The summer

Chapter One

We've been driving for about seven thousand years at least that's how I felt. My sister, Mikasa, drove slower then are Granna. I sat next to her in the passenger seat with my feet up on the dashboard. Meanwhile Armin in the rest of them where in the backseat passed out. Even when he slept, he always looked alert, like at any second he could wake up and direct traffic. 

"Go faster." I urge Mikasa, poking her in the shoulder. "let's pass that kid on the bike."

Mikasa shrugged me off. "Never touch the driver,"  she said. "And take your dirty feet off my dashboard."
I wiggle my toes back and forth. They look pretty clean to me. "It's  not your dashboard. It's gonna be my car soon, you know."

" If you ever get your license," Jean scoffed. "People like you shouldn't be allowed to drive."

"Hey, look." I said, pointing out the window. "That old guy in a wheelchair just lapped us!"

Mikasa ignore me, and so I started fiddling with the radio. One of my favorite things about going to the beach was radio stations. I was familiar with them as I was with the ones back home, and listening today Q84 made me just really know inside that I was there at the beach.

My favorite station, the one that put everything from pop to oldies to hip-hop. Jaymes young was singing "Habits of my heart". I sang right along with him. "In a dark room, in cold sheets. I can't feel a damn thing. I lost myself between your legs, your medicine is in my head... you know I rather be alone, but then you call me on my phone." Jean reached to switch the stations, and i slapped his hand away. "Eren, your voice makes me want to run this car into the ocean." Mikasa pretended to swerve right.

I sang even louder, which woke up Armin and everyone else they start to sing to. We all had terrible voices, and Jean shook his head in his disgusted Jean way. He hated being outnumbered but the thing was he was always outnumbered.

We drove through the town slowly, even though I just tease Mikasa about it. I didn't really mind. I love this drive, this moment. Seeing the town again, Jimmy's Crab Shack, the Putt Putt, all the surf shops. It was like coming home after you've been gone a long, long time. It held a million promises of summer and of what might just be.

As we got closer and closer to the house, I could feel the familiar flutter in my chest. We were almost there.

I rolled my window down and took it all in. The air tasted just the same, smelled just the same. The wind making my hair feel sticky, salty sea breeze, all if it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to get there.

Jean elbowed me. "Are you thinking about Levi?" He asked mockingly.
For once the answer was no. "No." I snapped.

Armin stuck his head in between are deadly glares. "Eren, do you still like Levi? From the looks of things last time...I thought you would be over him."

"What? You and Levi." Mikasa look sickened." What happened with you and Cam?"

"Nothing."  I told them both I could feel the anger rising up from my chest. "Mikasa, just because you used to be good friends it doesn't mean there's anything going on. Please never bring that up again."

Everyone leaned back into their seats. "Done," she said. Her voice had that note of finality that I knew Jean wouldn't be able to break through.

Because he was Jean, he tried anyway. "What happened with you in cam? You can't say something like that and not explain."

"Get over it," I told him. Telling Steven anything will only give him ammunition  to make fun of me. And anyway, there was nothing to tell. There had never been anything to tell, not really.

He just broke my heart that's all.

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When we finally pulled up to the house, Hanji and Levi were sitting out in the porch. I leaned over Mikasa and honked the horn twice, which in me and Hanji's summer language meant, come get the bags, stat.

Hanji was eighteen now. She'd just had a birthday. She was taller than last summer, if you can believe it. Her hair still in a messy ponytail and was as dark.as ever. Unlike Levi, whose hair had gotten shorter and he now had an undercut. When he was younger he always had long hair. But Hanji and Erwin had convinced him that crust made his hair fall out, so Levi stopped eating sandwhich crust, and Hanji and Erwin would Polish them off. As Levi got older, though, his hair got shorter and shorter. I missed his long hair.

Hanji made a megaphone with her hands and yelled, "Freckled Jesus!"

I sat in the car and watched Marco amble to them and hug them. The air smelled salty and wet, like it might rain seawater any second. I pretended to be trying the laces on my sneackers, but really I just wanted a moment to look at Levi. At the house for a little while, in private before I visit my mothers room.  The house was large and gray and white, and looked like most every other house on the road, but better. It looked just the way I thought a beach house should look. It looked like home.

I got out of the car and slung my bag over my shoulder. They didn't even notice me walk.up at first. But then they did. Levi gave me a quick glance and took my bag out of my hand. Hanji, on the other hand, did a double take. She looked at me. All if this happened in a span of three seconds, but felt like much, much longer.

Hanji gave me a hug first, and almost cut of my air supply. And then Levi and me began to walk to my room.

"Something looks different about you, Eren."

I braced myself for a punch line. "What? I got contacts." I wasn't completely used to myself without glasses either. My best friend Armin had been trying to convince me to get contacts since the sixth grade, and I'd finally listened.

"He said it make my unnatural eyes POP!" I said with the same hand motions he used.

He smirked. "Oh."

We headed straight for my bedroom. And then he left me to unpack. My room was My Moms room from when she was a child. It faded calico wallpaper and a white bedroom set. There was a music box I loved. When you opened it, there was a twirling ballerina that danced to the theme song from Romeo and Juliet, the old-timey version. My mother kept all her jewelry in the box. Everything about the my room was old and faded, but I loved that about it. It felt like there might be secrets in the walls, in the four-posted bed, espically in that music box.