After Last Summer
by Morgan Want
My school never seemed to change, even after two-and-a-half months of summer break. There were “Welcome Back!” posters and club sign-ups plastered around the halls, but those would gradually disappear to show the same old scuff marks on the walls and lockers. It would be like I never left, and in some ways, that was how I liked it. It was like reuniting with an old friend, and that was what I needed to feel when I walked in for my first day of eighth grade, especially after the summer I’d had.
“Angie!”
Heads turned in the hall as one of my actual friends, Stella, ran up to me, alongside two others, Tally and Chloe. They piled on top of me in one big group hug.
“It’s good to see you guys, too,” I managed to say, in between gasping for breath.
“Isn’t it?” Chloe squealed. “We missed you so much over the summer!”
“I missed you guys, too,” I said, as I wriggled out of the pile-up. “Talking on the phone definitely isn’t as much fun as you guys!”
“I know! So much happened while you were gone!” Tally said. “ I couldn’t type it all out over text last night! And you’ll have to tell us what all is going on with you! Since you’re not living with your grandma anymore, does that mean your parents are back together — ouch!”
Stella flicked Tally on the back of the neck and shook her head. Tally’s face turned scarlet. “Sorry,” she murmured, rubbing her neck. “Rude question.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “Mom and I found our own apartment in town so I wouldn’t have to change schools. You can – you can, you know, come over anytime you want, once we’ve got everything unpacked, I mean — it’s still kind of a work in progress — but Mom missed you guys a lot, too.”
The silence stretched taut between us, then Chloe smiled. “That sounds great.”
“Just let us know when you’re ready to have us,” Stella said. “We’ll even help you unpack, if you want.”
I smiled now, too. I’d really missed my friends. Grandma lived in a different town, so I hadn’t seen them — or anyone from school — all summer. But her house was the only place Mom knew of that was both big enough for us to stay without being an inconvenience, and where she wouldn’t have to pay rent. I think that last part was the biggest reason we didn’t move out sooner; there was no point in signing a lease when she was convinced Dad would come after us any day. He never did, though. I knew he wouldn’t. After all the screaming matches he and Mom had, he looked almost relieved the day she turned to me and told me to pack a bag.
“That sounds really great,” I said. “Mom’s pretty busy with her new job, so we’ve mostly been unpacking on Saturdays. Sundays are good too, when we get home from church, but you guys could come with us, if you want. We could make a day of it.”
“Oh, when did you start going to church?” Stella asked.
“We just started going with Grandma when we moved in with her,” I said. “And we decided to look for a church in town when we got back.”
Tally whistled. “Wow, we did miss a lot while you were gone.”
I shrugged. There was a little more to the story, but I wasn’t sure how to go about telling it yet. Grandma did ask us to go to church with her on Sundays, but it wasn’t conditional for us to live with her. We didn’t even go the first couple of weeks we stayed with her. It ended up being Mom’s idea; she said maybe it was time to “change things up.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that at the time. I just assumed she was depressed from sitting around Grandma’s house all day with nothing to do but complain about my dad. All I knew was that her new church-going habit killed half the day every Sunday.
“Hey!” Tall nudged me with her elbow and pointed. “There’s someone who will make you feel better about your life.”
She was pointing at Vanessa Kane, another girl in our class. She wasn’t even fourteen yet, but she was already nearly six feet tall — taller than some of the boys — and since she was part of the year-round community swim team, she always smelled faintly of chlorine. Her would-be light blonde hair had a green tint that reminded me of seaweed.
“Oh, yeah,” Stella snorted. “Looks like the Loch Ness Monster’s resurfaced.” Vanessa didn’t turn to look at us or give any sign she heard us, but I saw the back of her neck turn red as she walked away. Then I realized I was blushing too.
“Hey, come on, guys —”
“Come on, what?” Tally said, nudging me again and grinning. “It’s just Nessy. She knows how to take a joke.”
I hesitated. It had never felt wrong to make fun of Nessy — Vanessa — before. Everyone in our class did, but my friends and I were the first ones to call her the Loch Ness Monster.
“Y-yeah, you’re right, she can,” I stammered. “But, come on, it’s our first day back. Maybe we could ease up a little?”
The three of them looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.
“You didn’t leave your sense of humor at your grandma’s, did you?” Chloe asked.
Stella and Tally laughed. I forced myself to laugh with them, but there was a twisted feeling in my chest I couldn’t shake, the same one I got when I couldn’t think of the right answer on a test. For some reason, it felt like I was doing something wrong by laughing with my friends.
*
I knew exactly when I started to change. One especially hot Sunday, the AC at Grandma’s church was out. Instead of zoning out, like usual, during the sermon, I was actually paying attention as I sweated next to Mom in the pew, if only to distract myself from the heat. The preacher read something that stuck with me; it was almost as if he’d somehow been saving it up for the moment I’d be listening: “I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.”
As soon as I heard that, a thought hit me like a slap to the back of the head: I couldn’t remember the last time anyone said they loved me. Dad hadn’t stopped Mom and me from leaving, and when they were together, they were too busy fighting to acknowledge me. Even my friends and I didn’t really say stuff like that to each other. I was precious to no one, and I couldn’t imagine anyone trading their life for me. But I wanted to understand what those words meant. I dragged out Grandma’s old family Bible later to look them up.
I made it to the end of the summer before I was willing to accept that there was someone who once gave His life for me. That He did love me, and always would. The pain I felt when my parents split up was still there, but it seemed smaller compared to that love. Everything did. But I noticed something else: things that didn’t used to bother me suddenly did, like the way my friends treated Vanessa.
But I had known them since elementary school, so it didn’t take us long to fall back into our old routines. We sat together at lunch and in class, and the day they came to see the new apartment, they acted as if we’d always lived there. I loved them for that. If things were different between us now, I could ignore it, until the day Chloe found Vanessa’s notebook under her homeroom desk.
“Hey, look at this,” she whispered. “It’s got Nessy’s name on it.”
I wanted to say we should give it back, but Tally grabbed it before I had the chance.
“Let me see that!” she said. “I hear she takes really good notes.”
“Sure,” said Chloe. “I’d rather you copied her homework than mine, for once.”
“Seriously, Tally,” Stella said. “I’ve got dibs on Chloe’s homework!”
Okay, this is fine, I thought. They just want to look at her notes. That’s not really wrong. Vanessa would probably let us, if we asked.
“Looks like she’s been writing in the margins,” Tally said, flipping through it. “Check this out: ‘Vanessa plus Ryan.’ She even drew a little heart around it.”
“How cute,” Stella said dryly. “Like anyone would ever hook up with her. And doesn’t Ryan have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, Paula, in the grade below us,” said Tally. “You should see her, she’s got a waist like a tree trunk. Vanessa might actually be an improvement for him. Can you imagine what Paula would say if she saw this? It might actually be funny.”
“Battle of the beasts,” Chloe snickered.
“Okay, guys, knock it off,” I blurted out.
They all looked at me.
“What? We’re just joking,” Tally snapped. “Don’t get all high and mighty on us, Angie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Forget it,” Stella said, glaring at Tally. “She already told you we were just joking.”
“No, no, I want to know what you meant by ‘high and mighty,’” I said. “Is that how you think I act? Just because I don’t think it’s funny to say mean things about people behind their backs, or go through their things without asking?”
“Yes,” Tally said, her face bright red. “Because you say stuff like that, when you say anything at all. You don’t ever laugh about anything anymore. You just look at us whenever we try to joke around about anyone. It’s like you turned into a different person over the summer. You used to be more fun.”
“Sorry my parents splitting up turned me into such a downer,” I said. “I’ll try to cheer up.”
“That’s not what we mean,” Stella said.
I knew what they did mean though, and Tally was right. I was a different person, but it wasn’t just because of my parents.
“We know you’ve been having a hard time,” Chloe said. “We didn’t mean to bite your head off, but you kind of ripped into us first. It’s not like we were really going to give the notebook to Paula, but so what if we did? She wouldn’t really do anything to Nessy, and Nessy would get over it. She always does.”
How do you know that? I wanted to ask. But the truth was, I didn’t know Vanessa well, or Paula. I’d known my friends most of my life. Was it worth risking our relationship for them?
“This is stupid,” Tally said, slamming the notebook shut. “If we’re going to fight about it, I’ll just throw the stupid notebook in the trash.”
“Whatever,” Stella said. “Just get rid of it.”
I looked at the three of them. They were bullies. Thinking about my friends that way felt as bad as cursing them, but it was the truth. And before this summer, I was just like them. But that wasn’t all we were. My friends could be so kind, and even if they never said it, I knew they loved me by the way they treated me. Just like I knew Christ loved me, because He died for me. And for them. And for Vanessa and Paula.
“Give it to me,” I said. “I’ll give it back to Vanessa.”
Tally looked like she wanted to argue, but couldn’t find a reason to.
“Why do you even care?” she asked, handing it to me.
“Because I wouldn’t want Vanessa reading through one of my notebooks,” I said.
Because I knew how it felt to be dismissed and uncared for.
Because someone actually does care for her. And for me, and you, I thought. And I wanted my friends to see that.
About the Author
Morgan Want is a short story writer and former journalist. She is currently at work on her first novel.
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