Page 14 of The Summer I Destroyed You

My gaze jerks toward him. “What’s that?”

“She was a year behind us,” Pete says. “Let’s just say she was…pleasantly plump.”

They all laugh a little too hard. I’m annoyed, but it’s not as if Emerson hasn’t recovered and then some. “The only thing I heard was that you think I’m hot.” If I hadn’t been pissed at her, I’d have laughed.

“Man,” says another guy, “you remember how mean Bradley was to her all the time? The shit they did at homecoming?”

Pete turns to me. “They fucking tortured her for her weight,” he says, laughing harder than he already was. “Jesus Christ, it was so mean but so funny.”

I stare at them, dumbfounded. Why the fuck are they laughing? Even if Emerson was as awful to all of them as she is to me, she didn’t deserve this.

I set my beer down hard. “You just had a daughter,” I say to Pete, “yet you’re laughing about some girl getting tortured for her weight like it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Chill, bro,” he says, raising his brow at the other guys. “It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s pretty sad that you thought it was funny a long time ago, and it’s fucking pathetic that you still do. Grow the fuck up.”

I walk out of the bar, texting Holly to suggest the diner instead.

I’m not sure what bothers me more…how many people apparently treated Emerson like garbage, or the fact I’ve kind of become one of them.

* * *

Holly is in a tight, corset-style halter and heels, dressed for a bar, not the diner. I feel bad for changing the plan, and I feel worse about the fact that when I look at her and all the effort she’s made, I still prefer the terrible Emerson Hughes as she was today, straight from a workout in a crop top and bike shorts, pushing her sweaty hair out of her face.

Holly talks a lot about her kids and asks me a few questions about my work that don’t reflect much genuine interest. I’m into surfing and she’s into something called “collaging.” I like true crime documentaries while she has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of reality dating shows. I’m struggling to find any overlap, and it shouldn’t matter anyway. So what if she doesn’t surf? So what if she talks about her kids a lot? It’s not like I’d want to end up with a woman who didn’t talk about her kids. But it is entirely predictable, my boredom. That’s why I told my sister I wasn’t interested in the first place—why I was edging away from this woman before we’d even gotten started.

“It’s so hard to date around here,” Holly is saying. “I feel like everyone’s already married or I’ve dated them before. I’m tired of looking. I just want someone to grow old with.”

“Yeah,” I say absently. “I know what you mean.” And I do, but there’s something a little off-putting about Holly’s desperation. It’s the opposite of Emerson, from whom I tried repeatedly to get even a hint of interest to no avail.

Shouldn’t you be out drinking cosmos and hunting for a man? I’d asked her when she’d texted late on a Friday.

That’s an unprofessional question, she’d replied. And you should realize by now that I don’t need to hunt. I just wait for things to get trapped in my web.

I’d laughed. I’d wanted to ask what she hoped to trap and what she might do with it once it was caught. I liked the fact that if my answer wasn’t amusing enough, she’d cut me down to size.

I’m not sure what it says about me that I prefer Emerson’s mild abuse to sitting across from a pretty girl who wants to talk about her collages and kids. But as I pay the check, all I want is to see her safely to her car so I can stop faking it.

“You live nearby, right?” Holly asks when we reach her door. “I’d love to see your place.” A year ago, it wouldn’t have mattered that I was bored—I’d have taken her home with me. But I’ve changed since I fell through the roof. Realizing you’ve got no one looking out for you, that it could be days before anyone notices you are missing, made me crave something more in a way I never did before.

I want to settle down. I’m just unwilling to settle to make it happen.

“I’ve got an early morning,” I reply. “But this was fun. Thanks for coming out and sorry I changed the plan.”

She steps close and raises her face to me, expecting a goodnight kiss.

I don’t even want to do that much, but now her eyes are closed so I let my mouth brush hers and step away, waiting until she’s in her car before I turn toward my truck and check my texts.

There are messages from JP, from Bridget, from Caleb.

It makes no sense that I wish I had a message from a girl I don’t even like.

10

EMMY

I deliver my mother to the hospital early the next morning.

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