Cruel Summer | ✓

chapter four

I'm re-energized when I wake up the next morning, both from the incredible ten-hour sleep I had and the buzz of something to look forward to. There hasn't been much of that recently, more like things to dread and things to worry about. But my two favorite cousins coming to see me in nine days? That fills me with a newfound lust for life, something to get hyped about. I love being excited. There's nothing better than having plans on the horizon, especially the type of plans that give me jittery anticipation as though electricity is coursing through me. This is what I have craved. I literally haven't felt like this since I was here before; there's something in the air, I swear. Nothing bad can happen in Fisher.

There's a pep in my step when I leave the hotel and swing by Cafe Au Late. Riley isn't behind the counter this morning but I recognize the woman in the baby blue apron, who bears such a striking resemblance to Riley that I'm sure it's her mother I'm being served by. I try their peanut butter iced coffee, two things I would never choose to put together but it works so well. Takeout cup in hand, I head to the grocery store and stock up on snacks for a day of exploring. I fill my tote bag with grapes and strawberries and raspberries and try not to wince at how much fruit costs, especially compared to the sleeve of cookies and the chips and dip. A couple of tinned iced coffees and a bottle of water, a bag of trail mix, and my total comes to over thirty-five dollars. I will not survive two weeks here.

Our old lake house is a little over a mile from the center of town, along a path through the pines. Each one is set on a half acre plot of land with its own dock and its own patch of beach, the trees affording privacy from the road that leads to the state park north of the cabins and shade from the sun that beats down on the lake all day. Some are spread out and some are cozied up next to the neighbors' cabins; ours was half and half. To the south of Uncle Harry's old property is a thicket of trees, a hundred meters separating it from the next cabin. The other side is a shared fence, joining it at the hip to the cabin next door.

I'm sweating by the time I reach the dusty road leading to the secluded line of homes. Most of my water is already gone and my tank top is sticking to my back, my checked shirt long since tied around my waist, and I've only been out of the air conditioning for thirty minutes. The weather here has nothing on the heat of Austin, where it's easily fifteen degrees hotter, but I don't usually spend so much time outside. Probably the reason behind the funk I've been in recently. The last couple of years have been spent traveling between my job and my apartment, not walking a mile in the height of summer, and I've grown unaccustomed to the sun on my face, uneven ground beneath my feet. I run, but that's either on the treadmill (Gaby's gym never realized we were sharing her membership code) or before the sun has reached its full heat. I can't believe I used to live in dollar store flip-flops: this terrain is killing me in sneakers. Granted, I've had them virtually since I last saw this place and the soles are so worn that if I step on slightly damp ground, I get a wet sock.

I have no game plan. There could be a family in the cabin. They might see me through the window and call the cops and I'll get hauled away for trespassing because I got a bit nostalgic. The new owners could have changed the place. Could have knocked it down entirely and started fresh, building their own memories from the foundation up and erasing any trace of the years my family spent here.

But then I'm there. Number 3, Ponderosa Way. The lights are off, no car in the driveway. The place locked up for the end of the season, the porch brushed down. My stomach squeezes tight, a desperate ache in my heart because I should be able to walk up to the front door and open a portal to the past. I want to step inside and step back in time, back to three happy families before we became eighteen distant beings, spread out across the country without even a group chat tying us all together.

The place looks small. The last six years have shrunk it. It doesn't look big enough for our three families, all eighteen of us spilling out of the doors, crammed into a six-bed cabin and making it work. The couples got a room each, leaving three for the twelve of us kids to fight over, plus the attic. Ashley and I always ended up there, the best deal of the lot of them, a poky little room with two single beds shoved against the sloping wall and the best view of the lake. When we were younger, Connor would sleep on the trundle bed until we grew up and learned self-awareness and made him share with Grayson and Cole instead.