Page 68 of Summer After Summer

“What the fuck?”

“Throw me a sheet so I don’t fall off this wall.”

I reach back to my bed, pulling the sheet I was just tangled in from it, and dangle it out the window.

“Did you tie it to something?”

“You didn’t tell me to do that.”

“Shh. Someone will hear you.”

Part of me doesn’t care, but also, everyone else sleeps on the other side of the house and between the distance and the ocean, they wouldn’t hear anything unless we yell really loud.

“Hold on.” I take the other end of the sheet and tie it to the bedpost, then lean out the window again. “Okay.”

Fred wraps the sheet around his wrist and uses it to climb the last ten feet. I step back as he appears in the window. He’s dressed in dark jeans and a navy hoody, and with his dark hair, he looks like he’s ready for a caper.

“Can I come in?”

“Bit late to ask that now, isn’t it?”

I take a step back, then realize what I’m wearing. Basically nothing. I reach for a pair of shorts on the floor and slip them on while Fred finishes climbing in through the window. I sit on my bed, covering my legs with the quilt and crossing my arms across my chest.

Fred dusts himself off. There’s a twig caught in his hair. “Sorry about that.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“And the phone doesn’t work at your house?”

“It was too late to call.”

“Okay.”

Fred looks sheepish. “You want me to go?”

“I want to know what’s going on.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“You said.”

Fred holds his hands out. “This is hard for me, okay?”

“And it’s not hard for me?”

“You act so cool about everything.”

I almost laugh. “What are you talking about?”

He moves toward the bed and sits on the edge. “At the train station.”

“I was in shock.”

“And today at the funeral.”

I look away. “That’s where my mother’s funeral was.”

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