Cruel Summer | ✓

chapter seven

The moment I leave the hotel on Friday morning, I get a sense that the weather is on the turn. I can feel it in the air: the blue of the sky isn't as bright as it was; the lake is less of a reflective mirror; the breeze isn't quite so gentle or warm. Yesterday was perfect: hot and dry all day, no humidity to frizz up my hair and make me sweat as I lay on the beach most of the morning and half of the afternoon. I finished the book. I can't remember the last time I finished a book in a day, and not only that, but I started a new one almost immediately afterwards, swinging from a cute sapphic romance that had me squirming to a creepy thriller that ... well, it also had me squirming, but not in a good way.

Today will not be a beach day, though. It's hot but when the breeze comes, it brings a chill. The threat of a storm. I can't stay in my hotel room — it's fine as somewhere to sleep, but not much else — so I get in my car and I head north. Not far. Only to the top of the lake, a fifteen minute drive from the center of Fisher. I've never driven here before, didn't get my license until after I graduated high school and Dad wouldn't let me drive in Idaho. Said I had to conquer Montana first. But I used to come out this way with Ashley and Connor, who both learned to drive the moment they were allowed.

Pine Lake is shaped kind of like an upside down heart, something I once pointed out to Connor and he laughed and said it was more like a pair of droopy, misshapen testicles. I can't unsee it now when I look at the map. When people talk about Pine Lake, they're talking about the left side. The right, while still technically Pine Lake, is home to Pine Cove and Ponderosa Bay and Heaven's Point and it is virtually undeveloped. There are a couple day camps over there; we see the kids sometimes on their day trips. There's an island, too. Duckstein Island, named after a former mayor of Fisher. Ten acres of rock and grass covered in trees and kind of hard to dock, but that never stopped us. It felt like our secret, boating up to the northern point of the lake and down the other side to our private haven. We came across it with Grayson one afternoon, when he took us out in the speedboat Uncle Harry rented every summer. After that, we'd borrow a rowboat from the dock of an empty cabin along the shore and Connor would be in charge of the oars

I can't go there now. I don't have access to a boat, but I can drive the long way round to the overlook. I cross over the river that feeds into Pine Lake from the mountains further north and climb the steeper road that curves around the easternmost side of the lake, until I'm up high enough that I can see Fisher. It's several miles away, separated from me by both sides of the lake and the state park that bisects the two, the pine covered trail that's perfect for picnicking and secret trysts and raucous games of hide and seek.

There's an old wooden sign that I don't need to be able to read to understand, pointing me to Fisher View. A rocky outcropping that juts into the lake and has an incredible view of the entire thing. All fifteen miles squared, from the hidden depths of Pine Cove to the long stretch of private docks that stretch up the shore from town. I can't see the one that belongs to Lou, the east shore of the main lake hidden by the trail's pines, but I can pinpoint exactly where it is. I know its view, even from here.

I take a picture with 0.5 zoom to capture as much of the lake as possible and I send it to The Three Musketeers.

I've missed this view :( not much of a view without you two, I text, sending a selfie of me pulling an exaggerated sad face. I do wish they were here, but the view is still phenomenal. I can see for miles, even though something is brewing in the air. The sky hasn't sunk low enough to steal the visibility yet and I want to make the most of it.

fuuuuuck i am so jealous, Connor texts. You'd better not get sick of the view before we're there! We WILL be returning to the lookout!

I'd forgotten that's what we nicknamed this place when Mom and Aunt Jessica first bundled a bunch of us into Mom's people carrier and brought us here fifteen years ago, if not more. Aunt Jessica gave us all a pair of binoculars. There must've been six of us — the three musketeers, who were probably giving her a headache, and I'd have thought Cole, Emmett, and Hudson were there too. The ones with the busiest brains, the most imagination, who needed the most entertainment. She gave us a checklist of things to find with our binoculars. The beach; the secret cove; the ice cream parlor; the shipwreck.

It kept us entertained for a long time. Especially considering there's no shipwreck. I mean, we should have figured that out — it's a lake in the middle of Idaho. Imagine the shock of the adults, then, when Connor yelled out that he found it. Mom double checked, squinting into the binoculars before passing them to Aunt Jessica. Turns out, Connor wasn't far wrong. Earlier that year, an old rowboat from one of the day camps had come loose from its mooring during a storm and had crashed on the rocks at the base of Fisher View.

I don't have any binoculars with me but I know where to look and the zoom on my cell phone's camera helps. It's been a long time, but there's still evidence of the battered wooden boat. I take a blurry picture and add it to the group chat.

ship ahoy!

Connor is still there. He texts, I can't wait to get out on the lake again with you guys. Picnic on duckstein island?

I am IN! Ashley says. How is it?? Is it weird being back?

Kinda weird, it's making me realize most of the fun came from being with you guys.

Excuse me, MOST OF? I think you mean all, she replies. PS i cannot believe that old tire swing is still there, that's awesome

There's no-one else around. It's incredible to sit here with this view, feeling like the queen of the world up here. I can hear distant noises, the kind that carry on the wind and the water — people on the beaches on this side of the lake, people on the trailhead, kids at the camps along this shore that will close up in a couple days — and I close my eyes, reveling in the last of the day's heat. It's only midday but I can feel the evening drawing in already, the way the sky is slowly darkening. It has taken on a grayer hue, the clouds starting to knit together. If I'm not careful, I'll get caught in a downpour.

Five more minutes.

Do you guys remember lou from next door? I ask, chewing at the skin around my thumb as I wait for a reply.

You mean your brother's crush's extremely beautiful mother? Ashley replies almost immediately. Another thing that bonded the three of us: we all turned out to be the gay cousin. Three out of twelve, not too bad a ratio. That whole ten percent statistic is bullshit.

Yeah lol that's the one. She's still in her cabin, we went for drinks a couple nights ago

OMG is she still hot?? Ashley asks.

Even hotter

Connor sends three nose emojis in a row. I send back a series of question marks, to which he says: I smell a summer romance ;)

Pretty sure she's straight lmao but a girl can yearn right?? Going over to hers for dinner tonight

She invited you to dinner? After you guys went for drinks?? Like a date??

Ashley loves question marks.

More like she invited me to come to a friend dinner she already had planned, I say, though I get a frisson of excitement at Ashley's misinterpretation. Crushes must be terrible for the heart, all this adrenaline and stress and fucking fluttering.

Connor pipes up then: ash maybe we shouldn't go next week, wouldn't wanna be the 3rd and 4th wheels while charlies trying to screw the milf next door

True true we might get in the way charlie :/ whats more important — milfs or cousisn?

I purposely don't reply for a while. I set my phone face down on the ground and sit with my arms wrapped around my knees. I'm back in my own clothes today, leggings and a t-shirt and a spare sweater in the back for when it inevitably cools, and although I'm comfortable, I do kind of miss the girly side that came out of me when I wore that soft, flowy fabric.

CHARLOTTE MILLER I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU CHOOSE A MILF OVER YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD YOU ARE #CANCELLED

That's the first of Ashley's texts that I see when I check the group chat again. There are several before that, mostly gifs of increasing rage.

Sorry i was daydreaming what were you saying

Sort yourself out before next week u horny bitch, Ashley says. Connor laughs. I do too. She isn't wrong. I need to get a grip.

*

do you have any family members you're close to like charlie is with her cousins? although i have loads of cousins, i'm not that close to most of them unfortunately - mostly because of geography! i'd love to have the kind of banter she has!