how our parents are best friends. I bet Mom and Dad would drive me to his swim meets, and Sylvie and Greg would bring him to mine. We could text and video chat.
I’m lost in my head, thinking about everything, when I come around the corner of Lake House A, and find Asher on the swing set. We’ve spent a lot of time on the swings. They’re tucked away behind Lake House A, with a little hedge of overgrown shrubs next to them. It’s a nice escape from our parents during the day. Or at night.
Last week, there was a moment when I was sure Asher was going to kiss me on the swings. There was music playing on his phone—this guitar-heavy ballad about girls and cars—and he wrapped his arm around my chain, so we were right next to each other. But it didn’t happen, and I don’t know if that was me or him. Maybe we were both just waiting. For what? I don’t know.
But right now, Asher isn’t waiting for me on the swings. He’s not even alone on the swings. Lindsay is on my swing, her seat swaying gently, as she and Asher kiss. I shouldn’t watch, but I do. Because I hope that he’ll pull away. That he’ll scream, “No, I’m saving my swing-kiss for Sidney,” and he’ll shove her into the dirt. But that’s how my twisted brain works, not his. Because he doesn’t pull away, and he doesn’t push her, but inside all I can do is scream.
That night, I don’t go down to the fire. I tell my mom I’m not feeling good—which is true, I feel like my insides have been ripped out—and while everyone else is roasting marshmallows and smashing them between graham crackers, I get to work filling Asher’s shampoo bottle with mayonnaise, and adding cayenne pepper to his toothpaste tube.
I manage to avoid Asher for a full twenty-four hours, but the next day I fall on my face when my flip-flops are glued to the stairs outside our deck. Asher thinks he can kiss Lindsay and knock me on my ass? Anger coils inside me. If he wants war, I’ll give it to him.
DAY 49
Sidney
“How are you two liking the house?” Mom is looking at Sylvie and Greg, but it’s obvious she’s talking to me and Asher. “I know you were skeptical about sharing. The house. The bathroom.” She does look at me now. “But it seems like it worked out.” Yes. Somehow, against all odds, this has all worked out.
This feels like the moment. The one I’ve been waiting for, where we’re presented with footage of our morning breakfasts and late-night couch snuggles. We’ve gotten a little braver since our overnight at Asher’s house. I’m sleeping in his bed more often, sometimes all night. Because there’s something really comforting about being in the same space as Asher. And even though the doors are locked and our parents are long asleep, and most nights we start a strategic load of laundry in the little room between his room and his parents’, sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that they must know there are two people breathing in that room. Bionic parent hearing, or something.
While I’m mentally panicking, Asher says, cool and calm, “Sidney isn’t as bad of a housemate as I would have expected.”
I smile and roll my eyes. I don’t even have to pretend when I say, “Ditto.”
Mom takes a bite of her burger and when she puts it down on her plate I can feel that something is coming. But there’s no confrontation. There’s just a glance exchanged, from Mom to Dad. An eyebrow raise from Sylvie, and a nod from Greg.
It’s Sylvie who speaks first, her shoulders rising a little as she announces, “We’re buying the house.”
“This house,” Greg adds, in case Asher and I are feeling extra slow this evening. But there is nothing slow about my brain right now. If anything, it just got a serious adrenaline jolt and is running laps around the room. Buying this house. I love this house.
Everyone is talking at the same time, my Dad saying what a good price they’re getting, Sylvie suggesting they rent the house out for a few weeks a summer, since “the kids” won’t want to hang out with them for an entire summer anymore. “Maybe if we bribe them,” Mom says, giving me a soft smile. “Free food all summer,” Sylvie says, with a glance at Asher. Greg wants to turn the