Page 4 of A Summer to Save Us

His words seem cruel to me. Kensington is hell , I want to shout, but the distance between me and the world is too great.

I’m trapped in my silence. I haven’t spoken in so long, and moving from one world to the other is simply too difficult.

I can’t bring the inside and the outside together; my body is blocking it, and my soul even more so.

My eyes are burning. Dad, please, I’m not doing this on purpose! I type, but he doesn’t read that either.

“I don’t know what to do with you anymore,” he says in that hopeless, resigned tone that always pulls the rug out from under me. He considers me a burden and a loser. Even worse, a liar.

I press my nails firmly into my palm, the sharp pain exploding from the wounds that never heal.

With a shake of his head, he takes one last look at me and then simply leaves me standing there.

My mind is blank. I have to go to summer school with Chester Davenport and the Hills.

My stomach churns, and I barely make it to the guest bathroom to throw up.

I get to the car five minutes late, and James complains, saying I was “deliberately dawdling,” then drives off as soon as I close the door. The taste of stomach acid burns in my mouth, and I take a sip of water to neutralize it.

I’d like to play hooky today, but Principal Thompson would probably call Dad.

And because I’m absent so often, I have to present a doctor’s note every time.

No, that won’t work. Dad would be pissed off, and I might end up getting some community service thrown at me by the school administration and having to spend even more time at Kensington.

But I can’t manage today. I still feel numb. The words summer school hover over my head like the sword of Damocles. Only through a haze do I notice Arizona in the passenger seat, complaining about the canceled tour.

“Twenty concerts, James! How can they cancel twenty concerts just like that? And not a word about it online. How did they manage to keep it a secret?”

“Doesn’t that stupid band keep everything secret? Even their identity?”

Arizona takes a deeper breath than usual, probably annoyed. “Not everything. Asher Blackwell is being treated in a clinic near Minneapolis... You can imagine what it’s about.”

“And what’s it about?” James sounds like a therapist again, asking How does that make you feel? Of course, after all, he’s talking to Arizona!

She snorts. “Alcohol and drugs, of course. What else, Jamesville? It’s always like that with rock stars, isn’t it?

I just don’t believe it. Demons ’N Saints cancel tour due to personal illness.

Oh, man!” She taps her forehead. “What a stupid word that is. Illness. Say it fifteen times in a row, and it doesn’t even sound like a word!

” She glances over her shoulder, and for a moment, a crazy part of me hopes she’s smiling at me, but apparently, turning was merely an old habit.

She knows that I love beautiful and strange words.

Just a year ago, she would write something in my little notebook— Kansas’s Strange & Beautiful Words: A Collection —every now and then.

She did it in the evenings after dinner, when she came to my room to tell me about her latest love interest. Most of the time, she sat cross-legged on my bed in her striped over-the-knee stockings, her wet hair wrapped in an oversized towel, and a pencil between her teeth as if she had to think hard.

I’m certain she thought about the words beforehand.

· Whopper (What is a whop?)

· Longanimity (Long-time patience? Is there a short one?)

· Nature’s call (Yuck–disgusting!)

These are the last entries in my book to receive the weird stamp from her, but that was over a year ago. Since then, neither she nor I have collected any additional words or sayings. I assume that if she were still talking to me today, she would add indisposition to it.

I feel that pang of loss in my chest again, but Arizona has already turned back to James as if her fleeting glance over her shoulder meant nothing.

With trepidation, I stare out the window, wishing I were Arizona and that an indisposed Asher Blackwell was my only problem.

I deliberately read the signs on the side of the road to distract myself from the school day ahead.

Flint Oil Industry, the oil refinery where James, Ari, and I often secretly biked to.

With a ton of H?agen-Dazs Cookies & Cream, we marveled at the pipelines, tank farms, and chimneys until late into the night.

In the wild green flickering lights, the steel distillation towers shone like a magical portal to another world.

From the refinery, we often walked to the Old Sheriff, the disused railway bridge where we sometimes played as children. It was forbidden, of course.

I blink.

Dan Applebee’s Burger & Grill, the Hills’ hot spot. Rose Garden Clinic, the hospital group where my dad works as a cardiologist and Chester’s father is Chief of Staff and Medical Director.

I inhale deeply. I can’t cope today. But if I don’t go, everything will only get worse.

Community service means having to stay at Kensington until the evening, and Dad won’t cancel summer school.

Once he’s made a decision, it’s irrevocable—like when he stopped saying Mom’s name and destroyed all pictures of her.

I was only able to save that one photo on my nightstand from the front yard fire.

I swallow and stop digging my nails into my burning palm like a crazy woman. I carefully open my fist and glance at my left hand. It’s scarred and calloused. One wound festers while the other oozes.

“Oh my god!” Arizona exclaims abruptly, and at first, I think she’s referring to the condition of my hand. I quickly slide it under my thigh, but Arizona continues. “Last night, in a smokescreen operation, Ben Adams broke out of a detention center near Minneapolis. That’s nearby.”

“Who the hell is Ben Adams?”

Arizona sighs and taps the newspaper on her lap. “The picture is of some young, handsome guy with a hipster beard. He’s probably armed. He tunneled out of his cell and then rappelled down. Wanted for hostage-taking and extortion.”

An engine roars before a black Porsche shoots by us. Chester’s Porsche. I recognize it by the S-shaped scratch on the rear.

Let me out at the corner of Cottage and Lincoln , I type on my phone and hold it up to James at the next red light.

“Why?” He looks at me suspiciously in the rearview mirror, and he almost looks like Dad with his wild black curls.

I’m meeting someone, and we’ll walk the rest of the way! I type.

He sighs, as if he sees through the lie. “I’ll drive you to your school and nowhere else. If I let you out at the Lincoln, you’ll be late.”

I have a date!!! I type with three exclamation points, a feeling of panic rising in my chest. I can’t go to school. My shields aren’t working today.

The traffic light turns green, and he shakes his head.

He doesn’t even ask who I’m meeting since he doesn’t believe the lie. After all, I don’t have any friends. And who would want to meet Kansas Montgomery?

As James stoically speeds down the main road, I frantically think about what to do. I hate how they always disregard me like an unwanted phone call, so that’s why I wave my phone in James’ face.

Out of the blue, they both scream.

“Shit!”—“Watch out!”

Brakes squeal. A hard jolt catapults me forward, and my head hits the headrest of the passenger seat.

“Holy shit, Kansas! Are you crazy?” James snaps at me.

Startled, I sit up and rub my forehead.

James looks grimly from me to the road, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“It’s not her fault he hopped in front of your car. Death wish or something,” Arizona defends me for once, and I hear the shock in her voice. “Luckily, you didn’t hit him.”

“She distracted me with her fucking cell phone!”

I slide a little to the middle, lean forward, and look at the young man who was apparently the reason for the hard braking.

He stands to the right of the hood and peers through the windshield.

Dark, narrowed eyes examine us one by one, and even though his blond hair hangs over his face, you can clearly see that the dude would like to roast us alive.

For a moment, I have déjà vu, as if I’ve seen him somewhere before, but if I had, it wouldn’t be a good memory.

“Do you know him?” Arizona’s voice sounds a bit too shrill.

“No.” James gets out. “Are you okay?” he asks the blond.

The scowling guy doesn’t reply but continues to stare intently into the interior of the car as if he has completely forgotten where he is.

“Good Lord, he’s got a mix of rebel and surfer charm,” Arizona whispers to herself in awe. “Definitely a Hill.”

Hill is what she calls the super-rich Kensington types who live in the hilly west side of Cottage Grove.

Guys like Chester, Hunter, and Zachery. All the shitheads she’s into.

But Mr. Gloomy Eyes wears jeans and a T-shirt, not the usual checkered trousers and Burberry polo that make the Hills always look as if they’re going straight to the golf course after school.

When I suddenly find myself face-to-face with him, I instinctively slide back a little. My heart suddenly beats faster.

“Hey, are you okay?” James asks, louder. “Do you need help?”

The blond moves to the side without paying attention to James.

He slowly crouches. Only then do I notice the chaotic mess spread across the curb and the side of the road—ropes, some mechanical junk, carabiners, and strange-looking seatbelt straps.

Not something needed at school, but he seems too old to be a student.

Before I can think about it any further, several cars behind us honk. I glance through the rear window. We’re in the middle of the road, causing a traffic jam.

“Okay, then!” James shrugs, getting back in and slamming the door. “By the way, Arizona, Sigmund Freud called it the death instinct, not death wish.”

Mr. Gloomy Eyes is still kneeling dangerously close to the car, collecting the contents of his backpack. He doesn’t seem to care if he gets run over.

“No matter what drove him, did you see that look? Like he wanted to stab us. So sexy... Oh, man, a definite ten!”

James ignores her and gives me a bitter look.

“Put your phone away, now! I’m taking you to Kensington, no argument!

I’ll call Dad and tell him you wanted to skip again.

Maybe he’ll come by personally to check on you.

” His eyes sparkle. “Don’t look at me like I’m the monster!

You only have yourself to blame for this.

It’s no wonder you have no friends when you steal from your classmates.

” Shaking his head, he accelerates and then says, “I sometimes wonder where my little sister went. What happened to you? Do you still understand her, Ari?”

Arizona doesn’t reply, doesn’t say anything in my defense.

My hands are shaking, and I bite my bottom lip hard. I’ll get through it. Maybe Mom was right after all. Maybe I just have to wait long enough, and then everything will be okay.