It’s Not Summer Without You

It was a hot summer day in Cousins. I was lying by the pool with a magazine on my face. My mother was playing solitaire on the front porch. Susanna was inside puttering around the kitchen. She'd probably come out soon with a glass of sun tea and a book I should read. Something romantic. Conrad and Jeremiah and Stephen had been surfing all morning. There had been a storm the night before. Conrad and Jeremiah came back to the house first. I heard them before I saw them. They walked up the steps, cracking up over how Stephen had lost his shorts after a particularly ferocious wave. Conrad strode over to me, lifted the sweaty magazine from my face, and grinned. He said, You have words on your cheeks. I squinted up at him. What did they say? He squatted next to me and said, I can't tell. Let me see. And then he peered at my face in his serious Conrad way. He leaned in and he kissed me. And his lips were cold and salty from the ocean. And Jeremiah said, You guys need to get a room. But I knew he was joking. He winked at me as he came from behind, lifted Conrad up, and launched him into the pool. Jeremiah jumped in, too, and he yelled, Come on, Veli. So of course I jumped, too. The water felt fine, better than fine. Just like always, Cousins was the only place I wanted to be. Hello? Did you hear anything I just said? I opened my eyes. Taylor was snapping her fingers in my face. Sorry, I said. What were you saying? I wasn't in Cousins. Conrad and I weren't together, and Susanna was dead. Nothing would ever be the same again. It had been, how many days had it been? How many days exactly? Two months since Susanna had died, and I still couldn't believe it. I couldn't let myself believe it. When a person you love dies, it doesn't feel real. It's like it's happening to someone else. It's someone else's life. I've never been good with the abstract. What does it mean when someone is really and truly gone? Sometimes I closed my eyes, and in my head, I said over and over again. It isn't true. It isn't true. This isn't real. This wasn't my life, but it was my life. It was my life now, after. I was in Marcy Yu's backyard. The boys were messing around in the pool, and us girls were lying on beach towels, all lined up in a row. I was friends with Marcy, but the rest, Katie, and Evelyn, and those girls, they were more Taylor's friends. It was 87 degrees already, and it was just after noon. It was going to be a hot one. I was on my stomach, and I could feel the sweat pooling in the small of my back. I was starting to feel sunsick. It was only the second day of July, and already, I was counting the days until summer was over. I said, what are you gonna wear to Justin's party? Taylor repeated. She'd lined our towels up close, so it was like we were on one big towel. I don't know. I said, turning my head so we were face to face. She had tiny sweat beads on her nose. Taylor always sweated first on her nose. She said, I'm going to wear that new sundress I bought with my mom at the outlet mall. I closed my eyes again. I was wearing sunglasses, so she couldn't tell if my eyes were open or not anyway. Which one?