Blue Letter Night

1. Beth Is Sulking

My only hope for the day was that— by some miraculous turn of events— the car containing the purest form of douche bag, set to arrive at three pm, would be struck by lightning before it arrived. But, to my great dismay, the sky was nothing but a clean sheet of blue, and showed no signs of striking jerks down in their paths. Now my only hope was to survive the summer with my sanity, bones, and self esteem all still intact.

"Oh don't sulk like that, Beth. It's not a good look for you," Anne made note of my moping position from the doorway, my back curved forward so my head could rest on my desk. my eyes were glued to the skyward view out my window, a light breeze brushed against my nose and tousled my hair, relieving me momentarily from the summer heat.

"That's right," I agreed, my head not leaving the desk, "Im not sulky; I never indulge in any sulking, so I'm taking this opportunity to get some optimum sulking in," Anne's snort in response was now coming from the direction of the bed.

"Say 'sulk' one more time. And maybe things have changed," Anne tried to assure me, "maybe he's hot now," this time I snorted, and pushed my face off the desk, while using the momentum to whirl around on my spiny desk chair, and face Anne who was sitting on the bed. The wind blew my hair forward.

Anne looked like she had been made to live in a world where it was only summer. Now that it was summer, her skin was considerably dark, her shorts were considerably short, and her attitude was considerably chipper.

"Wouldn't matter," I stated marching over to the bed, taking a seat next to Anne, "Mason Carter could be a swim suite model and I wouldn't care because he would still be a jerk," it had been ten years sense I had seen the Carter family, save for Macy carter. When they moved a couple of states away I thought I was finished with Mason but, as fate would cruelly have it, the Carter's were moving back to Stanmore. Even more cruel was Mason needed a place to stay while his parents traveled back and forth to move their belongings from one town to another. Machelle, Anne's mom and my god parent, had a twisted sense of humour and agreed to let Mason stay with us for the summer. She said it was a favour to her best friend Macy Carter, who was finally moving close to her again. In reality, Anne and I just figured she wanted something interesting to happen to keep her and the neighbours entertained and, frankly, I didn't half blame her considering nothing ever considerable happened in Stanmore.

"Don't be dramatic, that's my thing. And besides, maybe you guys could be, I don't know, friends," Anne suggested.

"You're right. About the dramatic part, not about the friends part," I agreed, "I can be civil about this, but that doesn't mean I need to be friends with him,"

"Exactly! Wow I feel so powerful— it's not every day I'm right," Anne revelled falling back to lay on my bed, "besides, all that stuff was years ago, we were what? Seven?"

"Ugh," I laid down next to her, the fabric on my comforter cool on my sweaty shoulders, "Remember when he locked me in the shed,"

Anne chuckled.

"And when you washed his lucky socks with the hose, while he was still in them," we both laughed along to the nostalgic antics that made up the childhood rivalry between Mason and I.

"Anne, be honest with me" my tone was serious as I studied the ceiling.

"Hmm?"

"Is this summer going to suck?" Anne laughed but was interrupted by Machelle's voice.

"They're here! Come downstairs!" Machelle was antsy, you could tell by the sound of her pacing down stairs and the excited tone of her shouting.

"Here we go," I said to Anne.