Page 9 of Only in Your Dreams

Shake, shake, shake.

“Mels, I’m begging you—” Summer’s hand darts out from the wheel, forcing my arm still. The green juice stops sloshing at once. “What is this stuff?”

I flip open the lip and take a swig. “My breakfast. Celery juice with a shot of turmeric—Connor’s recipe. I make it fresh every morning. That juicer is the one thing of Connor’s I snuck away in the breakup.”

“How sentimental,” Summer says with a chuckle. “And there I was, stealing my ex’s comfiest sweater as a memento. I ended up tossing it into a dumpster a week later, anyway, once it stopped smelling like him.”

It didn’t occur to me once, in my days of packing, to steal something that smelled of Connor.

There’s seriously something wrong with you.

I cast back, trying to remember when Summer’s last relationship ended. Two years ago? Three? God, I really isolated myself from my life here, didn’t I? It’s the problem with coming from a small town. There’s no way to keep in touch with the people you love while successfully avoiding those you don’t want to see.

“How’s playing the field?”

“Playing the field is exhausting,” she admits. “I’ve been stuck in an endless string of bad dates. I haven’t been on a second date in months.”

I rub my face. “Is that what I’m in for?”

Her mouth pulls sympathetically. “First things first: I think you need a rebound. A fling. Quick and dirty. Get your mind off Connor and get your mojo back. It was the perfect thing to get me back into the mindset of dating, after years of monogamy.”

Into the mindset of dating. After six years of feeling like I was the center of Connor’s world, it’s a mindset I never thought I’d have to revisit. I thought we were heading for an engagement, not an out-of-the-blue break up.

We zip down the freeway, taking the familiar road to the campsite Parker and I grew up going to with our parents, the same one we’d introduced to our friends in school. The first couple of years it was the four of us, plus Zac and Summer, going a couple of times a year. Eventually, Mom and Dad weaned themselves off the trips. We thought they’d been the coolest parents, trusting us and our friends to hang out in the woods alone, without cell service for a weekend.

After a while, we realized they were just as excited to have the time for themselves. They never really grew out of their sense of adventure, even after the birth of their twins. As exhibited by the way they promptly sold everything to live out of a silver Airstream RV and travel the country, the second Parker and I graduated college.

I used to love these camping trips. Back then, they were a glorious excuse to spend an uninterrupted forty-eight hours in Zac’s company. Now?

I’m so nervous, I already have to pee. Twenty-three minutes into the two-hour drive.

“So, who’s the new guy Parker says goes on these trips with you now?” I say with a sigh, taking a sip of juice.

Summer looks around. “Who, Brooks?”

“Probably. He didn’t mention him by name.”

“Wow, I forgot you wouldn’t have met him. Brooks has been around for years now,” she says. “He played at UOB with the guys, then went to the NFL for a few years. He’s great.”

“How’s it been, being the only girl around all these guys?”

Her laugh tells me everything I need to know. “I swear, I caught myself manspreading on a date, one night. And did you know there’s such a thing as televised video game competitions? Because I do, and I’m so happy to have you back.” She flicks on her blinker and speeds into the next lane. “Other than that, it’s like having three protective brothers bodyguard you through life. Parker cheers you up, Brooks sits with you for touchy-feely chats until the sun rises, and then there’s Zac…”

My stomach plummets at hearing his name thrown around so casually. Like it’s nothing.

Then again, itisnothing for Summer. I never told her—never told anyone—what happened that night in my bedroom.

Wait up for me, he’d told me ten years ago.

I had. I’d waited up all night. Chastised myself every time I felt tears start to well after the first hour. I’d waited until the damn sun came up, and then some more in the morning, until my dad loaded up his car with my luggage and drove me out to my new school.

I’d waited because it was Zac.

Maybe we hadn’t been as close as he and Parker had been. But I was the girl who brought him four-leaf clovers for good luck. That meant something to me. And the way he’d look at me when I twirled that green stem between my fingers, I’d thought it meant something to him too.

I’d fallen for him over that ten-minute ritual. It was our thing. This little secret between us, one of the few things in life I didn’t share with my twin.

I knew there was no way he felt the same, seeing as he rarely spoke to me outside of Parker’s company. But I thought he’d at least come to care for me in other ways.

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