Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton Read Free Book Online

skylight at a wispy, strung-out cloud. My parents had finished the attic for me and Sophie three years ago. Well,it was
their
version of finished, which meant floorboards painted with pink and orange polka dots to hide their unevenness, curtains made out of vintage bedsheets, and in the bathroom, a claw-foot bathtub that my parents had gotten cheap because someone had painted the entire thing lime green.
    Sophie and I had been granted one wish each for our room. She’d wished for a walk-in closet, of course. I’d asked for a skylight over my double bed, so I could watch the stars blink at me as I fell asleep. I’d somehow forgotten about the flip side of stargazing—blinding laser beams of light waking me up every morning. But it was worth it. I loved looking through the glass dome just over my pillow. It made me feel like I was outside, even when I was in; like I could just float away, weightless and free, at any moment.
    As I pulled the rubber band out of my hair, letting it fan over the cool pillowcase, the view of the sky calmed me. For a brief moment I forgot about my armoire full of non-datey clothes and about the fusty Beach Club.
    I only thought about him.
    “The he from the bonfire is named Will,” I told Caroline. It came out as a sigh—the kind of simpering, love-struck sigh I usually mocked on TV.
    But hearing the sigh in my own voice felt, strangely, kind of good.
    It also brought all my nervousness rushing back.
    “He asked you to the
Beach Club pool party
?” Caroline said. I knew she was curling her thin upper lip.
    “Yeah, but I don’t think he knows what it’s like there,” I said defensively. “I bet he just heard about the party from people on the beach.”
    “From the other shoobees he’s been hanging around with,” Caroline insisted. “Is that who
you
want to be with tonight?”
    I thought about all the summer people who’d ever called me a “townie.” Most of them didn’t even know there was anything obnoxious about that word. They weren’t malicious so much as clueless, which was somehow even harder to swallow.
    If this date (or whatever it was) with Will was a bust, the presence of all those shoobees would only make me feel worse. That was why I needed backup.
    “Look,” I pleaded with Caroline. “I’ve basically been your third wheel ever since you and Sam got together. Now it’s your turn. You guys
have
to go with me tonight. Just in case.”
    “In case of what?” Caroline said.
    In case my heart gets broken
, I thought.
    Then I shook my head in disbelief. A broken heart? I’d never used that phrase in my life. I didn’t believe in broken hearts. Or guardian angels, destined soul mates, or any of the other things that my sister and her friends giggled about when they rented romantic comedies.
    I knew that the tide wasn’t mystical; it was just the rotation of the Earth relative to the positions of the sun and moon. I knew that ice cream wasn’t magic; it was an emulsion of fat, milk solids, and sugar. And I knew that girls like me became chic New Yorkers only in the movies.
    I also knew another thing from Sophie’s favorite flicks. The “townie” who got swept off her feet by a big-city boy usually found out she’d been played.
    That was why I needed Sam and Caroline to come with me. Because if I’d misunderstood Will and this
was
a group thing,
they
were my group.
    And if my heart did get shattered, they’d be my shoulders to cry on.
    I pictured myself standing on the sand in front of the Beach Club with my head literally on Caroline’s shoulder (because Sam’s shoulder is impossible for me to reach).
    The image made me smile through my nervousness.
    But then I imagined Sam in this scenario. He’d be standing on Caroline’s other side, holding her hand.
    And that made me sigh wearily.
    I slithered off my rumpled bed and went over to my dresser. The first thing I saw in the top drawer was the slightly crumpled camisole I’d worn to the bonfire.
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