Chapter Text
The soft whirr of the oscillating fan was starting to get on Van’s nerves. It wasn’t even the heat—it was the sound. Too slow to be white noise, too uneven to be calming. A lazy click at the end of each rotation, like it was judging her.
She’d been here for two hours. It felt like six.
Her first shift back at the Wiskayok Blockbuster, and it was exactly as glamorous as she remembered. Musty carpet, faded movie posters, the faint scent of plastic and popcorn butter that somehow lingered despite there being no popcorn.
No one had come in yet. Not one person. But then again, it was 10 a.m. on a Monday in June. Even the die-hard renters weren’t desperate enough to be here this early.
She wiped a sheen of sweat from her temple and wandered over to the New Releases wall. The cardboard cutout for Volcano was crooked again, half-folded like Tommy Lee Jones had given up. She straightened it with more force than necessary.
Darryl, her “trainer”—and she used that word loosely—was sitting behind the counter with a slouched posture and an aura of dampness. His name tag said Darryl, Ask Me About LaserDisc, but no one ever did.
He smelled like hot coffee and something sour underneath. She’d tried to make conversation earlier, but every answer he gave was one syllable and somehow still too long.
Now, he was flipping through a Sports Illustrated from March like it held the secrets to life.
Van sighed and picked up a stack of “Be Kind, Rewind” stickers to restock. If she slowed down the task enough, maybe it would kill fifteen minutes.
This place used to be her escape. In high school, she’d kill hours here—pretending to organize shelves just to avoid going home, rewatching The Goonies on the store TV like it held answers. Now, it just felt… stale. Familiar in a way that made her teeth itch.
Her rib still twinged if she moved too fast, a lingering reminder of the winter she wasn’t talking about.
Outside, the summer heat was already pressing against the glass. She could see the shimmer of it on the sidewalk, the way it made the parking lot look like it might melt.
The bell above the door didn’t ring. No customers. Just the sound of the fan clicking again.
-
By the time her shift ended, Van peeled off her Blockbuster polo like it was a layer of skin she didn’t want to bring into the rest of her life. She tossed it onto the passenger seat of her car, swapped it for a worn Rutgers soccer tee.
She drove with the windows down, letting the wind dry some of the sweat still clinging to her collarbone. The local park was mostly empty—just a couple of kids on the swings and one guy passed out on a picnic bench.
Good enough.
She laced up her cleats, tied tight, and jogged to the middle of the field. Then came suicides. Short sprints. Cone drills she’d set up using old Gatorade bottles. She hadn’t played in weeks, not since spring, and her body still ached in strange places from the rib. But movement was something she could control. Something she could feel.
Run. Breathe. Burn. Repeat.
By the time the sun started to drop behind the treeline, her muscles were buzzing. Her shirt clung to her spine. Her legs shook just a little on the walk back to the car.
But it helped. It always helped.
Home wasn’t an option right now. Not the one with her name on the mailbox, anyway. She hadn’t seen Vicky since the night she left for college again. It didn’t matter. Her place now—the place where she dropped her keys, hung her towel, exhaled without thinking—was the Matthews’ house.
A second home. One she didn’t have to earn every day.
She pulled into the driveway just as the porch light clicked on.
Inside, it was calm in that Lottie Matthews kind of way. A breeze through the open window, the faint smell of lemon and something warm from the oven. A vase of fresh flowers on the table that hadn’t been there this morning.
Lottie was in the sitting room, legs tucked under herself, flipping through a Real Simple magazine like it was a sacred text.
Van walked in, still damp from sweat, soccer bag slung over one shoulder. Her hair was frizzy at the edges. She smelled like grass and polyester and exhaustion.
Lottie looked up with a soft smile. “Hey, Van. Margaret left some brownies in the kitchen—still warm, I think. Help yourself.”
Van blinked. “Thanks. I’ll shower first.”
It came out automatically, her voice rough at the edges. She hadn’t expected dessert. Hadn’t expected anything, really.
She paused in the doorway, glancing toward the kitchen. The smell hit her then—chocolate, real chocolate. The kind you only get from a house where someone actually cares if you eat.
It was such a small thing. A pan of brownies.
But Van couldn’t remember the last time she came home from work and found something sweet waiting for her.
Not booze on someone’s breath. Not slammed cabinets or broken glass or tears already halfway down the hallway.
Just… brownies.
“Thanks, Lot,” she said again, quieter now.
Lottie didn’t look up from her magazine this time. “You don’t have to thank me. You live here.”
And somehow, that made Van’s throat ache more than the running ever did.
She nodded and headed for the stairs, the quiet weight of safety trailing behind her like steam off her shoulders.
—
Nat had walked straight across town to Kevyn’s.
They hadn’t hung out in a while. It didn’t take long to fall back into rhythm.
It also didn’t take long for Nat to be tripping.
LSD. The good stuff. Or maybe the bad stuff. She couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
They ended up at a park just past the train tracks, the one with the weird duck pond and half a swing set. Nat lay in the grass, staring up at the branches swaying overhead like they were underwater. Like the whole sky was rippling.
Things moved wrong. Not wrong like bad—just not how they were supposed to. Edges pulsed. Colors shimmered. The world felt cracked open at the seams, and for once, it didn’t feel like the worst thing.
Because otherwise, she was here. In Wiskayok. With Vera. For the whole summer.
Three months, give or take.
And even if Vera was trying—like really trying, with soft voices and awkward dinner invitations and almost eye contact—none of it mattered. Not when Nat could still see the look on her mother’s face from that night.
That goddamn night.
The cops. The blood. Her father’s face—what was left of it.
And Vera, frozen like a statue. Not crying. Not comforting. Just staring at Nat like she pulled the trigger.
She hadn’t. But she might as well have.
Ever since then, it’s like her mom only saw the ghost of the man she married, and every time Nat opened her mouth, she summoned it.
School had been a buffer. Rutgers was messy and loud and alive. She had Jackie. She had Van. She had practice and smoke breaks and late-night fries from the dining hall. No one there looked at her like she was the walking end of something.
But now? She was back.
And somehow summer made it worse. The warm air. The smell of cut grass. The sound of someone’s lawnmower next door—all of it was too much. Too close to that day. Too familiar.
Winter didn’t hurt the same. It numbed it. Covered things in frost, made everything just cold enough to feel far away.
But this? This was her brain on fire.
And she couldn’t explain it. Not to herself, not to anyone. She just knew that this—this spinning, this stretching, this otherworld feeling—was the closest she’d gotten to breathing easy in weeks.
So she let it happen.
She lay there in the grass, eyes wide, heart cracked open, and watched the trees turn inside out above her.
—
Jackie just wrapped up her day at Green Pines Summer Day Camp, her ponytail crooked from running relay races and a smudge of face paint still clinging to her cheek from the arts and crafts tent.
She was glowing—sweaty, sun-kissed, and completely in her element.
This place? It was perfect for her.
She’d always been good with kids, but here, she got to be more than just good. She got to be cool. The counselor the little girls whispered about and the ones with Velcro sneakers clung to at pickup. She had tie-dye stained on her fingernails and three friendship bracelets on her wrist—gifts from campers, of course.
Jackie loved being the one who told the ghost stories, led the cheers, kept the homesick ones from crying.
She loved being someone younger kids looked up to.
Maybe because sometimes, deep down, she wished she’d had someone like that. Someone who made it okay to be loud and messy and soft all at once.
Her sneakers kicked up little puffs of dust as she walked back toward the main lodge, water bottle dangling from one hand. Her clipboard was tucked under her arm, crammed full of attendance sheets, snack preferences, and a doodle one of the kids had drawn of her as a superhero.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it felt good. Real. Like she was building something—if not a future, then at least a damn good summer.
–
After getting home and showering off the layers of sweat, sunscreen, and playground dirt, Jackie collapsed onto her bed with a satisfied sigh. Her hair was still damp, her favorite old camp t-shirt clinging to her skin, and her limbs felt like they weighed double.
It had been a good day—exhausting, but good. She had the rest of the week ahead of her at Green Pines, and she already knew her kids would be bouncing off the walls from now until Friday.
But what really kept her going?
The weekend.
She had plans. Real, actual, honest-to-God plans with Nat. Just the two of them. Maybe a movie, maybe just driving around and finding a place to park and talk and make out and be eighteen, almost nineteen and stupid and in love.
Jackie couldn’t wait.
Still, it was hard. Going from seeing Nat every day—dorms and dining halls and lazy Saturdays—to only weekends? It was a shift. A quiet ache she didn’t want to admit was already settling in her chest.
She’d get used to it. She had to.
And maybe, in a way, it made her look forward to Saturdays more than she ever had before.
Jackie hugged her pillow, eyes fluttering shut for just a second.
She’d get through the week.
Then Nat would be there.
And everything would feel right again.
—
Van and Lottie were camped out in the sunken living room, the rich leather couches pushed back to make room for a nest of pillows and snack bowls. The soft hum of the fan mixed with the clunky music of Mario Kart 64, the screen flickering as the race reached its final lap.
Lottie had everything. The biggest TV Van had ever seen. Surround sound. And of course, an N64 with every game under the sun.
Van gritted her teeth, hunched forward with intensity, tilting the controller like it might physically steer her character through the last curve of Rainbow Road. “C’mon, man…”
“You know that doesn’t actually help, right?” Lottie said, eyes laser-focused, thumbs a blur on the buttons.
“Shut up, I’m manifesting.”
Lottie smirked. “Manifest better.”
With one final shell and a boost, she crossed the finish line first—again.
Van groaned and flopped backward into the pillows. “Unbelievable. You’re not even trying and you’re still beating me.”
“I had practice,” Lottie said sweetly, setting down her controller. “Me and Margaret used to play all the time. Rainy days, mostly.”
“Isn’t Margaret your—what, handler?”
“Technically, she’s staff,” Lottie said. “Unofficially? Glorified babysitter for a nineteen-year-old with impulse control issues and a swimming pool.”
Van huffed a laugh, rubbing her hands down her face. “Well, Margaret needs to chill. She created a monster.”
Lottie leaned back, legs crossed, victory smug but serene. “Try getting better, Palmer.”
Van threw a pillow at her.
–
Jackie was at the front of the line, clipboard tucked under one arm, baseball cap shading her face from the late morning sun. The hike wasn’t long—just a loop trail behind the campgrounds with a few rolling hills and a lot of enthusiastic mosquito activity—but to a group of five energetic ten-year-olds, it might as well have been Everest.
“You said it was just a hill!” one of the boys groaned dramatically.
Jackie grinned over her shoulder. “And it was. Then we went down. And now we’re going up again. It’s called a loop, Max. Builds character.”
Two other counselors trailed behind, chatting and keeping an eye on the slower kids. Jackie didn’t mind leading. She liked being out front, liked the way the kids looked to her for what came next.
They crested the last small incline, and the sound hit first—a low, constant rush, like the forest was breathing. Then the trees opened up, and there it was: the waterfall.
It wasn’t massive, but it spilled down smooth rocks into a clear pool, glinting in the sun like glass. A couple of the kids gasped.
“Whoa,” a girl whispered. “That’s, like… real.”
Jackie smiled and let them step closer. “Told you it was worth it.”
The group spread out a little, toeing the edge of the water, tossing pebbles, snapping disposable camera shots for their “nature journals.” Jackie hung back for a second, hands on her hips, letting the breeze cool her face.
It was beautiful. Not in a magazine way—just simple. Clean air, cold water, kids being kids. Moments like these made her feel like she was doing something good. Like she was good at something that wasn’t a goal or a grade.
“Can we come back tomorrow?” one of the girls asked, eyes wide.
Jackie grinned. “We’ll see. If you all survive the hike back.”
The kids groaned.
She laughed and clapped her hands. “Alright, ten more minutes, then we head back. And no, you can’t ride piggyback.”
–
After a full afternoon of Mario Kart and too many cookies courtesy of Margaret, Van needed a minute. Lottie was great—too great sometimes—but Van wasn’t used to being around anyone 24/7. Not even in a mansion.
She mumbled something about grabbing water, slipped away, and wandered up the stairs, expecting to make a beeline to her room. Instead, she turned down the wrong hallway—twice—and somehow ended up in the one with the big windows and quiet rugs that swallowed the sound of her sneakers.
The door was simple: heavy, real hardwood, not the flimsy kind like back at the trailer. It felt solid when she pushed it open, like something permanent.
Inside, the room was soft and warm—cream walls with dark wood trim, copper outlet covers that gleamed slightly in the lamplight. Not flashy. Just… intentional. Comfortable in a way she hadn’t had before.
Lottie had clearly decorated before Van moved in. There were framed posters hung carefully on the walls—real frames, not push-pinned. One, Van swapped out, was from the Star Wars re-release Van had seen with Val. In the corner of the frame, she had tucked the little Polaroid they’d taken that day, slightly crooked. Van smiled without meaning to.
Van also hung up an old Buzz Buzz Buzz! poster—handmade, crooked letters in school colors, glitter still clinging to the edges. She’d stolen it off the locker room wall the night of graduation, then made all her teammates sign it in Sharpie during the afterparty. It was hanging in an odd corner of the room now, slightly wrinkled, slightly loud. She liked it that way.
A Yellowjackets pennant and a Rutgers one flanked the corkboard above the desk, covered in team photos and snapshots from the year: dorm room candids, sideline selfies, Van in her keeper jersey making a face at the camera mid-drill. Right in the center of the board was her Rutgers media day headshot. Van squinted at it.
“Bar bouncer vibes,” she muttered, hearing Val’s voice in her head.
The back of the door still had the tape marks from where Lottie had mounted it. Even that felt weirdly touching.
In the corner sat a small TV with a VHS player, her battered stack of tapes arranged neatly on a low bookshelf. Lottie had even hooked up her old SNES, with the controllers already untangled and placed just so.
It was… a room.
Not a cot in a friend’s basement. Not a borrowed couch. Not somewhere temporary.
Van dropped onto the bed, eyes flicking to the ceiling. It wasn’t perfect—nothing ever was—but it was hers. And someone had made it feel like it mattered that she was here.
She’d never had that before.
“Jesus,” she whispered to no one. “You got soft, Palmer.”
But she didn’t move. Didn’t get up. Just let herself lie there in the quiet, surrounded by proof that someone wanted her to stay.
–
Every day at Camp Green Pine felt like a small win.
Earlier in the week, she’d taken her group on a hike to a waterfall, the kind of trip that left everyone wet, muddy, and full of stories to bring home. Today, it was archery and field games—red-faced ten-year-olds taking aim with rubber-tipped arrows, cheering like it was the Olympics.
Jackie stood back with her hands on her hips, watching one of the campers nail a near-bullseye, his face lighting up like he just won the lottery.
She couldn’t help but smile.
These kids needed something—structure, kindness, a place to feel brave. Jackie didn’t have all the answers, but she could give them this. Encouragement. A steady presence. Someone who cheered when they hit the target and didn’t scold when they missed.
She was damn good at it, too.
The kind of role model she wished she’d had more of, once upon a time.
After lunch, one of the campers slipped her a hand-drawn picture—stick figures under a crooked sun, with “JAKIE IS THE BEST!” scribbled in red crayon across the top. She laughed, gently corrected the spelling, and taped it to the inside of her clipboard.
By the time the last whistle blew, Jackie was exhausted. Sunburned, sweat-streaked, and still somehow glowing.
Yeah. Camp life wasn’t easy.
But it was good.
-
Nat took another hit off the joint and held it until her lungs burned. She didn’t know what day it was. She was pretty sure she’d taken more LSD, maybe yesterday—maybe today. It didn’t really matter.
She was sitting in the grass at the edge of some park, half-listening to Kevyn and a couple other burnouts talk about music or mushrooms or whatever. It was all static to her.
She missed Jackie.
Not just the kissing, the thing—though yeah, that too. But the comfort of her. The feeling of safety, of being seen, of being wanted. Jackie made her feel like a person again. That kind of peace was its own kind of drug, and Nat hadn’t realized how addicted she’d gotten until it was gone.
She’s always needed outlets for her shit.
When her parents fought every night, her escape was Van. Then soccer. Then, after her dad—after what happened to him—it was drugs, sex, chaos. Soccer couldn’t hold her after that. Van couldn’t either. Nothing could.
Now it was summer. No Jackie. No college. No soccer. Just her, and Vera—who was trying, again—and a girl who couldn’t bring herself to go home.
It hit different than winter break. That had been a few days. This was weeks. Months. Long enough for everything to start to stick again. Long enough for the air and the lawnmowers and the too-quiet street to scrape old wounds back open.
It brought too much back.
And no matter how high she got, it never quite left.
She stared up at the sky, she's been spending more and more days like this.
—
Eventually, the weekend hit. Jackie pulled up to Nat’s place on Saturday morning, honking twice and waving from the driver’s seat of her mom’s hand-me-down sedan. Nat came out in jean shorts and an old band tee, sunglasses already perched on her head, coffee in hand like she’d been born with it.
Jackie grinned. “Ready for the best day of your life?”
Nat raised an eyebrow. “You promise pancakes?”
“I promise everything,” Jackie said, smug as hell.
First stop: the local diner. Red vinyl booths, scratchy jukebox music, and pancakes the size of Nat’s face. Jackie ordered French toast and bacon. Nat dunked her hash browns in syrup. They sat on the same side of the booth, legs tangled under the table, pretending not to notice the stares from old regulars who probably didn’t get it—and definitely weren’t subtle.
The local diner hadn’t changed since Jackie was in middle school. Same teal-and-chrome booths, same crusty old jukebox in the corner that only worked if you hit it twice, same waitress named Rhonda who called everyone “sweetheart” with a cigarette rasp.
Jackie slid into the booth like it was home, waving at Rhonda as Nat dropped into the seat across from her.
“God, I forgot this place even opened before noon,” Nat said, blinking at the sun filtering through the greasy windows.
“That’s because you’ve never let me drag you out of bed before eleven.”
Nat gave her a look. “Let’s not start acting like this is gonna be a trend.”
Jackie smirked and nudged over a laminated menu. “C’mon, don’t act like you’re not gonna order pancakes.”
“I wasn’t,” Nat said, already flipping to the breakfast specials. “But now I will, out of spite.”
Rhonda came over, coffee pot in hand. “Well if it ain’t Miss Taylor. And… this one.”
Nat saluted. “Morning.”
“What’ll it be?” Rhonda asked, pouring without waiting for an answer.
Jackie went with her usual—French toast, bacon, orange juice. Nat ordered the pancakes, eggs over easy, and a side of hash browns she planned to drown in syrup.
They sipped coffee, legs brushing under the table. Jackie flipped her spoon back and forth between her fingers, watching Nat like she was trying to memorize her in the diner light.
“You know,” Jackie said, tone easy, “this could be our spot.”
Nat raised an eyebrow. “Our spot?”
“Yeah. Like, when we’re forty and sad, we come back here and order the same thing and judge the next generation of teenagers from the corner booth.”
Nat smirked. “So basically, you’re Rhonda.”
“I’m building my legacy.”
Jackie leaned forward, chin resting on her hand, and watched Nat pour syrup over her plate like it was a religious ritual. For a second, everything else fell away—the bullshit back home, the looks they got, the pressure of hiding. It was just them, coffee cups steaming, plates clinking, summer barely started.
-
Next: the bowling alley. It smelled like beer, shoes, and the 1970s, but Jackie claimed it was “part of the charm.” Where Nat can roll three gutter balls in a row and called it rigged. Jackie can laugh so hard she almost drops her soda.
The local alley had ten lanes, a vending machine that never worked, and a worn-out arcade corner that only took quarters if you hit them with just the right amount of anger.
Jackie tied her rental shoes tight, glancing over at Nat—who was currently struggling to find a ball that didn’t weigh as much as a car battery.
“Try this one,” Jackie said, rolling over a bubblegum pink ball that looked like it had seen better decades.
Nat eyed it. “If I get tetanus from this, you’re driving me to the ER.”
Jackie gave her a playful shove. “Just bowl, Scatorccio.”
Nat lined up, wobbled her stance, and hurled the ball like she was mad at it.
It bounced. Twice.
And landed firmly in the gutter.
Jackie doubled over laughing. “Oh my god. That was aggressive.”
“I didn’t come here to be judged,” Nat muttered, stalking back to the bench.
“Too bad. That was a hate crime against bowling.”
Jackie stepped up next, casual, confident, tossing her hair over her shoulder before grabbing a faded red ball and gliding up to the line like she was trying out for a cereal commercial.
She bowled a perfect strike.
Nat stared. “You’ve been practicing.”
Jackie shrugged, smirking. “Maybe.”
They kept playing, score wildly inconsistent, Nat slowly improving, Jackie getting cocky. At one point, Nat threw the ball backward by accident and nearly hit a teenager in a Limp Bizkit shirt. Jackie laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Between rounds, they split a soda and made fun of the guy trying way too hard to impress his date in lane seven. They took photos in the busted photo booth—one nice, two stupid, the last one a kiss.
It smelled like cheap nachos and air freshener. The music sucked. The lights flickered.
It was perfect.
By late afternoon: the park. Jackie had packed a picnic the night before—PB&Js, fruit, those weird little snack cakes she secretly liked. They can sit on a blanket under a huge oak tree, shoes off, wind soft in their hair.
The sun was hovering just past its highest point when they spread the blanket out under a massive oak tree in Wiskayok’s town park. Jackie had packed it all herself—sandwiches wrapped in foil, sliced apples, trail mix, two cans of Cherry Coke, and a bag of those oatmeal cream pies Nat always pretended not to like.
They kicked off their shoes, laid back, and watched the clouds move.
“I forgot parks could be quiet,” Nat murmured, arms folded under her head. “Like, not full of screaming toddlers or dog shit or creepy old men.”
Jackie grinned. “That’s because I picked the good spot.”
“You brought a literal picnic basket,” Nat added, pointing.
“Details,” Jackie replied, unwrapping a sandwich. “Want turkey or ham?” knowing that they are all PBJ.
Nat snatched one. “Surprise me.”
They ate in the kind of lazy quiet that only happens when there’s nothing to prove. Jackie kept trying to feed Nat grapes, dramatically. Nat kept letting them fall on purpose. Birds chirped somewhere in the trees, and the breeze rustled just enough to keep the bugs away.
Jackie leaned over her bag and pulled out the camera. “Okay, serious moment. I need a shot of you mid-bite. Pure summer chaos.”
Nat gave her the finger.
Jackie took the photo anyway.
They lay there for a long time after—Nat curled into Jackie’s side, Jackie absentmindedly running her fingers through Nat’s hair.
“Hey,” Jackie said at one point, half-joking, half-not. “Promise we’ll have a hundred more days like this?”
Nat just looked at her. “Only a hundred?”
Final stop: Van’s Blockbuster shift. Jackie had already texted her (well—called the house phone earlier that day and left a message with Lottie) and Van had something set aside for them behind the counter.
By the time they made it to Blockbuster, the sky was gold, the pavement warm under their feet. Van was behind the counter in her too-big polo, flipping through VHS returns.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the hottest couple in northern New Jersey,” she said, not looking up.
“Gross,” Jackie replied, grinning. “Do you have Clueless or The Bodyguard?”
Van reached under the counter and pulled both out. “Reserved. Your taste is predictable.”
“We call it iconic,” Nat said.
“Tell that to the guy who just rented Bio-Dome.”
They left with the tapes, two bags of candy, and a promise from Van to crash the next date if they didn’t invite her.
By the time they headed back to Jackie’s, it was golden hour. Jackie drove slow, hand on Nat’s knee, windows down.
It was one of those days that didn’t feel real.
–
Melissa was laid out on the grass, arms folded under her head, staring up at a sky that was trying really hard to feel like summer. Laura Lee sat cross-legged beside her, carefully peeling the label off a bottle of iced tea.
Senior year was almost over. Graduation loomed like a storm on the edge of a lazy lake day. None of them felt ready.
“When do you think they’re gonna get here?” Laura Lee asked, eyes scanning the park path for familiar faces.
Melissa rolled her eyes without sitting up. “Probably right on time. Since you insisted we show up twenty minutes early like this is a job interview.”
Laura Lee smiled sheepishly. “I like being prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Mel asked. “A group hang? You think Mari’s gonna judge you for not pre-heating the grass?”
Before Laura Lee could defend herself, two figures appeared at the far end of the trail — one in a bright windbreaker, the other with her hair braided back neatly under a WHS cap.
“Speak of the devils,” Mel muttered, sitting up.
“Hey guys!! I brought Fruit by the Foot!” Mari shouted, holding up a fistful of neon sugar like she’d won a prize at the fair.
“Oh, thank God,” Melissa said. “The one thing that’s stronger than my fear of the future: artificial strawberry flavoring.”
Akilah followed behind, taking a slow, deep breath as she looked around the green space. Birds chirped overhead. A couple kids were kicking a soccer ball in the distance. Somewhere nearby, a sprinkler hissed into life.
“It smells like summer,” Akilah said, more to herself than anyone.
“Yeah,” Laura Lee agreed, softer now. “It really does.”
Mari plopped down in the grass with no regard for grass stains and immediately started unrolling a snack. “So what are we talking about? The slow death of adolescence? Plans for post-grad life? Our inevitable descent into student loan debt?”
“Jesus,” Mel muttered.
Laura Lee just passed her a drink and smiled.
They sat like that for a while — trading snacks, talking about nothing, laughing too loud, occasionally lapsing into thoughtful silence.
It felt like something was ending.