Read Online The Summer We Came to Life by Deborah Cloyed - Free Book Online

The old Samantha—the fearless one—was offended. Every message has a flip side. If I never let anyone get as close as Mina, I would never feel this pain again. If I went my way alone, I could stand on the fringes and observe and laugh. I could focus on my art. Or go back to science. Achievement is like love, with less risk. It would be better that way, just me. I was tough. With my screwed-up family, I should have learned the danger of human attachment long ago. It was like what Jesse said about the outhouse. I should know better.
    A truck flew by on the road, blowing dust and the scent of cattle into my face. My eyes began to penetrate the darkness. Graffiti appeared on rocks lining the highway. My arms broke out in goosebumps. That meant people lived in these mountains. Or bandits. Was that the sound of pebbles falling or scrambling feet? I suddenly felt exposed, like an action hero surrounded by invisible bad guys in the bushes.
    â€œEverybody get back in the cars!” I said. “Now!”
    Cornell’s eyes found mine through the rear car window, startled. Lynette lifted her head and I saw fear scurry across their faces.
    Arshan, though, looked like he didn’t hear me at all. He had Jesse and Isabel wrapped up in his arms snugger than cellophane and if I didn’t know better I’d say he looked almost happy. Certainly he looked like he had no intention of letting go. For the first time, I got a glimpse of what losing Mina must’ve been like for him. She’d left him all alone like me.
    It was cruel the things that could happen to you in an instant. The way people could be ripped from your arms like mice snatched by eagles.
    I felt the two Samanthas ready to argue again. There was something Mina had told me once, something she’d said.
    But there wasn’t time. I hurried back to the car and tappedArshan gently on the shoulder. In a daze, we all took our seats as before.
    As the cars’ engines startled the silent air, I sank back into my seat and stared down the darkness. Soon, I thought. The internal civil war had to end and I had to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Stay lost or be found.
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    Lakehouse, Rappahannock, VA, 1991
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    â€œWant some more lemonade?” Eleven-year-old Isabel stood on the dock.
    I looked up at her, the sun shining high in the sky above her head. She had a hand on her hip, waiting impatiently. “Come on, Kendra. Come with me.”
    Kendra looked up, embarrassed. She was drawing hearts around two initials overtop the advertisements in her YM magazine. I tried to see what it said, and Kendra tried to hide it unsuccessfully with her hands.
    KJ + A
    Only one letter for the boy. “Adam!” I laughed. The boy staying next door to the lake house Jesse was renting that summer.
    Kendra glared at me, and Mina giggled. She was floating on her back in the water but could hear us apparently.
    â€œHe’s cute,” Isabel said, to take Kendra’s side. She put out her hand with pink nail polish on her fingers.
    Kendra took her hand and followed Isabel up the big hill to the house to ask for more pink lemonade.
    I picked up the magazine, and flipped forward and back a few pages. Kendra had drawn, like, twenty hearts that morning.
    â€œHey, Sam?”
    â€œYeah?” I said, tracing over the amazingly symmetrical hearts.
    Mina swam close to the dock, next to my knees.
    â€œWhat?” I said, and raised my eyebrows.
    Mina changed her mind and went back to floating. She looked up at the sky, completely crammed full of drifting fluffy clouds. I watched them, too, for a second, admiring how they arranged themselves into faces and animals and a hundred other pictures of life.
    â€œWhat do you think is the point?”
    â€œOf what, Em?”
    â€œAny of it. All of it. Boys. School. Life.”
    I looked at my feet under the water, thought how delicious the coolness felt, especially when miniature waves lapped at my