the things I’m supposed to be doing.

So why do I want to stand here and cry into glass bottles of flavored syrup?

Yep, I reply, blinking back the tears pinpricking my eyelids. She said you mentioned it too. Great minds, I guess.

Not a minute later, the reply comes. Yeah, well, we’ll let you know when we figure out a date.

That’s what Jasmine just had to text me about the day after that performance? She wanted to let me know I wouldn’t be part of this planning conversation? God, I don’t even know why I’m surprised by her bullshit anymore. If she wanted to talk, she could’ve come down here; she knows exactly where I am at 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Everyone does. And if she didn’t wanna talk, well, I guess this is how she lets me know it.

Thanks, I guess, I think.

Thx is what I actually type.

I put my phone away and turn back to my notebook, happy to spend time with people who can’t send me shitty text