Last Summer
Bailey, 8:27 AM: SHOTGUN!
Me, 8:27 AM: You can’t call shotgun before we’re at the car.
Bailey, 8:27 AM: Says who???
Allie was on a schedule. She had agreed to drive from Cocoa Beach to Englewood this year after Bailey’s VW Bug, which was as old as we were, kept overheating at stoplights. Last week, Bailey had had to hop out and pour an entire bottle of water into who knows where under the hood just to make sure we made it home. Allie had complained—her car was a brand-new graduation gift from her parents— and insisted that if she was going to drive, we were following her rules. That meant leaving right on time, no open containers in the car, and the stereo’s volume didn’t go above seven.
At eleven on the dot, Allie tossed the last of the suitcases into her car. She turned and stared at Bailey and me as we sat on the front porch of Bailey’s house, laughing at a video on my phone screen.
“Yeah, I’ve got this, thanks,” Allie said, hand planted on her cocked hip.
Bailey stood up and grabbed her large purse. “Sorry, Al. Morgan keeps showing me these stupid videos about graduation-day fails. Man, I thought me almost tripping and falling into Michael McAdams’s lap was bad.”
I stood, too, following Bailey’s lead. “That was bad, Bailey, but not as bad as the fact that he probably would have liked it.”
“Gross.” Bailey laughed and playfully swatted at my arm. When Allie crossed her arms, still staring at us, Bailey added, “Stop doing that. We’re coming.”
This had been our routine now for years. Since the start of our friendship, Allie had, admittedly, spent most of the time waiting on Bailey and me because we sometimes moved as if we had all the time in the world. But it was summer, and there was nothing worse than breaking a sweat before lunchtime, especially due to physical labor.
“The boys are going to beat us to The Highview, and we’re going to end up doing the supply inventory. Do you want to spend our first afternoon there making sure no guests walked away with a beach chair in the last year?”
Allie opened her car door and climbed in, turned the key in the ignition, and buckled her seat belt. Bailey and I took this as our cue to follow, and Bailey raced to the front passenger door.
“I never did understand why the first car there doesn’t do inventory,” I said. “It seems like a punishment for driving safe.”
Bailey reached back and handed me a stick of gum, a necessary precaution since I always got carsick on long rides. “That’s so true. It’s not our fault Allie’s going to drive ten under the speed limit.”
Allie turned and glared at Bailey. “Good one,” she said sarcastically, just as Ethan’s Jeep pulled into the driveway. Noah sat in the front seat, connecting his phone to the dashboard to provide GPS directions for Ethan. Ryder sat in the back seat with the windows rolled down and his arm hanging out.
“Race you there?” Ethan called from the driver’s seat.
“Absolutely not,” Allie said. “I’ll be going the speed limit the entire time. It’s a holiday weekend, dumb ass; the cops will be everywhere.”
“She has a point,” Noah said.
“Fine. How about the first person that has to pull over to pee buys lunch?”
“No, Ethan,” Ryder said.
I often wondered if we’d ever outgrow our competitive nature. Ethan made everything a competition, especially when we were at The Highview. Who could stay up the latest? Who could eat the most Doritos without getting sick? Who could charm the clerk at the liquor store to sell to us? We all liked nothing more than a friendly competition, but Ethan usually pushed it too far.
“Can we just get going?” Bailey asked, dramatically fanning herself with an old road map Allie’s mom made her keep in the glove compartment.
I stuck my head out the window. “Are we meeting your dad there?”
Noah nodded, and Ryder smiled.
“Hi, Morgan.”
“Hi,” I said with a laugh. I was always taken aback by the way Ryder could make me blush just by saying my name.
“Oh, young love.”
“You better get used to it, Bailey,” Noah said. “We’ve got an entire month with them.”
“A month? You’ll have to deal with this for an entire lifetime,” Ryder said, eliciting a mixture of “Aws” and “Come on, dudes.”
“Are we going?” Ethan asked. “Or are we just going to sit here and chat like we’ve got nothing better to do?”
Allie put the car in reverse and checked her mirrors. Then she looked over at Ethan’s Jeep. “See you there.”
~*~
We pulled into The Highview at 3:26 p.m., exactly on time, according to Allie’s calculations. The boys were nowhere to be found.
“I think it’s actually August, and we spent the entire month of July driving here.” Bailey climbed out of the car and stretching her arms.
“Holiday weekend,” Allie reminded us as she gathered the trash we had collected in our five-hour drive (which should have been three if not for that same holiday traffic).
“I bet they got lost at the detour.” I pulled my phone out to see if Ryder had texted me. Nothing.
As Allie popped the trunk, I stood with my hands on my hips, staring up at the house. The Highview’s sign was freshly painted, my uncle’s contact information on the bottom in a cool shade of blue. There had been some minor cosmetic work done since last summer, but the most noticeable change was the complete revamp of the top deck—the reason for the name The Highview.
It had once just had a few lounge chairs, perfect for watching the sunset over the ocean. Now, the spiral staircase led up to what would definitely be our hangout spot for the summer: an open space with new outdoor furniture and tea lights lining the rails. Uncle Daniel had had outlets installed and wired so we could plug in our speakers for music. At night, we could push all the chairs to one corner and spread out blankets—perfect for looking at the stars and falling asleep to the waves.
It was crazy; I had stood in front of The Highview so many times, but each time felt like the first.
“I wonder where they are,” Bailey said as she grabbed the suitcases out of the trunk.
“I’m telling you: lost.”
“Wait,” Allie whispered. We all froze on the gravel walkway.
“Why are you whispering?” Bailey asked.
Allie crept to the end of the driveway and pointed. “Look.”
Parked three houses down was Ethan’s Jeep, doing its best to hide among the cars around it. Then we heard it—the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the metal of the spiral staircase.
“Hey, ladies.” Ethan leaned over the edge of the top deck. He smiled—the smile that could get him out of any trouble—and tilted his head.
Instantly, Noah and Ryder popped up with water balloons in hand.
“No…” Allie lowered her head in defeat.
“We decided to cut you some slack,” Noah started. “Instead of making you buy lunch, we figured this would do.” He tossed a water balloon up and down in his hand, and I wished more than anything that he would drop it and it would pop.
I looked up at Ryder. “Don’t you dare.”
Ryder looked around. “Who? Me?”
Bailey sighed. “Just get it over with.”
“Happy Highview,” Ethan said.
They launched the water balloons off the top deck. They continued launching them, one after the other, and soon Allie, Bailey, and I were drenched as the balloons popped at our feet. We ran around the driveway, trying to avoid the popping balloons, but no luck.
One balloon landed by my feet without popping. Picking it up, I hurled it up to the top deck. Allie and Bailey threw their hands up in celebration when it popped and got the boys wet. Through laughter and screams, we held up our hands in a truce, salt water and tap water soaking through our clothes.
~*~
Once inside, we fell into our yearly “summer at The Highview” routine. Bailey, Allie, and I claimed the bedroom with the bunk bed and twin bed. Noah, Ethan, and Ryder fought over who would sleep on the air mattress in the room next to ours, even though there was a whole other room we never used for some reason. I unpacked my suitcase and started the community drawer of bathing suit tops that the three of us could share. Bailey opened a book and snacked on peanuts she’d found buried in her purse. I stifled a laugh as Allie hung up the bathroom schedule she had made; she swore we would thank her for the practice when we weren’t surprised by dorm room living.
A few hours later, Uncle Daniel pulled into the driveway. We were spread across the living room when he walked through the front door. He smiled and dropped his duffel bag on the floor by his feet. He kicked off his flip-flops and threw his hat on the counter, revealing disheveled brown hair that matched Noah’s. He held up a popped water balloon in one hand, “I hope you knuckleheads know you have to pick up the popped balloons.”
“Those were there when we got here,” Ethan said.
Uncle Daniel picked up his duffel bag and walked toward his room. “Go clean the balloons up, Ethan.”
“Why just me?”
Uncle Daniel paused in his doorway. “Because, Ethan, I know you well enough to know it was your idea.”
~*~
Ethan picked what we hoped was the last of the popped balloons out of the bushes and dropped it into the trash bag he held. After a competitive round of rock paper scissors, it had been decided that I’d help Ethan while the others inventoried the supplies.
“Are you getting nervous about leaving for school?” Ethan asked.
“Of course I am. I won’t know anyone. I’m so jealous that you, Ryder, and Noah are going to the same school.” I picked up a rogue balloon and tossed it into the garbage bag. We walked through the front gate to the side yard.
Ethan tossed the bag into the garbage can. “You’ll meet new people.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You make friends easily.” I’d been friends with the same people for basically my whole life. I didn’t even think I knew how to start a conversation with someone, let alone live with a stranger in a single dorm room.
“Morg, everything will work out. Besides, Allie and Bailey will visit.”
We went to the back of the house, where the rest were just finishing up, piling the last of the chairs and umbrellas neatly in the shed.
“I’m dripping in sweat,” Bailey complained.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked. “How many people walked away with chairs?”
“In an unprecedented turn of events, we actually gained two chairs,” Ryder said. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and squeezed as Noah looked at all of us.
“Beach?”
~*~
We ran down the sand to the water. Ryder and Noah pushed a paddleboard into the water, and I climbed on.
“Ready?” Noah asked and pushed the paddleboard into the water. As I floated away from the shore, I waved a dramatic goodbye to Ethan, Noah, and Ryder and called for Allie and Bailey to come join me. Bailey ran into the water, Allie following in her splashes, and swam up to where I was floating. Bailey placed her hands on the paddleboard to push herself up.
“Hold it steady, Morgan. Please?”
Allie followed suit, and I maneuvered slightly to make room for them. We sat, letting our legs dangle in the water as we stared out at the horizon.
“I’m gonna miss this,” Allie said.
“Miss what?” I asked. “It’s the first night, Allie. You’ll be sick of us by the end of summer.”
“Plus, we’re not going anywhere,” Bailey assured us.
Allie smiled. “Well, I know that. But things will be different.”
“Things are supposed to be different,” Bailey said. “You aren’t supposed to remain the same. You can’t live the same day over and over for ninety years and call it a life.”
“Please. You think you’re going to live to be ninety with the amount of Dr. Pepper you drink?” Allie joked. Bailey leaned forward to splash water on her. The movement caused the paddleboard to rock back and forth until it finally flipped, sending all three of us into the water. Our laughter continued as we came up, our hair now wet, and Allie frantically grabbed for her sunglasses, which were floating away.
“Look!” Uncle Daniel called from the shore. We looked out toward the horizon and saw the sun begin to dip below the horizon.
Uncle Daniel clapped. “The first sunset of the summer. Now we can start to party!”
The house next door to The Highview has a swimming pool. It was a fact that we always brought up at least once a summer as we’d gaze longingly at whoever was staying in the house, wishing we were the ones splashing around in it.
“To be clear,” Ethan once said, “The Highview is an exponentially cooler house than that one. But a swimming pool!”
Uncle Daniel had thrown his hands up in the air, “The damn ocean is right there! Better yet, go splash around in the bathtub if you want.”
None of us could explain it, though. The feeling of jumping into a swimming pool after spending all afternoon at the beach. The saltwater washing off our skin as we’d race from one end of the pool to the next. Floating on a large pink flamingo as the sun beat down on us. It was the one thing missing about our lazy summer days. So now, as we watched the car next door pull out of their driveway after asking Uncle Daniel for a good dinner recommendation, we all were scheming. We’d been sitting around a fire that Ryder had built, drinking the one beer each that Uncle Daniel had allotted us, “now that we’re adults,” when Noah stood up and walked to the fence. He looked at the swimming pool and then back at us.
“I’d kill for that pool right now,” I said.
“What if I told you that you didn’t have to kill anyone? You’d just have to jump a fence,” Noah said. We all looked at each other. Bailey was already taking off her swimsuit cover-up.
“I don’t know about that,” Allie said.
Ethan laughed and stood up, “Didn’t realize Allie turned into such a rule follower once high school ended.”
Never one to back down from a challenge, Allie exhaled angrily and stood up. She walked to the fence and before anyone could say anything else, put her hands on the top of the waist-high wooden fence that separated the property lines. In one motion, she had her legs over on the other side and jumped into the pool, not even bothering to take her cover-up off. We all clapped and yelled until Noah shushed us, motioning with his head to the house where Uncle Daniel was inside.
We all jumped over the fence and cannonballed into the pool, splashing around.
“They’re going to know we were here. The deck is going to be soaked,” Ryder said.
“Oh, who cares,” I said as I floated on my back.
Allie and Bailey climbed onto a float that was already in the pool and sat side-by-side on it.
“This is heaven,” Allie said, “Good thinking, Noah.”
Noah tipped a pretend hat as he swam to the edge of the pool and sat on a built-in step. From across the pool, Ethan looked at me and pointed towards where Allie and Bailey were now comfortably floating. I smirked at him and dove underwater. We reached their float at the same time, and both placed our hands underneath and flipped it over. Allie and Bailey screamed as they splashed underwater. When Bailey came back up, she lunged at Ethan, placing both of her hands on his shoulders and pushing him under. Before she could get him all the way under, he wrapped his hands around her waist and threw her underwater again. Allie, who was clearly not amused by this, swam over to where Noah was and huffed as she pressed on the deck with her hands and got out of the pool. Ethan and Bailey continued splashing, laughing as they did so, and Ryder swam over to where I was.
“I thought we were the couple,” he joked.
“Ew, gross,” I said, not even wanting to entertain the idea of Bailey and Ethan together. Ryder smiled at me and flicked water in my face.
After a close call with the neighbors pulling into the driveway before we’d all made it back to our own yard, we settled back around the fire after changing out of our wet bathing suits. I ran my fingers through my chlorine drenched hair, wincing every time they got stuck in a knot. Ethan dropped two bags of chips on the extra chair and sat down next to me. Noah and Ryder were still inside, and Bailey and Allie both insisted they had to take a shower before putting clean clothes on.
“Look at the couch my mom found for the apartment,” Ethan said. He held his phone up to show me a picture of a worn blue couch that was now stored in Ethan’s parent’s garage.
“That looks so comfy,” I said. My friends and I had never talked about things like buying new furniture. What was next? Commentary on buying new health insurance? I made a mental note to go online and look up how to even buy health insurance.
“I feel like I’ll really thrive in college,” Ethan said.
“Really? Why do you think that?”
He put his phone away and grabbed a bag of Doritos. He shrugged, and, with a mouthful of chips, said, “I just think that it’ll be good for me. I charmed my way through high school.”
“That’s not true. You studied hard,” I said.
“I barely did my homework. I depended on my natural abilities. Besides soccer, I didn’t really try at anything. I’d like to change that,” he said.
I laughed, “Wow, is Mr. Golden Boy saying he wants to grow as a human?”
“Hey now, I’m not that bad,” he laughed.
Ryder stuck his head out of the sliding glass door, where he stood with an armful of soda cans and water bottles.
“Does anyone want a drink?” he asked.
Ethan called out for a water, I asked for a Diet Pepsi, and Ryder smiled and walked back inside. Ethan looked over at me.
“Are you and Ryder going to break up?” he asked.
I scoffed, “What makes you ask that?”
“I’m just curious. You’ve been together for a long time. I didn’t know if you were going to follow Allie and dump him just because you’re going to different colleges,” he said.
“People who do that were never meant to be,” I said.
“That’s not true. Allie really liked Grant,” Ethan said.
I cocked my head, “Allie doesn’t really like anyone.”
We both laughed and let the few beats of silence settle over us. Truthfully, it hadn’t even been a question when Ryder and I got into different colleges. We’d just make it work. Sure, there were days where I was nervous, but I’d never told Ryder that because I didn’t want to make him nervous. If I’d never mentioned it to Ryder, I definitely have never mentioned it to Ethan. I’d only ever told Allie and Bailey about my fears, but there was no way that they’d said anything to Ethan. At least, that’s what I’d told myself.
“Does Ryder want to break up with me?” I whispered.
I was terrified of the answer. Just because I had doubted every now and then, that didn’t mean I wanted it to end.
“Dude, what? No, I didn’t say that. I’m just curious,” Ethan said.
I swallowed hard just as Ryder and Noah walked out and sat down around the fire with us. Ryder reached over and handed Ethan and me our drinks.
“Everything alright?” Ryder asked.
I nodded, perhaps a little too hard, and plastered a smile on my face.
The next afternoon, Bailey fanned her hand over my toenails and squinted at them. She sat back and closed the bottle of fuchsia nail polish. Next to her was a pile of cotton balls that were covered in polish remover and the remains of my old yellow color. Allie walked out on the back deck and placed a bowl of potato chips in front of us.
I picked up the bottle of nail polish and turned it over in my hand. The sticker on the bottom read, “The Fuschia is Bright.”
“Man, this color is the best,” Bailey said.
“Will you do mine next?” Allie asked. She sat in the chair next to Bailey and propped her feet up in Bailey’s lap. Even though we ate dinner an hour ago, I reached over and grabbed a handful of potato chips. Ryder, Ethan, and Noah were still inside on kitchen duty, scrubbing dishes. Allie leaned over her shoulder to look inside the house, then turned back to me.
“Have you talked to Ryder yet?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I said to her. Bailey opened the bottle of nail polish and started painting Allie’s toenails.
After hanging around the fire last night, Allie, Bailey, and I stayed up for another hour or so, whispering to each other in the darkness of our bedroom.
“Just tell him what Ethan said,” Allie had said.
“Ethan didn’t say anything alarming, if you ask me,” Bailey countered.
As we whispered to each other, I wanted too badly to ask them the burning question: had either of them said anything to Ethan? On the outside, Ryder and I looked like the perfect couple. There was no way we were projecting any sort of doubt because all we did was talk about how excited we were for the other or about the playlists we would share with each other for the car drives to visit each other. Only Bailey and Allie knew my true fear. That it wasn’t going to work.
“Did he act weird today?” Bailey asked. She didn’t look up from the paint job she was doing on Allie’s toenails.
“No, he was absolutely normal.”
“So then, why stress yourself out by bringing it up?” Allie asked. I didn’t say anything. This time, Bailey shot her head up and gasped. Allie flinched at the sound, and the fuchsia nail polish streaked on the top of her big toe. Bailey grabbed a cotton ball and wiped it off, and gave Allie an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Al, I was just shocked there because now it sounds like our Morgan does want to break up with Ryder,” she said.
“Okay, I did not say that,” I said.
Allie and Bailey both stared at me. They knew me better than anyone in the world, and they had to know maybe I did.
That’s because the minute that Ryder and I got accepted into different colleges, the idea crossed my mind for maybe a millisecond. But once we assured each other that it would be fine, I felt like I had nothing to worry about. The night before, when Ethan asked if we were going to stay together, doubt started entering my mind again.
“Okay, it freaked me out a little bit,” I said, putting my hands up in defense, “but that doesn’t mean that I want to end everything.”
Allie sat back in her chair as Bailey finished her last toenail, “Yeah, you guys will barely be an hour away from each other.”
Bailey closed the nail polish bottle again and gathered the used cotton balls. “Allie’s right, plus, you love each other. That’s enough.”
The back door slid open, and Noah walked out. He stood in front of us.
“Crazy idea, ladies. The bridge on Beach Road. We’re jumping off of it,” he said. I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Hell no,” Allie started, “That bridge is at least thirty feet high.”
“We’ve wanted to jump off that thing since the first time we saw it!” Noah practically yelled.
I shook my head, “It’s dangerous. We don’t even know if the water is deep enough.”
Though we rode our bikes over Beach Road Bridge nearly every evening on our way to the ice cream shop or the grocery store, that was totally different from jumping off of it. Sure, each time we rode over it, we joked about jumping off, but we always laughed it off and kept riding. “We’d never,” we always said, but we all wondered what it would be like to fly through the air, waiting for the seconds following as our feet would break the surface of the water.
Noah sat at the edge of Allie’s lounge chair, “So? I’ll go first! Worst case, I sprain my ankle. It’s not like we’re going to die,” he said.
I looked at Bailey and Allie.
Bailey shrugged, “Yeah, okay,” she said. Obviously, she would do it. She’d always been more of a daredevil than Allie and me.
“Compromise,” I started, “You guys jump, and Allie and I will stand guard at the top.”
“No way. If we go down, we go down together.”
Minutes later, and with some gentle coaxing from Ryder, I ended up with my toes hanging over the edge of the cement railing of the bridge. For the first time in her life, Allie may have been wrong: there’s no way this bridge was only thirty feet high. As I stared down at the water, I couldn’t see the bottom. I’d been over the bridge hundreds of times, but I never thought about looking over the edge. I reasoned with myself that boats were off in the distance, and if they were able to safely float by, the water had to be deep enough for us to land. I looked to the left of me and saw the low bank of sand, though, which was our hypothetical exit route once we hit the water. Over there, the water looked shallow and barely waist deep. To my left, Ryder clapped his hands. To his left, Ethan and Noah were making jokes about calling a lawyer to write up their will.
On my right, Allie looked at Bailey and asked, “Is it going to hurt?”
Allie had been the last to agree, but Ethan had finally worn her down after telling her that she “probably couldn’t handle it anyway.”
“No. It’s just like jumping into a pool,” Ryder said.
“Except we’re a little higher, and we have no clue what awaits us at the bottom,” Bailey said. She grabbed Allie’s hand.
“But what about the sign that says not to do it. If we get caught, we could get in major trouble,” Allie said.
“Then don’t get caught,” Noah said. Noah, the ringleader of this adventure, looked at each of us.
“If we survive the bridge, then we survive anything,” Bailey said.
“Way dramatic, Bails,” I said, but my palms felt sticky with sweat, and my heart felt like it was dropping into my stomach as Ryder reached for my hand. It caused me to grab Allie’s and hold on for dear life.
“Ouch, Morgan,” Allie said as I squeezed.
“Ready?” Ryder asked.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this.”
Ethan, who was at the end, looked down the line at all of us. “Let’s do it.”
Noah counted us off to three, and without thinking, I closed my eyes and jumped.
We flew through the air with the sun setting in the distance, and in that moment, I had no fear. No fear of what would happen between Ryder and me, no fear as to what college would bring, not even fear about what was waiting for us in that water. Flying through the air, I had the comfort of knowing that as long as I jumped with the people beside me, everything else would work its way out.