Three Day Summer by Sarvenaz Tash Read Free Book Online Page B

There have been a lot of other words, but he probably doesn’t remember them. Not sure he wants to, either.
    â€œIt’s okay.”
    â€œKara?” he says to me. “Is that right?”
    â€œCora, actually.”
    â€œSorry! Aaaah!” he slaps himself in the forehead.
    â€œIt’s okay. I’m actually impressed you almost remembered. You get a B+ in freaking out.”
    He grins at me. I notice his two upper teeth overlap slightly. “So, Cora . . . would it be too forward of me to ask when your shift is done here?”
    â€œUm . . . seven . . .” I hesitate. I was not expecting that. Nor am I expecting what comes out of my mouth next. “But you have to go find your girlfriend again, right?”
    He blushes once more and his smile droops. “Amanda,” he stammers. “Yes. Her.”
    â€œAmanda,” I repeat, picturing the back of her head as I saw it that morning, in Michael’s tight grasp. Then, for no reason at all, I grin like an idiot.
    â€œOkay,” he says. “Well, thank you. Again. And, for good measure, sorry.” He gives me a smile before turning around and walking out of my tent.

chapter 16
    Michael
    Cora still has a couple of feathers sprouting from her arm when I leave her, but I choose not to bring this up with her. She’s right. I need to find Amanda. And Evan, Catherine, Suzie, and Rob. I guess.
    I slowly move toward the music. At certain moments, I can see trails of color undulating in time to Richie Havens’s voice. He’s singing a slowed-down version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” now, and some of the thousands of people around me leave pink and orange hues in their wake, including a shirtless, redheaded guy dressed in tight white pants who is gently swaying with a sheep.
    â€œI still think the Beatles are coming, man,” I hear a guy in a long purple tunic say to his friend, who just shrugs noncommittally. My sources would say: wishful thinking. Rumor has it they’re on the verge of a breakup.
    There are all sorts of people around me: short, tall, dark, pale, redheaded, blond, brunette, bald. A lot of people around my age, but also children and some old folks. Even when I visited Times Square with my family three years ago, I never saw this many people all in one place.
    There is one problem. None of them are my friends. And as I slowly trudge my way closer to the music, I cannot fathom how I will ever find them. This is an ocean of heads and bodies. How can you find five specific drops of water in an ocean? Just when I start mulling that impossibility, I catch a glimpse of red and white from the corner of my eye, and immediately whip around. Only when I see that it’s some stranger in a striped dress do I remember that Cora is not the one I’m supposed to be looking for. “Get it together, Michaelson,” I mutter.
    Eventually, I make it as close as I think I can get to the stage for now. It sits at the bottom of a hill, level with me, but I see that a lot of the audience is camped out on various parts of the slope, staring down into the stage like a crystal ball. Havens is a hazy orange blob who stands at the center in front of a microphone and, I think, is brandishing a guitar.
    It’s taken me all this time to realize that I am actually inside the festival, despite the lack of tickets. I silently thank Evan—wherever he is—for however he made that happen.
    And then I just close my eyes for a moment and listen. As Havens sings about freedom, I think about my own. Freedom from my parents. From Amanda. From school, and the war, and even the limits I put on myself. Why can’t I be anything, go anywhere? What is there to stop me?
    Thinking about going anywhere only brings one image to my mind. I open my eyes and slowly turn my head to find it: the yellow medical tent. It’s far away now, even farther than the stage. But somehow I realize the thing that’s been