“Tonight’s gonna be the best.” I’m standing beside the carousel, waiting for Seeley to finish cleaning up her station so we can leave.
She shakes her head as she wipes off the last of the horses. “I don’t know why you’re getting all excited about a few fireworks and a bunch of fair food that you can literally eat here every day.”
I widen my eyes in mock horror. “Don’t you dare trash-talk the fireworks at the commons!”
“Who’s going tonight anyway?” Her eyes flick back over to the diving area, where Nick is practicing flips on the trampoline. “Just us?”
“Has it ever been just us at the fireworks?”
Seeley rolls her eyes. “Okay, who, then?”
“Everybody, pretty much. Us, Nick, Jessa unfortunately, probably Seb, maybe Craig, Marcus, some girl from housekeeping, and I don’t know, like the whole town. Are you new here, See? Everybody goes to Founder’s Day fireworks.”
It’s true, they do. It’s our only chance to see fireworks without having to watch them on TV or drive forty-five minutes. See, our town is way too cheap to put on a full Fourth of July fireworks display, especially not one that rivals other towns, so we just let them all have it and combine ours with Founder’s Day the weekend before. I mean, nobody truly expects an epic fireworks display in June, right? We’re all just willing to take whatever we can get, which more often than not is about two dozen fireworks, fired off one at a time, several minutes apart, from Mr. McClellan’s field.
It never occurred to me that it was weird until last year, when Nick was still new and couldn’t believe he had moved to a town that didn’t put on their fireworks show on the actual holiday. He even made a shirt that said “The Fourth of July is THE FOURTH OF JULY” and wore it in protest.
But, judging by how many times he asked what the plans were for tonight, I think he’s ready to fully embrace the practice this year.
Seeley groans, tossing the rag over her shoulder. “I just don’t feel like dealing with a ton of people.”
“We need this, Seeley,” I whine. “You need this. Trust me, you’ll have a good time. I’ll make sure of it.”
She sizes me up for a second and then rolls her eyes. “Fine, but you’re buying the snacks.”
“Deal.”
The grass itches and tickles my feet where they hang over the edge of our too-small blanket. I try to keep them still anyway, focusing instead on the sight of Seeley pulling cotton candy by the handful out of a sticky plastic bag. I had meant to bring paper to make a petition for the park, but I forgot. Seeley says her sketchpad is way too expensive to use, so at this point, we’ve sort of all just resigned ourselves to eating junk food and people-watching. There are worse things, I guess.
Nick and Jessa showed up a half an hour or so ago, and now we’re all kind of huddled together on a pile of overlapping blankets, Nick looking relaxed and happy, and Jessa coiled tighter than a rattlesnake. She’s being extra nice to me tonight too, which makes me feel all weird and twisty inside.
Seb and Marcus only showed up long enough to drop off their gear, and then took off to find this new girl they met at the park today. I’m tentatively planning to resent them forever for abandoning me in this cesspool of awkwardness, but we’ll see how the night goes.
Seeley grabs another chunk of pink fluff and tries to throw it in my direction, but Nick snatches it from the air and makes a big show of eating it. I grin and nudge him with my foot before rolling onto my back to stare at the darkening sky. It’s barely dusk, so we have a bit before the fireworks start.
“It’s gonna be really weird to not have the park next year,” Nick says, because of course he can’t just let us stew in this totally uncomfortable silence without putting in his two cents. “Who knows where we’ll end up or what’s gonna happen.”
I sit up, frowning as I look at him. “Next summer is going to be miserable, probably, if we don’t do something about it. People aren’t even sharing my posts about the GoFundMe anymore. It’s like they don’t even care! Literally everything I read about making your page go viral says that it has to be successful in your own community first.” I tilt my head back and glare at the sky. “Our community sucks.”
Seeley bumps her shoulder against mine. “You promised me a good time, remember? No whining.” Seeley tugs her backpack onto the blanket beside us and pulls out two bottles of what appears to be very flat Sprite. “And speaking of a good time . . . ”
“Warm soda?” I arch my eyebrows. “Wow, you’re really living on the edge.”
“Ha, drink up.” She twists the cap off hers and takes a swig, coughing a little as she swallows.
I grumble and follow suit, doing my best not to choke as the bitter taste of soda mixed with alcohol scorches its way into my belly. “Holy crap.” I cough. “What is this?”
“Sprite.” She smirks, and I raise my eyebrows. “Plus a healthy serving of vodka.”
Nick chuckles and scoots up on his elbows. “Hey, share some with the rest of the class.”
“You are such a dork,” I say, but then he blushes, so I reach over and mess up his hair. Jessa frowns so hard I can feel it in my bones. Too bad, Jessa, you brought this on yourself. Sort of. I guess. I don’t know.
Seeley nudges the bottle back to my lips. “Drink up, girlie.”
“I have to drive later,” I say. “I shouldn’t.” I don’t even know why I’m fighting it. It’s not like I’ve never had a drink before. Well, okay, only once and just beer, but still. It counts, right?
Seeley tugs on the various necklaces that dot her neckline, running one of the charms up and down the chain. “We can walk this whole town in thirty minutes, Elouise. We’ll leave your car here if we have to, and you can crash at my place.”
I snort. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.”
Seeley frowns and starts picking at a dandelion beside us. “I just need to not think tonight, okay? I need a night of . . . nothing.”
I scrunch my forehead. “Seeley—” But she just sighs and takes another sip.
Nick takes the bottle from my hand and raises it for a toast. “To friends, fake Fourths, and feeling nothing.” He leans forward to tap it against Seeley’s, and everybody laughs except Jessa.
Nick offers her the bottle, but she shakes her head, so he passes it back to Seeley. I intercept it, curious to taste the plastic his lips just touched. It doesn’t taste like anything, just regular old plastic and a little bit of booze. I sputter as the liquid slides up my nose, sending a bolt of pain shooting through my head. Alcohol plus nostrils does not equal a good time. “You win, vodka.” I cough again. “You win.”
“Lightweight.” Nick laughs, and then Jessa smacks him on the bicep. I stare a beat too long at the rising red mark on his arm, and then I turn toward Seeley and take another swig. She’s lying on the blanket with her arms raised over her head, like she’s adrift on a little fleece raft in an ocean of grass. She looks at me and rolls her neck from side to side, smiling when there’s an audible pop.
“That cannot be healthy,” I say, feeling a little warm, a little tingly as the alcohol soaks into my bloodstream.
“You know what’s not healthy?” She opens one eye and snatches the bottle from my hand. “How slowly you’re drinking that.”
I giggle, an actual honest-to-god giggle, and drop onto the blanket beside her. We’re close enough that I can feel her body heat, warm and damp on this, the hottest of nights. I flick my eyes to the spot on her shoulder where her freckles match the constellations in the sky, and I smile. I get lost in her skin, sipping my drink and mapping the stars on her arm while everyone else talks and eats and laughs around me. I roll to my back and stare up at the sky. I count three shooting stars, but Seeley insists one of them was a plane.
She smells so good up close, like flowers and sunblock, and I realize that, if I stuck my tongue out right now, I could probably taste her perfume . . .
Which, okay, wow, that’s a weird thought. How drunk am I? I lift the bottle, my eyes widening to find it significantly emptier than when it was handed to me.
I jolt up, staring into the lights of the food truck barely fifty yards in front of me.
Nick says something to me that sounds a little bit like “Welcome back,” but I can’t be sure because everything’s gone a little fuzzy, a little spinny now. This is not great. Pull it together, Lou. Focus.
There’s grease and sugar and fried dough all around me, the unmistakable scent of small town summer. I breathe deep and try to forget about any other smells that I might be smelling, like my best friend’s skin or Nick’s deodorant or Jessa’s scowling face. Wait, you can’t smell a face. You know what I mean. God, I hate vodka. I’m never doing this again.
“Are you gonna puke?” Nick asks, scooting back away from me.
“She’s not going to puke.” Seeley props herself up on her elbows, concern etching lines into her forehead. “Are you?”
I shake my head, but that makes my stomach flip. “Stop talking about puking.”
Seeley sits up, leaning forward to take a good look at me. “You need to eat something.”
“I like popcorn,” I say, because my brain is hazy now and also because it’s true. I scrunch up my face and drop back to the blanket. “Oh my god, I don’t like this anymore. Someone invent a time machine. I need to go back and stop old me from opening the bottle.”
“You’re an adorable drunk, Elouise,” Nick says, leaning his face over mine. “Do you want me to get you popcorn?”
“No, you are the adorable one,” I mumble, and then, because I want to be sure to hate myself in the morning, I stick out my finger and boop him on the nose. Like, I literally even say “Boop.” Somewhere, in the tiny last sober corner of my brain, my dignity is screaming.
Nick crinkles his forehead, and a little bit of hair slips into his face, which, being the Good Samaritan that I am, I reach up to push back. Nick looks surprised, and Seeley sort of gasps, and then I shut my eyes, all smirky and snuggly feeling.
“What the hell, Elouise,” Jessa shouts. And oh, I forgot she was still there.
“Leave her alone, Jess, she’s super drunk,” Nick says.
I push myself back up and flick my eyes to Seeley, who looks decidedly unimpressed. Shit.
“Leave her alone? She’s practically making out with you in front of me and her supposed girlfriend!”
“She is not,” Nick groans.
“Yeah,” I say, retreating to where Seeley is sitting. “Am not.”
Jessa narrows her eyes and turns back toward Nick. “You don’t think it’s strange that she’s all touchy-feely with you, but they never kiss, and they never make out? They barely act any different!”
“We’re not exactly going to flaunt our relationship all over this backwoods town. We do have some sense of selfpreservation, Jessa. Sorry to disappoint,” Seeley says, and I’ve never been more proud. I have the smartest, cleverest best friend.
“Yeah, sorry to disappoint.” I scowl and lean my head against Seeley’s shoulder, which is sweaty and hot but somehow more comfortable than any shoulder in the history of shoulders ever, and oh my god, I am too drunk for this.
“We kiss all the time—you just don’t know it,” I say, shutting my eyes, and I’m just sober enough to feel Seeley stiffen beside me.
Jessa snorts. “Then why does Seeley look terrified right now?”
I open my eyes and sit up, studying Jessa’s angry, pinched face, and Nick’s confused one, before finally settling on Seeley’s. “You’re not terrified,” I mumble. “Are you?” I don’t know if she’s looking at me like “Yay” or “Shit,” but she shakes her head and I instantly feel better.
But everyone is staring, and I am so drunk, and, wow, she’s kind of beautiful in the glow of the food truck, with her hair all clipped back and smelling like summer. Her face is only inches from mine and I could do it, you know. Right here, right now. I shut my eyes and lean forward and—
I am
pressing
my lips
to hers
before I
can catch
myself.
She’s soft, and warm, and tastes like spun sugar and vodka. Her lips are parted, and I can’t tell at first if it’s surprise or encouragement—but then she’s kissing me back, and holy shit my best friend is a good kisser. I open my eyes long enough to see her, to make sure this is really happening, and then I slam them back shut, overloaded by the sensation. Seeley leans forward a little, losing her balance, and I drop back to the blanket.
“Get a room!” Nick whoops, and when we pull apart, I touch my lips because wow that was amazing. And then I freeze, my whole body tensing up like I’ve been electrocuted, because um . . . what? Seeley’s staring at me with wide eyes and yeah, I wanted to kiss her, wanted to get Jessa off our back, but . . . I don’t even know.
I squeeze my eyes shut; this is too much: too much alcohol and cotton candy coursing through my veins, too many people here beside me, staring and wondering and wanting me to do things or not do them, and I can’t even think straight anymore with so many sets of eyes on me. My lips taste like the cotton candy Seeley was eating and the crowd is filling up around us, coming to see the spectacle of explosions in the air, and they’re stepping and squeezing onto my little fleece oasis like animals charging the gate, and I can’t.
I can’t.
I have to go. Right now. Immediately. Before my brain flips itself inside out and all the butterflies welling up in my stomach come screaming out of my throat. I open my eyes, frowning at the confusion scrawled on everyone’s faces. “I gotta go.”
I jump up and start walking, not even caring that my flip-flops are still tucked under the edge of the blanket behind Seeley. I weave through the crowd, feeling so, so lost, and drunk and mixed up beyond belief. I start to run, shoving people out of my way, until my feet can match the speed of the thoughts spiraling through my brain. I shove until I break out, until I’m standing in the gravel beside the road at the very edge of the park, the small stones biting hard into my soft skin.
Seeley’s hand wraps around my wrist, an anchor in the storm, and she jerks me around fast before I run into the road. I stare at her with wide eyes as the first firework goes off, spattering against the dark sky in a mess of bright pink and white. A bead of sweat trails down her neck and gets caught in the strap of her tank top, and she’s staring at me, and I can’t tell if she’s mad or not. I can’t even tell. We’re just standing here, waiting for something to happen, anything. Our eyes flick to the sky, and then back to each other.
“Come on.” She tugs my wrist hard after her. “You want to run, let’s run.”
And so we do, around the edge of the crowd and across the street, with the earth scraping at our feet where it can’t quite catch us, her blanket whipping against my legs as I race to the beat of her backpack. She leads this time and I follow, darting into the quiet, dark part of the park where no one goes on nights like this because half the sky is obscured by old willow trees.
We run until her grasp slips from my wrist to my hand, until our fingers tangle together and lock into place, until my breath hitches and my foot slips, and we crash to the ground together, our bodies vibrating from the force of our laughter.
“Are you okay?” she asks, but I’m laughing so hard I can’t talk and there are tears in my eyes. Because this is a summer night, and a boozy head, and my best friend in the whole world, and everything else is just clutter to untangle in the morning. It doesn’t even matter right now. It doesn’t.
Seeley pushes on her thighs with her hands to stand up and walks over to where the blanket fell when we did. She tosses it in my direction and I bunch it under my head, letting the damp earth soak into the back of my clothes while I stare up at the sparkling sky above.
“Oooh, a heart. I love when they do that one.” Seeley pulls the bottles out of her backpack again and hands me one. “Drink, before we sober up.”
“I don’t know,” I say, because more booze sounds like both the best and worst idea ever. But I take the bottle and gulp until I feel the burn even in my feet because I kissed Seeley, and it really didn’t suck.
“That was kind of an amazing kiss,” I say, because I have no filter without alcohol, so I definitely don’t have one with.
“Yeah?” she says, and kind of ducks her head and blushes.
“You gotta teach me how to do that.”
“Okay,” she laughs.
I smile and stare up at the sky, watching the little bit of fireworks I can see through the branches. I have the best, best friend in the world, and everything is roses. “They totally bought it too.”
“What?”
I turn my head toward her, a sleepy smile on my face. “Nick and Jessa, I mean.”
“Right,” she says, gripping her bottle so hard it crinkles. “Yeah.”
It’s not what she says, but the way she says it, that cuts through the haze enough to set off an alarm. “Are you mad?”
“No,” she huffs, ripping the blanket out from under my head and shoving it into her backpack. “How could I possibly be mad, Lou?”
I sit up slowly, rubbing the back of my head where it hit the ground. “What’s your problem?”
“What’s my problem? Oh gee, I don’t know. Maybe it’s that you’ve been using me all summer, and I’m over it. Am I even on your radar as a person anymore? Or am I just this thing that follows you around and does whatever you want?”
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re a person.” I rub my hand over my face. “You’re my best friend.”
“Are you sure about that?” she snaps.
“I’m way too buzzed for this.” I rub my eyes and yawn. “Can we talk about it in the morning?”
“Whatever.”
“Okay, good,” I sigh, hoping we can put this behind us and go back to drunk-watching fireworks.
“You are so dense, Elouise Parker,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes . . . and okay, hang on a second. What am I missing?
Another round of fireworks makes me jump as it crackles across the sky. I reach my arm out toward her, but she jerks away.
She hugs her arms tight across her chest. “This is over.”
“What’s over?” I ask, standing all the way up, because this feels way too important to be lying on the ground for.
“Whatever this was.” She waves her arms between us.
“Everything okay here?” Nick asks suddenly, and I jerk my head toward him. He’s standing a few feet away, with Jessa trailing behind him. They must have followed us when we ran off.
“Peachy,” Seeley sneers as a smiley-face firework explodes into the sky over our heads.
Jessa tilts her head, looking from me to Seeley then back to me again. “What did you do now, Elouise?”
“Oh shut up, Jessa,” Seeley groans.
Jessa’s eyes go wide. “I’m on your side here!”
“No, you’re really not,” Seeley says. “And even if you were, you would be the last person I’d want on it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Seeley raises her eyebrows. “You know exactly what that means.”
“If everybody could stop yelling and talking fast right now, that would be great,” I plead.
“Screw this,” Seeley yells.
“All right, everybody calm down.” Nick drops his arm around Jessa. “We’ve all been drinking tonight—”
“I didn’t have any,” Jessa says, like that makes her better somehow.
Nick sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Okay, we’ve all been drinking tonight, except Jessa.” He drops his hand. “I think it would be best if everybody went back home and slept it off. We can figure everything out in the morning.”
“I’m too drunk to drive,” I say. Also, I’m a horrible person, apparently, based on how Seeley is acting.
“We all are, except—” Nick says, looking at his girlfriend.
Seeley hangs her head back as far as she can and straight up growls, “I’m walking.” She throws her bag over her shoulder and starts marching away. So, naturally, I march right after her.
“Seeley—”
“Stop following me!” she yells, and it’s loud, super loud, the kind of loud that shakes a friendship to its core.
“Can we talk about this?”
“No!” She doesn’t even hesitate, doesn’t even slow down.
I sprint forward and grab onto the edge of her backpack, yanking her back. “Stop!”
She jerks it away with the most furious face I have ever seen. “Get away from me, Elouise!”
“You’re not walking off alone, even if you don’t talk to me!” I yell back, because if she’s being dumb and loud, then fine, I can be too.
Nick comes jogging up, standing between us and holding up his hands. “Okay, listen, nobody is walking around drunk by themselves. Either we all walk together, or we all ride with Jessa.”
“I go where Seeley goes,” I say.
Seeley looks at me and shakes her head. “Screw it,” she says. “Driving will get this over with faster.”
We all sorta turn back to where Jessa is standing. “I hate you guys.” She sighs, pulling out her keys, and then stomps back the way she came. We stand there for a minute, not totally sure if she’s abandoning us or saving us, but then she turns around and flails her arms. “Well, come on, then!” And wow, she sounds totally pissed.