Cline and Elliot are running full speed toward us, and I’ve never been so happy to see someone before in my entire life. Elliot has his arms out and I grab him hard, practically jumping into his arms and wrap myself like a sloth around his body.
September is brushing dirt from her knees, and her towel has fallen away, and I watch as Cline stoops to pick it up for her. From the corner of my eye I see them make eye contact for the first time and something inside me stirs. An unraveling of rope around my heart. A thread that was knotted begins to loosen and fray.
I press my face into Elliot’s neck and smile, squeezing him a little tighter. “That’s September. She’s our neighbor. She has a boat.”
My laptop is plugged into a charger inside the car, and I’m trying to catch up on some lost time I should have been dedicating to the game instead of this impromptu road trip. I’m easily distracted by the camp fire and Cline’s new fascination with September. My attention also drifts to Audrey’s attempt to stay out of their way while they set up stuff for dinner.
She hovers just out of their general vicinity, closer to the tent until one of them walks over to get something from the cooler, then she does a quick turn and finds something else to do. It’s an awkward dance that’s keeping me from concentrating on the task in my lap.
“Audrey,” I yell to her, and she stops cold, turning to look at me like a deer caught in headlights. “Come here.” I motion for her to sit by me in the trunk and notice when her shoulders visibly relax as she makes her way across the gravel to the back of the car. The tires bounce a bit as she climbs in and folds her legs beneath her, plastering a smile on her face to hide whatever tension she just had displayed out there.
“Are you on a deadline?” she asks, craning her neck to look at my screen.
“Kind of. They want my first pitch soon, so I need to have something for them or else I’ll blow it before I even have a chance to show them my entire idea.”
Her focus drifts across the fire toward Cline and September, so I close my laptop and angle to face her better. “I’ve never seen him like this before. I mean, I’ve watched him hit on girls and take them back to our place or whatever—like what happened at your party—but he’s actually talking to her. Listening and paying attention. I guess there’s a first time for everything.” I keep my tone light, hoping to get her to talk, because she’s being so quiet.
“It’s not the first time,” she says softly, her stare unwavering.
“No?”
“No. I never believed in love at first sight until sixth grade. We got this new student on the first day of school and Cline got this look on his face like his entire world had just suddenly changed in the blink of an eye. She was all he talked about for a week before he got the guts to ask her out at lunch. He did it with a note, because he didn’t want to be embarrassed if she said no. Which she did.”
Her eyes meet mine and there’s a sadness in the way her mouth is pulled so tight and how her eyes are narrowed. “She didn’t have to be such a total bitch about it, though. Showed everybody the note. Made him feel like an asshole for it. Like she was better than him.”
“Oh.” It’s really all I can say, because we’re twenty-one now, and that kind of stuff doesn’t matter anymore in the grand scheme of things. I doubt Cline even remembers it. But Audrey’s sitting here like she’s reliving it all over again for the first time.
“Told you I hated a girl named Kelsey once.” She smiles and shakes my shoulder roughly. “I stole her bra in P.E. She had to run a mile holding her boobs. Low key revenge for my best friend? Worth it.”
There are suddenly so many questions I want to ask. Like, how things could be that close between the two of them and then suddenly one day they were strangers who hated each other with no reason whatsoever. Was it a misunderstanding? Why had Audrey run away in the first place?
Before I can speak, Cline’s calling out that dinner is ready, and Audrey is out of the car holding out her hand for me to follow. So I do. The four of us sit in front of the fire with hotdogs on wires, trying to get them cooked and not burnt, but Cline keeps putting his too far into the flames, and he’s caught three consecutive wieners on fire.
“Don’t put it in so far,” September chides him, and he makes eye contact with me, his eyes wide and mouth open like he wants to make a dirty joke and it’s killing him not to.
I swallow my bite quickly to cut him off before he can do something stupid and say, “September is a really unique name. Did your parents name you after the month you were born?”